I have a very basic proof of concept working for handling multiple attributes. Now I'm working on the list of employee attributes. Feel free to suggest some!: https://github.com/negativeview/Software-Business-Sim/wiki/Employee-Attributes

So today I worked on project attributes.

A project is currently composed of a platform (Browser), a target market (Old People), and a language (C++). Eventually there will be at least two more categories. I'm not sure yet what to call them and this is enough to test the basic premise. Just FYI though eventually there will be things like games vs business software.

The way it currently works is that each category of project can have things that it provides and things that it requires. For instance a "browser" project provides mobility because it can be accessed from anywhere with an Internet connection. Browser will also provide some cross-platformness.

The provides and requires are summed (requires are negative). Employee skills (when I get there) will also interact with these requirements in order to make it harder to blindly min/max. Anything that remains negative will hurts its performance in the market. Positives will provide boosts.

Consumers will also be modelled and will have their own set of requirements. Some people will only use things that are cross platform, some will use a web-based version if one is possible. Some absolutely refuse to use anything web-based.

My current focus is getting the absolute bare minimum of this system working, which means just project attributes.

Traits play a very important role. They are 90% of the numbers that matter to the simulation.

A person has four or five different kinds of traits overall, but this post will be about the very general idea.

A trait has a name, a thing (not JUST people, can be projects, companies, etc.) that it applies to and two numbers: the actual value, and the perceived value. The idea is that a person might think that they are VERY good at very quickly learning a new skill, but actually be only slightly above average. During the interview process you can mostly only learn about their believed value. This value is usually at least kinda based on reality, but isn't necessarily accurate. After you hire them and put them on some projects, you slowly learn their real values.

The exact mechanics of this are still being decided, but right now everything starts off as "Unknown." When you interview that person it has a chance of bumping a trait up one level of knowledge. There are currently four levels. Here are some examples of what each level looks like:

0: Unknown
1: High
2: 60s
3: 65

I will probably spread that out to more levels. I may or may not ever show the exact number. I haven't figured out how to balance this with actually changing skill levels.

The skills that exist in the source code version (these will probably make it through in some form) are:

Ambition
Greed
Initiative
Creativity

These were thrown in because they sounded good. They have little/no effect on the game in the actually coded version.

The skills that I have in my notebook for the next round of revisions (these all have planned affects) are:

Learning Curve
Teacher
Imagination
Completer
In Tune
Outgoing
Introvert
Cocky
Climber

I'll probably post about the individual traits as I finalize how they work and implement them. That's all for today.

So, I've temporarily abandoned my other project. It will eventually live on in spirit, though possibly/probably not in code form.

I got too wrapped up in the graphics of the other project, and I refuse to make the same mistake twice so... NO GRAPHICS!

This project is a software company sim. When I first started talking about it two different people suggested Game Dev Story to me. They do cover a lot of similar ground, but here are the major differences:

* Game Dev Story seems to take about 5 numbers into account. While my number count isn't finalized, I want this game to be much deeper.
* GDS is extremely easy once you figure out a few concepts. You can start easily making millions in profit on every single game with little to no risk. I want this game to stay challenging.
* GDS treats their employees very generically. While they have names, they don't seem to have anything that even approaches a personality. Most of my simulation numbers are actually related to your employees skills and needs.
* GDS only lets your people level up via an explicit levelling up action. No skills ever go down. In my game people learn by working with people near or above their skill levels. Unused skills atrophy.
* GDS mentions other companies at some points, but you never really interact with those other companies at all. In my game, other companies are directly competing for you in market share (there are limited markets), employees, and reputations.

Graphics
--------

This version has no graphics. It does use ncurses to provide a very rudimentary UI, however. I have a very vague plan for the future. The two key things to understand about this plan though is that every step is a chance for me to pull the plug if this project doesn't seem worth it at that point, and the steps aren't in a hard set order.

* Finish the non-graphical version. Make it fun for those of us who don't need graphics in our sims. This will be open source for various reasons.
* Make a desktop PC version with a UI. This will not be open source and the profit will go to me. The sim numbers should be identical to the open source version.
* Translate the math into a fast real-time version. This is a change to the meaty core and may or may not be open source.
* Use the real-time version for another edition of the game.
* Translate the math into a slow real time version.
* Use the slow real-time version as the backend to an ad-supported website version. This will be the first of multiplayer.
* Eventually use the slow real-time version for mobile, desktop, etc. versions.

Source Code
-----------

The first stage, and possibly the only stage if I fail to make it fun, is open source. I build on Linux and use the most rudimentary Makefile known to man. I haven't tried building on any other platform, and there's one bit that complains if you're on 32-bit Linux (but seems to cause no harm, haven't bothered fixing it). But it mostly works.

https://github.com/negativeview/Software-Business-Sim/

Current State
-------------

You can interview and hire people. People have some traits, but not the final list of them. You cannot create new projects in order to earn money. I'm currently planning on the list of traits to make that happen. I will make another post VERY shortly to detail that thought process. This post is just about the current state and what the project IS.

Working on porting the existing code to Windows so that I can start posting builds for the majority of you guys. So far not impressed with Visual Studio Express, but it has to be done. Blah.

