Conversation Games

King of Posters
#1

I’m talking games principally about social negotiation. Something more systems-driven than Telltale or Quantic Dream. L.A. Noire being the first one that comes to mind. A few years ago it seemed like these games were slowly building steam but I haven’t heard of any in a while. Even Chris Crawford seems to have given up. Let’s share some cool examples.

Ledoliel is one of my favourites. A LP is the only clip I can find of it on YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIatdeiFxPg

Alpha Protocol also had a neat conceit of the player being a social manipulator, and choosing styles of responding to dialogue rather than a list of specific answers.

#2

Red Strings Club comes to mind immediately

it’s also like… a really good game to play with someone you have an intellectual bond with bc it makes for good conversation. ahah. grab the wine

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#3

I Get This Call Every Day.

It’s literally just a conversation.

#4

Subsurface Circular, perhaps? It’s the most recent one I’ve played so it’s top of mind.

#5

It looks like what I wanted VA-11 HA11A to be, where mixing drinks could branch out conversations.

#6

Like @Mikey, I immediately thought of Subsurface Circular (and I imagine that Quarantine Circular plays the same way). But you can get stuck in conversation loops at times, which works against the idea of social negotiation.

Oxenfree and Firewatch both have real-time conversations where your choice or indecision affects the plot to varying degrees. This conversation mechanic plays out more prominently in Oxenfree, I think.

#7

Event[0] implements a chatbot in a HAL-9000-esque premise (a good justification for the limitations of a modern chatbot). You’re responsible for conversing with it to learn about the space station and convince it to help you by opening doors and the like.

It’s seeded with certain information but the personality also develops through your interactions; I found myself talking in certain ways as roleplaying.

In a lot of ways it reminded me of the choices in Kentucky Route 0, where the player can choose their ‘read’ of the character but not adjust the story. While reacting differently in Event[0] will cause the chatbot to change its behavior, I found myself feeling performative in both because of these inducements.

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#8
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#9

Well I was going to say Facade.

#10

Facade is the ultimate “not knowing the rules” game.

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