Stay—An Exploration on Spacial-Expressive Typography for Dialog in Video Games
Editorial Design / Type Design
«Stay» is a design research thesis on the applicability of typography as an expressive and connecting medium for dialog in 3D video games.
Based on the research established in Layers of Text / A Voice through Type «Stay» was created to break the devide between subtitle-styled dialog and the game world. By placing the text on a curved canvas inside the game world—as opposed to placing it on the UI layer—players are able to stay entrenched in the conversation while taking in the scenery at the same time. As an added benefit this setup simulates that one has to look at the person they are conversing with.
More about the game can be found here.
Another aspect explored in the thesis is the characterization through type. As already outlined in «A Voice through Type» «Stay» mirrors the attitude of the characters in the typefaces—which were custom created for the game. But an issue text-based games run into is that the «tone» of a conversation needs to be interpreted by the reader/player. In order to clarify the intend and voice of a sentence a number of font variations were created. Those cover being angry, in thought, and silly.
