Writing for BioWare and Mass Effect

Gamasutra has a piece up about the writing style of BioWare and specifically the writing philosophy of Mass Effect.

When it comes to prototyping, Laidlaw thinks that “there’s as much value in not getting it right as getting it right. This is get it done in a day or don’t get it done because it’s too big. We create a goal: do something different. Create a cinematic presentation where conversation would happen in real time — that was the goal for Mass Effect.”

The game marks the debut of a new dialogue selection system that abbreviates the choices in small radial menu that stops the game from breaking its flow during dialogue sequences. “Short versions that give you the intent of line — but not the full line. What if I had the intent of ‘that sounds crazy!’ [and picked that option] and then the character does a full voiceover.” Besides keeping the pace up, the team also intended that people don’t read and then hear the same dialogue choice. According to Laidlaw, It took 10-12 iterations to develop this system and make it work.