Press X to Story

As cut scenes become more prevalent in modern gaming and scripted sequence become more and more elaborate, I fear that an important story telling tool may fall away. I speak of the old text box style of dialog, the concept that many rpgs have used to convey dialog and narration in the past. The old text box method is far from gone from gaming; however, I fear that it is looked upon as a tool of necessity, a way of conveying dialog and story when there is no other way. I fear that this concept is seen as a product of antiquated technology and low budgets, rather than a valid design decision that can improve the user experience.

Although pressing x to advance dialog is not much of an interaction there is a certain amount of control that this does give to the player. The player is put in full control of the pace of dialog, and they may advance it as fast as they can read. The player can effectively speed up or slow down the pace of character interactions as they see fit. Though this may seem a bit trivial, the alternative of taking control away from the payer entirely has the unfortunate side-effect of making the game into a movie. The player then only has two options, watch the movie as it was filmed or skip the scene and the story it tells. I argue not for the removal of cut scenes, but for the preservation of player control. Even the smallest button presses can be the difference between an engaging game and a boring movie, and who hasn’t walked out on a boring movie?

Edit: I suppose I should have been more clear about this, I think that skippable dialog with subtitles is effectively the same concept as text boxes.