Course of Temptation Dev Diary #97

Hello friends! It's that time again!

First of all, the current version is 0.7.2g, which has a bunch of bugs fixed since the release on Tuesday. Consider updating if you haven't since then!

The first part of my week was occupied by this release, getting last minute fixes and stuff in. Following that, I've been back at work at what will be version 0.8, which will add background NPC simulation events.

I had left off with the basis of this system in a prototype state, capable of building a list of events and a test passage that would show a timeline. This is where I've picked it back up, turning it from a prototype into a more integrated, functioning system.

Simulation events are calculated once per day, when the player passes the "new day" marker at 6am. Why not midnight, you might ask? Well, it used to be, but a lot of stuff happens with a new day — clearing interaction lists, resetting this and that — and there are several events, most obviously the various parties, that commonly roll right through midnight. Resetting all these things in the midst of large group interactions led to some problems, so it's been 6am for a while now, where it's mostly seamless. But I digress.

Each simulation event gets queued for some point during that day. They're each scheduled to occur in one of the day's "slices": morning, afternoon, evening, or night. During the time a simulation event is scheduled to happen, scenes that represent it become valid to fire, so you'll see some of this stuff happening in person.

Whether you witness it or not, though, the simulation event's effects actually execute as that slice of the day rolls into the next. The effects can be a change in relationship between two NPCs, adding inclinations, changing their skills, and so on. They may also be of no lasting consequence, just meant to add some flavor to what's happening around you.

Most of these events will also produce posts on Elkbook, which will serve as the main source of the player's exposure to the background simulation. Last time I talked about this update, I showed a barebones prototype timeline. I've been working on this as well, integrating this timeline into the existing Elkbook passage and tinkering with its formatting and style.

This look is by no means final, as it definitely needs more work — I've already added timestamps since I grabbed these screenshots — but it's starting to look a little bit like actual social media. CSS is my mortal enemy, but if I wrestle with it enough (or ask Drakon for help) it usually comes together.

You can also click on a person's name to see their profile and their personal timeline.

In this early example, this NPC has just one event in their timeline, but in its final form you'll be able to scroll through all that's been retained of their simulated history.

One thing I'd like to do as part of this update is revamp the View Person dialog, and make it a bit easier to see the information you're interested in at a glance. Part of this might be integrating it with the Elkbook profile view, though I'll have to tinker before I figure out exactly what that might look like. Mostly I think it'd be really cool to be able to click on a person and see what's been happening in their life lately according to their Elkbook timeline.

Naturally, this requires storing a lot of past simulation events, which gets into the data storage concerns I've already written about a lot. I'll experiment a bit to try to figure out what's best and how many events can safely be retained, and then prune them past that. If your browser doesn't have IndexedDB enabled, then the records will be pruned much more aggressively to make sure they don't overrun browser storage limits.

So, that's been my week! Looking ahead, I'll continue to refine the look of Elkbook and experiment with how information should be displayed between a person's Elkbook profile and their View Person dialog. I'll also expand on the set of defined simulation events, and I also want to start working on simulation event dependencies (if Event 1 happened, then Event 2.a or Event 2.b might follow) to enable the creation of more complex event chains. I'll also be converting the existing Elkbook post events over to this new system, which should lead to some more interesting ways of revealing the PC's reputation.

That's all for now! I hope you have a good weekend. As always, thank you for your generous support. I appreciate you! Until next time.