FINALLY got my new machine mostly working. Started playing with PolyVox to see if it's any good and so far I'm quite liking it. I currently have a somewhat world builder where I can switch between blocky minecrafty mode in order to build, then switch to marching cubes mode to see what it'll look like in the actual game. I still have a LOT of work ahead of me, but as a proof of concept it's proving to be VERY nice.

Definitely allow the player to modify to their hearts desire in single player. Without the relatively easy ability to make world editing tools and such, entire sections of the Minecraft community would never have formed. In multiplayer there's a valid reason to restrict it, in singleplayer, not so much. If players want to cheat themselves out of the game... meh.

Actually it only supported smooth (marching cubes) terrain for quite a while, and in this case it doesn't really look like voxels. But when Minecraft came along we added the cubic version as well. Also I appologise in advance for the documentation but the forum support is quite good.

Eh, the quick start was enough to copy paste into workable code. After that API documentation is (barely) enough. For a project so young, I couldn't really ask for more. Is there any bits of marching cube stuff left? Looking at class names I didn't obviously see anything. Implementing marching cubes is my current big stumbling block so if PolyVox could life that, too, I'd be super happy.

Sorry for taking the focus off of your actual game. 

I've started experimenting with PolyVox for my game. Looks interesting so far, but I'll probably put in a lot of effort to make it not look like it's using a voxel engine. I'm keeping an eye on the game, too. The camera angle is ... interesting.

I don't think having zombies necessitates that the game is "bad" game in any way. 

Exactly this. If you told me the name of the game, I'd think "Zombies and Voxels... meh." because both are being overused by every mediocre cash-grabbing game dev in the world right now. But saying that anything with zombies or voxels have to be bad is like saying that one bad red painting taints the color red.

You may be facing an uphill battle with convincing cynical gamers to even look at your game though, sadly.

Computer -- purchased!

Survey for anyone still reading this -- do you have a number pad on your primary keyboard?

Worked quite a bit on trying to define a sensible control scheme. I'm currently leaning toward defaulting to the number pad. I know that the number pad is FAR from universal these days, and of course it will be remappable (it may even have a one-click switch to something non-number-pad), but the number pad makes far too much sense to ignore. Thoughts?

I have also put the new hardware into my online shopping cart, ready to hit buy as soon as my next paycheck hits (tomorrow night/day after morning). Expect much more updating then.

It gets better as they get into a rhythm. I have an almost-two-month old that was born during my current project. At about two weeks she started sometimes sleeping up to like six hours in a row. It also helps to have mommy there to help. Just wanted to pipe in and say it does get better. And I guess that I've been following this game, just haven't posted before.

I've been making some progress on the world builder. I've been stuck on implementing the marching cubes algorithm. Newborns aren't good for concentration.

This morning my laptop refused to turn on. I DO have the code backed up. That's not the issue. The issue is that right now I only have a computer at work and my wifes laptop.

I needed to get a better computer anyway, I just didn't want to do it yet. For the near future, I'll only be contributing to the game mentally. I needed to work some things out mentally anyway.

I did not get the blending bug. If you need another non-bugged mac person to give any relevant info, I can do it.

Firstly, what others have told you about things working out most of the time are absolutely correct. You probably don't have to worry about it.  That being said, here's some more info on the keyboard limitations stuff:

According to the original spec, you're only guaranteed two normal keys at once. You MUST be able to press any combination of two keys without problem or your keyboard doesn't follow spec. Three or more and they're allowed to work fine, or do any number of odd behaviors.

"Modifier keys" (shift, command, control, alt, basically) are special. Those do not count toward your limit. You can press shift, command, control, and alt, and the keyboard still has to support any two non-special keys.

In practice every keyboard is different. It depends on how they are made and what shortcuts they took. Gamer keyboards make a point to not cut corners and let you press more keys at once without problem. Normal keyboards tend to let you get away with far more than two these days, but it's still by no means guaranteed to work. This is one reason why rebindable keys are pretty much required, especially if you want to be able to press more than two keys at once: you absolutely cannot come up with a default binding that will work for everyone.

Is this how the player will be playing? The fireballs seem incredibly overpowered from watching the video. It's hard to imagine anything there being a challenge as fast as you can shoot them.

I'm really digging the idea of it being very strategic. With just three enemies I can already see this game getting ridiculously hard with more than a handful of them.

Awesome. I cannot give specific feedback at this time as I am Mac only for a bit, but the idea makes me happy. It sounds like you have enough working to ease fears of this being the dream of some rank beginner (I did not read your bio, if you are a beginner you must be more skilled than most). I look forward to trying this once I get the Windows machine.

I didn't mean your level selector, sorry, let me explain. In Super Mario Brothers for the NES there was a few places where you could get "on top of" the level. You were walking on the very top block, off screen. This let you skip large parts of the level or, in at least on place, go to a special area where you got to skip entire levels by going through warp pipes.

I got on top of your levels various times. Every time it was just a dead end, not a hidden secret. It's my opinion that you should either put secrets there, or make it where you can't get out of the level. I thought I had found a secret every time, and was disappointed when it was just a dead end. Unless it IS a secret and I just didn't get past the first challenge to get there...