Tools for writing dialogues with choices

What tool would you recommend to write dialogues with choices for the non-programmers in my team? I hope for an easy integration with Unity, a well written documentation and/or community that will make writing code easier. Further down the road, we will probably need localization so it would be nice if the tool offered a simple solution for that. Feel free to write your experiences

 

You probably want to use Yarn Spinner https://yarnspinner.dev/

Used by many commercial games. Good luck!

 

there is a tool called chatmapper as well. I haven't used it much but I know it exist and seems to have been around a minute.

 

Another option is Ink

https://www.inklestudios.com/ink/

 

Can't believe no one's mentioned @TonyLi 's Dialogue System For Unity

 

@Nyriell - Please feel free to try the Dialogue System's evaluation version before buying. In addition to its own in-Unity editor, it can also import Chat Mapper and Ink (both mentioned above) as well as articy:draft, Aurora, Twine, and TalkIt, with Celtx import coming soon, so your writers can choose a tool they're happy writing in. It also has built-in localization support and, while it doesn't require scripting, is friendly to programmers, too.

 

+1 for the Dialogue System

 

flashframe is being too modest by not mentioning that he's one of the developers of the popular game Jenny LeClue - Detectivu, which is available on Apple Arcade, Nintendo Switch, Steam, and other platforms. (Made with the Dialogue System.) If anyone's looking for a family-friendly game with fun writing and great voice acting, definitely check it out.

 

That is correct

The Dialogue System was a vital component of our production. It works cross platform, with support for multiple languages, robust editor tools and well written, easy to extend code. It has never let us down. And @TonyLi offers the best support of any asset developer.

 

Thank you all for giving me a few options to look into
Especially to @TonyLi and @flashframe for addressing my questions in their comments.

 

You guys know any of these tools include an easy way to insert story board type thumbnails? So I can do look development at the same time as I am testing dialogue.

 

Check out articy:draft.

 

@TonyLi We are currently using Yarn Spinner + custom logic and UI to handle dialogue in our game that is currently in early stages of production.

I see that this imports Twine, and Yarn Spinner is based on Twine so do you know if we would be able to import out existing dialogue into your system? If not, have you considered a Yarn Spinner import, given that it is the most used dialogue system for unity other than your own (which seems to be the top at the moment)?

We would love to swap to your system but do not want to have to tear up a lot of stuff just to get it to work. Naturally our custom UI code will not port, but if the dialogue and everything important to that will then that will be great!

 

Hi @MadeFromPolygons - We're working on Yarn Spinner import. Look for it in version 2.2.15 or 2.2.16.

 

Hi TonyLi,
I recently bought your asset and was wondering if you were still going to add in support for Yarn? I am trying to decide between writing in Yarn or Ink..
First time working with dialogue, so I'm unsure what practices will make sense. but I do plan for dialogue to be pretty complex

 

Thanks for buying the Dialogue System! Yes, Yarn integration is currently under development. If you're going to use the Dialogue System, I recommend Yarn, or even the Dialogue System's built-in editor, as they will work natively with the way the Dialogue System works. Ink integration is an outlier. Ink works so differently from other tools that, unlike other formats, the Dialogue System acts as a front-end for Ink, allowing Ink to do the processing of the underlying data, and just providing the user-facing stuff: UIs, trigger interaction system, etc.

 

I've integrated (custom) third party tools with a system that exports Dialogue System trees, though lacking in any sort of scripting past basic choice, and while they aren't robust and likely less so than any official Yarn tool would, I've found it invaluable if not just because working with lots of text in Dialogue System is a bit of a rough experience. This isn't any fault of the tool, it's just that Unity as an editor really isn't built for that.

 

It's funny; some devs start with an external tool and eventually decide to do everything in the in-Unity editor. Other devs switch from the in-Unity editor to external tools, usually tools that work more like plain text. I guess it really depends on personal workflow preference.

p.s. - What's the new portrait pic?

 

My current game has about 475,000 words in its script so working in something as clunky as the Unity editor REALLY adds up.

The new pic is just an 8x8 bayer dither matrix texture, I uploaded the wrong file and I'm too lazy to fix it

 

Yeah, 475k words can get clunky in Unity. Teleport Games (really just one solo dev) recently released Tortured Hearts, which uses the Dialogue System. It has over 500,000 words of dialogue that he originally wrote in the Neverwinter Nights editor and imported into the Dialogue System. I suppose that's another reason why someone might use an external editor. He's been making Neverwinter Nights mods for years, so that's the editor he's comfortable with.

Part of me is still a little suspicious that there's a hidden message somewhere in the pic.

 

Yeah, I built my editor basically from the ground up and the main reason I haven't added a bunch more variable hooks is because, honestly, it's not too much work to do that in Unity anyway and it's better to test things like that in that environment anyway.

The only hidden message is "ordered dithering makes pixelated graphics look like something other than a soupy mess when resampled from a higher bit depth."

 

It's unbelievable how cluncy the UI is. For example we define our ballistics in unity using scriptable objects for each projectile. Curves to define different material and damage properties. There is no built in way to copy a curve in unity. Had to write custom editor code.

 

The worst of it, as far as things nobody seems to be paying attention to at Unity are concerned, the animation curve editor (why can't we clamp it? why are the handles so finicky? why is my best option STILL to enter values by hand?) and the undo functionality, which becomes a real nightmare when dealing with text. Unity has a nasty habit of just not knowing where it is in its own Undo stack.

That's not even a third party asset problem either, sometimes it happens in editor, like using the animation tree stuff.

 

Did they add quaternion support to it? Last time I had to animate something in unity, rotation was done with euler angles. It was painful.

 

As an engineer changing values with keyboard feels best anyway but yeah.

 

https://github.com/SenshiSentou/AnimationCurveCopyPaste

 

like I said, I had to write custom code

 

I was hoping to use an external tool so that a friend of mine who wanted to write dialogue could do so, particularly without interfacing into Unity. Do you have an ETA for the yarn integration? I could use the Dialogue System's editor for a few months, but eventually it would be nice to have the text be external I think.. I suppose I'll really have to dig into it before I can say for sure what's best in that regard.
Thanks for the tips on Ink! I won't use it in that case

 

I don't have a hard ETA, but I'm trying to get it finished and tested by the end of May.

 

do not use YArnSpinner !!! the documentation is not updated to match the new versions of the plugin . the team is very slow in updating the docs . i went for Inky and never looked back to yarnspinner again .