Blind Date – Dialogue

Blind Date was designed with conversational flow in mind, using a dialogue editor tool that links lines of dialogue and possible answers together. This… makes it difficult to place in a sample format.

The entirety of the script isn’t screenshottable. It branches up and over and around. It has several “spaghetti dinners”, large clumps of interlinked and variant text. The whole purpose is to design a conversation with a flow that’s subtle and shifts depending on how you respond.

Below, are several examples of possible dialogue branches.
WordPress wants to put some blank 3. options and I can’t erase them for the life of me, but here we go:

Sample: Setting the Scene

You check your phone, she’s ten minutes late, you’re not sure what to do and discomfort starts to settle in your stomach.

1. Sit still, wait patiently.
2. Take a sip of water.
3. Shift uncomfortably and adjust your collar.

Statuesque, you show everyone else here what patience looks like.

1. I’m amazing at being patient.
2. Forget it, I’m playing Sudoku on my phone.

You get stuck for way too long and your attention starts to waver…

1. Continue…

Karen: Hey! I’m so sorry I’m late. My car’s in the shop and I had to take the bus here.

1. I understand, it happens to the best of us!
2. I’m sorry, I probably could’ve come and picked you up.
3. Shit happens, I’ll get over it.

Karen: Bah, it’s okay. I made it, eventually, and probably gave the bus driver quite a story…

1. Huh?

Karen: So… I’m Karen, I know your friend, Rebecca. What’s your name?

1. My name’s Kevin.
2. Gert.
3. My name? Uhh, Sherbert B. Sportnorth
4. Stanley.

Karen: Just Gert?

1. Gert Stevens.
2. Gert’s short for Darren.
3. Just Gert.

Sample: The creative quirks

Karen: … Wow! Have you taken a look at the menu yet? What are you gonna get?

1. I’m thinking the Tormented Trout with Dried Duck Water and Fig.
2. The Locally Sourced Hazelnut and Anchovy Jam with Sheltered Acorns.
3. Ah, just raw pizza dough and a lighter for me.

Karen: I like my fish tragic too, that’s a good choice…

1. This menu’s wild.
2. I’ve never been here before.

Karen: I think I’m gonna get the Activated Rice Tacos with Lime Extract.

1. Are you sure a rice taco is a thing that exists?
2. What do you think makes it ‘activated’?

Sample: philosophical musing

Karen: We live in a world surrounded by people, each their own main character in their own stories, it’s just wild.

1. It’s wild.
2. It’s kind of daunting.

Karen: It’s weird, for sure. We live in this interconnected web of stories yet we can only ever experience it from our point of view. One small part of the whole picture.

1. Does it scare you?
2. Does it depress you?
3. Do you feel you’ll ever get to see the whole image?

Karen: That’s why we all love stories and adventures, right? It’s getting a glimpse of things outside ourselves.

1. Fair enough.

Karen: My point is that life is weird, and complicated, and we’re all experiencing it from our own perspectives. That what we say here could be radically different from someone at another table.

1. …

Karen: We’re all just this weird cross-section of time at any given moment. A never ending play and depending on where you turn the spotlight, we’re all the main attraction.

1. Wow…

Karen: Yeah, sorry, I kinda rambled there for a moment.

1. Oh it’s okay… this was nice.
2. I think stuff like that too.

Karen: I’ve had a really good time tonight but…

1. We should do it again, sometime.
2. But?

Karen: I dunno.

1. What is it?

Karen: I get the feeling I’m not a big part of your story. Like there’s other stuff going on and I don’t quite fit.

1. Oh… okay.
2. But I don’t know you yet.
3. What did I do?

Karen: Oh, it isn’t about you.

1. Then what is it?

Karen: We make such weighty decisions about the rest of our lives, every moment of every day and everything counts, even the things you don’t do.

1. What does this have to do with not wanting to see me again?
2. Get to the point.

Karen: Maybe you’re not as insightful as you thought you were. Maybe, the lives of others spin wildly around us and the rotation and interference from other bodies can set things off course.

1. So… it was a comet? Mercury’s in retrograde or something?
2. What does that matter?

Karen: Sometimes, even when everything seems like it’s going well, there are things moving beneath the surface and untold currents twisting reality around.

Sometimes, people just leave.

Sometimes, people lash out when they feel like you’re getting too close.

Sometimes, kindness can feel like a trap, when people’s only experience with it is measured in pain.

Karen: Sorry. I’ll see you again, maybe.

1. Goodbye.
2. Wait, don’t go!