Hello body mod salespeople!
As we wrap up the final touches on our demo, I want to take a moment to chat about the client interviews in Quality Dreams, Reasonably Priced.
These sessions really make up the heart of the game. They hold key moments where we ask you to learn about someone else and empathize with them, before then deciding whether to put their wellbeing ahead of your character’s.
For some clients, the decision is easy; for some, you might start thinking of them one way and end a different way; and some lie in a moral grey zone, where just your understanding and biases are left to support your decision.
Since these scenes are so critical to conveying the themes and emotions of the game, we put a lot of thought into how they’re crafted. Each client interview has a uniquely designed dialogue flow based on the client’s personality and how they converse. Jin (the player character)’s job is to understand others and communicate with them, so we shape dialogue options based on how Jin understands the client’s conversation norms. The client then responds to these options based on their own feelings and understanding of the situation.
Take Ocean, the first client you meet in the game, as an example. (And mild spoiler warning here for anyone wanting to go into the game completely blind.)
Ocean is fairly straightforward, but he feels bit uneasy sharing about some topics. They’re also often willing to give the benefit of the doubt, choosing to be cordial and open until someone proves him wrong. Because of this, Jin will slowly breach and issue, generally only diving in more if Ocean seems open to talking about it.
On Ocean’s side, the game tracks how many times you’ve upset him or said something that they view as a red flag. This is the main thing that impacts Ocean’s willingness to share—he starts out giving you a baseline of trust and then watches to see if you abuse it. This, and Ocean’s straightforward honesty, makes them one of the easier characters to talk to in the game.
We hope you enjoy meeting and chatting with Ocean in our demo (coming out in the next few days!). Be sure to let us know what you think of them and of the rest of the demo 💛