---
title: "Native dialogue boxes"
package: "@phaser-ae/dialogue"
tier: Free
version: 3.0.0-4
released: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-20
description: "Speech boxes for visual novels, RPGs, tutorials and cutscenes, with a speaker nameplate, letter or fade reveal, pagination and tap to continue, in twenty-four looks."
url: https://phaser.io/packs/dialogue
site: Phaser - https://phaser.io
---

# Native dialogue boxes

Speech boxes for visual novels, otome and dating games, RPG conversations, tutorials and cutscene subtitles: a panel
with a speaker nameplate, text that reveals letter by letter or fades in, pagination and tap to continue. Twenty-four
looks are built in, and a game on a UI skin gets a box that matches it.

## What it does

You open a session with a list of lines, each with an optional speaker and its text, and the box does the rest. It
lays the text out in the box, splits a turn that is too long into pages, reveals each page at the pace you set, and
waits for the player: the first tap finishes the reveal, the next moves on. With `interactive` off, your game drives
it by calling `advance()` from its own input, as an RPG does. `onLine` fires as each turn begins, which is where a game
swaps a portrait, and `onPage` as each page begins. `append` adds turns while the session is open, so a conversation
can be written as the story decides it.

The text is shaped by `typography`. That is why right-to-left scripts, combining scripts, Chinese, Japanese and
Korean, Devanagari and emoji sequences reveal correctly, one whole shaped cluster at a time, and why a line can mix
runs with their own colour, underline, font and effect: `wave`, `shake` or `glow`. Reveal can be overlapping per-letter
fades, a hard typewriter, or whole lines fading in one after another. All timing runs on the game's clock, so pausing
the game freezes the reveal, and a reduced-motion switch turns the effects off.

The look comes from a preset, the UI theme or your own frame. Eleven presets are drawn natively and need nothing
loaded; thirteen are illustrated frames fetched from the CDN only when the manifest lists them. A game whose UI wears a
theme gets the theme's own dialogue panel, inks, accent and font by opening a box with no preset. A custom illustrated
frame is a nine-slice image with its measurements, and an `ornament` callback lets you draw crests, rivets or anything
else onto the box as it opens.

## Features

- **Sessions per conversation** — lines with speakers and narration, pagination by shaped lines, `onLine`, `onPage`
  and `onComplete`, and `append` for turns added as the story goes.
- **Three reveals** — per-letter `fade`, `typewriter` and `line-fade`, with speed, fade length and line interval, and
  instant text at speed 0.
- **Player or game input** — tap, Space or Enter as a modal that holds other input, or `interactive: false` and
  `advance()` from your own controls, with optional auto-advance.
- **Twenty-four presets** — from `petal-lace`, `parchment-chronicle` and `neon-relay` to `terminal`, `pixel-window`,
  `comic-bubble`, `phone-messages` and `novel-page`.
- **Follows the UI theme** — a box with no preset matches the active theme, including every `ui-skins` skin.
- **Custom frames and ornaments** — `loadSkin` for your own illustrated frame, and an `ornament` kit of panels and
  sprites to decorate any box.
- **Rich text** — colour, size, underline and strikethrough, real bold and italic faces, and `wave`, `shake` and
  `glow` effects per run.
- **Every script** — right-to-left, combining and CJK text, and emoji sequences revealed as one unit, with
  `missingGlyphs` to catch a missing font.
- **Localised prompts** — the reveal, continue and finish prompts are labels you can replace.

## Good for

- **Visual novels and otome games**, with romance, gothic and period-drama frames and portraits swapped on each turn.
- **RPG conversations**, with a retro console window or a portrait ledger, driven by the game's own input.
- **Tutorials and narrators** that talk the player through a level, a page at a time.
- **Cutscene subtitles**, with the translucent cinematic bar as the default look.
- **Story games in many languages**, including Arabic, Hindi, Japanese and mixed scripts in one box.
- **Texting and phone stories**, with a tall phone-screen preset.

## Make it yours

`open` takes the lines and the font, the `preset`, `theme` overrides for the inks, accent, size, motif and panel, a
custom `skin`, your own `ornament`, the reveal, speed, fade and line timings, alignment, reduced motion, auto-advance,
whether it takes input, the box's `rect` on screen and the prompts' text. The pack's one option lists the illustrated
presets to fetch at start-up; drawn presets need no entry.

Two very different boxes: a cosy slice-of-life game on the illustrated coffeehouse frame, revealing text in soft
fades and waiting for a tap; and a hacker thriller on the drawn green terminal, typing each line with a hard
typewriter reveal and advanced by the game's own controls rather than a tap. A third wears no preset at all and
simply matches the game's UI skin.

## A quick look

A three-turn conversation in the retro console window, with a waving word and a portrait swap per turn:

```ts
const talk = game.dialogue.open({
    font, preset: 'pixel-window', speed: 32,
    lines: [
        { speaker: 'Mira', text: 'You came back.' },
        { speaker: 'Ren', text: [{ text: 'I promised. ' }, { text: 'Always.', style: { color: '#ffd166' }, effect: 'wave' }] },
        { text: 'The lanterns flicker.' },
    ],
    onLine: (i, line) => showPortrait(line.speaker),
    onComplete: () => game.scenes.go('map'),
});
```

## Works with

- `typography` — required: shaping, fonts and rich text.
- `ui` — required: panel materials and the input modal, and its buttons for showing choices.
- `nine-slice` — required: illustrated frames.
- `world-screen` — required: the overlay layer the box draws on, in 2D or 3D games.
- `ui-skins` — skins that bring a matching dialogue box.
- `rpg` — story data and portraits for RPG conversations.

## Good to know

- It presents and paces dialogue: there is no branching story language, choices, variables, backlog, save format or
  voice playback. Keep the story in your own data and show choices with `ui` buttons.
- Portrait layouts show the speaker's initial as a monogram; draw a portrait sprite yourself from `onLine`.
- The phone preset shows one bubble per turn, not a chat history, and emoji draw as monochrome outlines.
- Glow is an eight-sample halo, so keep it to short phrases.
- Screen readers need help from the host page; the pack does not claim DOM accessibility.

---

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