I

’ve neverparticularlyenjoyedreadingingames.I
enjoy readingingeneral,ofcourse– I wouldn’tbe
much of awriterotherwise,butI’vealwaysfound
reading in games challenging.I didn’tgetintoRPGsuntilthe
early 2000s, when gamessuchasMorrowindandKnightsof
the Old Republic madereadinglesscentraltotheexperience.
As I’ve become older,I’vebuiltupmoreofa tolerancetoit,but
I still frequently findgrapplingwithtext-heavygamesdifficult.
Or at least, that’s whatI thought.
I’ve always assumedthatmydislikeofreading
in games was more specificallya dislikeofreading
from a screen. I still buypaperbooks,forexample,
because I prefer themtoreadingona Kindleora
phone. However, havingrecentlyrattledthrough
the fantastic RPG DiscoElysium(seep72),I’m
beginning to think itisn’tmethat’stheproblem.
While Disco Elysiumhasvisualenvironments
in which you can walkaround,andobjectson
which you can click,thegame’sinteractivityis
almost entirely text-based. And there’s a lot of interaction.
The developer states that the script is around a million words
long – approximately twice the length of the Lord of the Rings
trilogy (the books, not the films).
Disco Elysium presents its mountain of text differently to
most RPGs though. Instead of having text boxes run across the
bottom of the screen, when you enter a conversation the text
appears in a column on the right of the screen. At any one time,
only the relevant paragraph is highlighted to be readable, and
it then greys out and scrolls upwards once you click through
to the next passage of text.

It’sremarkablehowmuchofa difference this setup makes

toreadability,presumablybecauseyou’re not having to

scanyoureyesacrossthewidthofthescreen to read. It’s

surprisingnodeveloperhasthoughtofthis idea sooner. In all

otherreadingformats– whetherit’snewspapers, magazines,

books,yourphoneora website– textisalways presented in

columns,eithera single,verticalblockof text in a book, or

multiplecolumnsina newspaper-styleformat.

Incidentally,that’snotbecausevertical formatting

demonstrablymakestexteasier to read. Columns

aresimplya leftoverfromthe days when the

typeonprintingpresseshad to be set by hand.

Overtheyears,however,we’ve become used to

readinginthisfashion,sowhen we’re presented

withtextformattedtobewider than it is long

(whichis howmostisometric RPGs present their

text)I thinkitfeelsmorechallenging to read.

Readabilityingamesisa much wider issue

thanyoumightthink.If you’ve ever streamed

a PC game to your TV, you’ll have discovered that the text in

most games is far too small to be read across the room on your

sofa. The vast majority of games also don’t let players adjust

the size of written text, and therefore don’t accommodate for

people with sub-20/20 vision.

This isn’t just about squinting at a screen because you can’t

find your glasses. It’s also an accessibility issue. There’s no point

in a developer adding subtitles to a game if the text is so small it

can’t be read. As my own experience with Disco Elysium shows,

small changes to how you present a game’s information can

drastically improve a user’s overall experience.

Games

Rick Lane is Custom PC’s games editor @Rick_Lane

RICKLANE/INVERSELOOK

TEXT ADVENTURES

Rick Lane doesn’t like having to read text in games, or so he

thought until he played Disco Elysium

At any one time, only

the relevant paragraph

is highlighted to be

readable, and it then

greys out