Giving Lif some Personality

[joelphilippage]

Hey there. I am trying to decide what type of personality Lif should have. I am struggling to find one and keep it. Are there any suggestions people could give? Also, here is a conversation I wrote up for the game between Lif and Barbra the waitress at the steakhouse.

Code: ags

Lif:"What did you eat as a kid to get so tall Barbara!"
Barbara:"Oh that."
Barbara:"Both my parents where in the NBA"
Lif:"That would explain alot."
Barbara:"I never really got into basketball though."
Barbara:"That's why I moved out to Conroid."
Barbara:"Hey Lif. Why did you move out here."
Lif:"Oh! Me. Well I'll put it this way."
Lif:"How many talking lizard's do you know?"
Barbara:"Hmm, I couldin't say, let me try to remember."
Lif:"Nevermind."

[jetxl]

So Lif is a loner and an ass.
The conversation is a bit boring, though. Not really worth remembering.
And women have their own basketball league.

[Eggie]

Why does the quantity of talking lizards in aquaintance with Barbara affect Lif's decision to move?
Or is this one of those Lynchian adventure games where the objective is to unwravel the mystery.

[joelphilippage]

Lif is the only talking lizard there is. There will be a back story in the game about why he can talk. To jetxl, I don't really want Lif to be to mean or rude so thanks for telling me it sounded that way.

[jetxl]

I didn't know that Lif was a lizard.
I thought he was human and that he moved to a remote location (where there are lots of lizards and not many people) so he doesn't have to talk to anyone.

[paolo]

I know this is probably an early draft of the conversation and that the criticism I'm about to offer is not what you asked for, but I think you need to take more care over the spelling and punctuation:

Lif:"What did you eat as a kid to get so tall Barbara!"
   should end in a question mark, not an exclamation mark.

Barbara:"Both my parents where in the NBA"
   should be "were", not "where"

Lif:"That would explain alot."
   "a lot" is two words

Barbara:"Hey Lif. Why did you move out here."
   second sentence should end in a question mark, not a full stop/period

Lif:"How many talking lizard's do you know?"
   don't use apostrophes in non-possessive plurals (should be "lizards", not "lizard's")

Barbara:"Hmm, I couldin't say, let me try to remember."
   should be "couldn't", not "couldin't"

Lif:"Nevermind."
   "Never mind" is two words, despite what many writers of adventure games would have you believe.


If this sounds picky or pedantic, remember that people's impression and enjoyment of your game will be affected by the quality of the English as well the quality of the graphics, gameplay, etc.

Good luck with your game. If you need someone to proofread it before you release it, let me know.

[Andail]

Also, it's common practice to put a comma before the addressee in a line of speech, for instance:
"What did you eat as a kid to get so tall, Barbara?"

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Nevermind (and other combination words like chainmail) can be correctly written as a single word in spite of what the forum checker might tell you.  It's great to help people, but it's also important to be sure you're giving people the right information. 

[OneDollar]

Well, getting back to the original problem, how about doing some kind of brainstorming session for Lif? I don't know how much of a back story you have already, but try and fill in the key moments of Lif's life, things that have made him into the giant lizard he is today. How did he meet each of these issues? What effects have they had on him?

For example; maybe the kids back at school used to step on Lif's tail and this made him always keep looking over his shoulder and be wary about what was going on around him. Perhaps he used to be really popular in school as the only guy who stood up to the bullies, and that gave him confidence and made him a little arrogant, but one day he was mugged and this seriously damaged his self esteem. He no longer stood up to people, knowing that in a fight he wouldn't win, and this lost him most of his 'friends'. Ask yourself quesions about him. What is his stance on authority and why? Has he had problems with the law? How many friends has he had? What about girlfriends? Has he ever been let down? What does he like to do most? What about his family and upbringing? What are his favourite foods? What are his memories?

It doesn't matter how much of this actually comes into the game or is ever mentioned, the point is to build up an idea of where Lif has come from and then you know how he will respond to the situations you throw at him. The more background you build up, the more you flesh out his character, but the real trick is putting situations, conversations and responses into your game that bring out the different areas.

Grammar can come later

Good luck!

And personally, I didn't think you were off to too bad a start, or you are at least heading in the right direction. Dialogue between two characters is a good way to show who they are, but you haven't really said anything about Lif in it. You don't answer the waitress' question, apart from hinting it has to do with him being a talking lizard, and so neither the waitress or your audience learn much. Taking this kind of approach means you have to be very careful with how the rest of Lif's lines sound, as they are all we have to go on for personality.

[Kweepa]

Nevermind (and other combination words like chainmail) can be correctly written as a single word in spite of what the forum checker might tell you.

The single word "nevermind" is a noun, not an imperative, so paolo was correct to advise it to be written as two words in this case. Personally I wouldn't use it in a dialogue as it sounds very rude and dismissive. I would use "That's okay" or something similar.

As for "chainmail", I would prefer to see it as two words, hyphenated, or just the single word "mail", but "chainmail", though not in the dictionary, appears to be slightly more common in US English.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nevermind

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_%28armour%29
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/chainmail
http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22chain+mail%22%2C+chainmail

[paolo]

Nevermind (and other combination words like chainmail) can be correctly written as a single word in spite of what the forum checker might tell you.  It's great to help people, but it's also important to be sure you're giving people the right information. 

I quite agree that it is important, so I've checked.

"Nevermind" exists only as an old-fashioned noun (see this dictionary entry), but the original poster is using "never mind" as a verbal phrase, so "never mind" is correct. (The same is true of "thank you" [a verbal phrase, short for "I thank you", as in "Thank you for your help."] and "thankyou" [noun - "a thousand thankyous" or "a thousand thank-yous"]).

And yes, OneDollar, you're quite right - grammar and spelling can come later. Far better to get the game finished than spend for ever looking every word up in the dictionary to make sure it's spelled correctly.

EDIT: Oops, always read to the bottom of the thread before replying. SteveMcCrea, you beat me to it.

[Emerald]

The greatest writers never worried about petty things like words not existing...

Hell, half our language was invented by people like Shakespeare and James Joyce

[vertigoaddict]

*Original

Lif:"What did you eat as a kid to get so tall Barbara!"
Barbara:"Oh that."
Barbara:"Both my parents where in the NBA"
Lif:"That would explain alot."
Barbara:"I never really got into basketball though."
Barbara:"That's why I moved out to Conroid."
Barbara:"Hey Lif. Why did you move out here."
Lif:"Oh! Me. Well I'll put it this way."
Lif:"How many talking lizard's do you know?"
Barbara:"Hmm, I couldin't say, let me try to remember."
Lif:"Nevermind."
_______________________________________________________________________________________

*My try at giving more personality

Lif:"Hey Barbara, I wanna ask you somethin'"

Barbara: "Shoot"

Lif: How'd you get so tall?"

Barbara:"Hmmm..."

Barbara:"Well, both my parents were in the NBA"

Lif:"That explains everything..."

Barbara:"I never really got into basketball though."

Lif: Oh?

Barbara:"That's why I moved out to Conroid."

Barbara:"Hmm... Lif. Why did you move out here."

Lif:"Oh me? Well let me ask you this."

Lif:"Have you ever seen another talkin' lizard around?"

Barbara:"Hmm...not sure, let me think..."

Lif:"...."

Barbara: "..."

Lif:"..."

Barbara:"..."

Lif:"Nevermind"

Barbara:" wait!...no...that was the mascot..."

Lif:"Seriously, nevermind"

Barbara:"...."

Lif:"..."

Lif:"bye"