I thought the dialog in the game was excellent. Did you model some of the characters from people you know, and was the philosophy of the antique dealer based on your own?

Thanks nickie!

I think this a question that is very central to writing, and I guess every writer has a very personal approach of how to come up with characters.

First of all: If writing was always autobiographical, then I can only hope I'll never meet the writer of American Psycho.

Having said that, I'll say that I piece together characters using my imagination and my memory - and that can mean that I refer to situations or conversations that I have witnessed or experienced myself, or to views that are my own.

But I'm more proud of characters that I personally disagree with, because writing against your own beliefs and still make it consistent and believable is more difficult and therefore more challenging.

The antique shop owner makes a lot of good points in his dialogue, I agree with much of it, but not with all of it. He's very much stuck in the past, and very bitter.

to give full due to points of view that arent your own says very good things about the writer. Looking forward to seeing what that gentleman has to say now

Are there any characters with which you particularly identify?

Susan

Hmmmm. It's rather relationships between characters that I like. The relationship between Peter and Brian, while not dug into that deep, has emotional meaning to me. The (optional) dispute scene the two have later in the game is one that I'm proud of.

I laughed out loud at the sparring that went on between Brian, Peter and the engineer, very natural. I would have liked to talk to more people there, like the guy who is laid back in his chair and didn't work, and the receptionist. Guess you have to draw the line somewhere though...

Dialogue is one thing that one can quickly get a little carried away with. 7,600 lines are a whole lot already, and a few people say the game is too chatty.

While I actually disagree with that, I have to accept that the more dialogue a game has, the more it needs to support voice acting with camera work and body acting. Otherwise you're left with something like a stage drama or a radio play with pictures.

That's why, as I said in another thread, improving the body acting is definitely something that we will work on in future projects.