Editor's Choice

Bark! Bark! Bark!

The truth is that the game developers themselves aren't nearly as annoyed by monotonous barks as the players, who don't know the gritty reality of what it takes to make a game. Part of this comes from their tolerance for tedium, and part of it comes from finding out what actually goes into making the sausage.

Filmmakers watch films differently from their audiences. Experienced magicians see something different when they watch street-corner sleight-of-hand. Once you know the intimate details of how a particular work of art or entertainment is made, you're suddenly thinking about camera angles at the movie theater, you're noticing the card up the magician's sleeve and you're thinking about programming techniques when you're playing a videogame.

From this point of view, barks don't have anything to do with people talking. They're status and error messages. Your sword connected with the enemy. You lost the minigame. The fall took away all your hitpoints. Every programmer knows it's a bad idea to have three different error messages conveying the same game state. So we end up with "Ungh," for doing damage to an enemy, "Aww," for losing a minigame and "Oof!" for losing hitpoints. Where's the problem?

Game developers need to take off their magnifying glasses, take a step back and think about the big picture. The average player is going to lose a minigame a few times in a row before they get the hang of it. They're going to lose their hitpoints in rapid succession through falls and fights. And they're definitely going to dish out a lot of damage to their enemies, repeatedly and with great vigor.

They aren't going to hear simple, clear state changes. They're going to hear "Bark! Bark! Bark! OMFG BARK!"

Anytime a character on the screen opens their mouth, it's a golden opportunity to communicate with the player - but you have to speak their language. Use these opportunities to convey real emotion. Use it to add depth to the story. Use it to connect on a gut level. You have the technology. Changing the system would put an end to a lot of grief for a lot of people. Just ask my neighbors.

Wendy Despain writes for and about videogames. She's chair of the IGDA Writing Special Interest Group, and was told by her doctor to buy a dog to help with stress and anger management.