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[awetos]

Diary of a madman
To summarize, here are the things I tried out today to address the lagging with loading data issue:

- Async stuff
- JOBS / ECS
- Async Scene loading

By the end of this weekend, I hope to have the "trust" thing deployed. I want to do it well, which is why I'm doing all this testing. I can't even imagine in the future, when I have to synchronize it all to the cloud...

full devlog under the picture here:
https://imgur.com/a/PVDSd6C

[awetos]

Shhh, trust trust trust the process

I know my game doesn't look like much right now xD But I'm super happy to share something I'm working on.

I started making the town!
Don't you get it?! I finally got it. Gamedev is about making whatever you want.

In the beginning of making this game, I kept thinking about "what would other people like" and kept sanitizing it for the public, thinking "this is just an alarm app game, it doesn't need to be that complicated" but I realized I wouldn't finish if that was my motivation. My new strategy is to make the game I want, and then, change it if needed at the end.

Originally, as shallow as it sounds, I was going to make the game a dress up game, because "oh you can create a lot of customization and sales that way" - but I rarely care for the aesthetics beyond character creation and the style of the game.

The game I want, that is endlessly fascinating to me, is a NPC simulator. I just want to have control over a very small population. maybe 20 - 100 "townies" (yes I got that from the sims) I'm very naturally fascinated by simulating human interactions. Stories, like RimWorld. Even the villagers in minecraft are fun to play with.

https://imgur.com/a/gvoInFC

So I started just working on a frame work for the NPC's.
I thought, it will LITERALLY be like a dating sim. People will literally have attachment styles, and moods, and reputation, and personalities. There will be so many factors it will be hard to predict what will happen - which is what I want. I want to make a game so complicated even I don't know what will happen.

The only thing is for certain though, is if you amass gifts and earn trust with your alarm buddy, you tilt luck in your favor.

The other thing I want to share is that I'm thinking of making the story something like, you live in a house in the woods; which is next to a meadow/garden/spacey area. That's public land, sort of, you're also the groundskeeper for it. So various people and creatures visit this area.

I also thought there should be consequences if you're really mean in this game. Like the townies will burn your crop and stuff hahaha. But I thought, I also want to simulate random acts of kindness, where if you have a high relationship with someone, they will leave a present at your door.

[awetos]

It's my thread I'll update as much as I want

https://imgur.com/a/b6Z7vQI

I HATE gamedev - because once you start you don't want to stop.

I made an NPC spawner. So far I'm able to make them spawn randomly on a location (it all just uses the pre-existing navmesh stuff) and they bump into invisible walls, set new destinations, and go there. When they are close to their destination, they stop moving. And although hard to see, the little ball jumps up and down. (in the future, the little ball is supposed to tell the UI canvas to write something, if I want to.) I made them random sizes too, just so it's easier to track them with my eyes.

In the future, they'll spawn into a pretty lush forest or something. And, perhaps, that forest's ambience will change with the seasons.

[Gunroar:Cannon()]

ANNNYWAAAYYY~~~



Bitch you thought I died, surprise, I still got them double thick thighs

AHahahahahaha. I love your attitude XD

[awetos]

Apparently it embeds automatically but doesn't show in the preview
anyway here's my god sim.

The idea is that interactions with NPC's depend on your mood, security level, and relationship
You control your alarm buddy.
If you miss out a lot of your alarms, this makes your alarm buddy insecure, and apt to lash out at people in your town. But if they are secure and trusting with you, they will have healthy relationships with other townies, and maybe even "cure" some of the insecure townies too.

I originally wanted to call it "bully" because I wanted to even have an ostracizing bully mechanic but may be too triggering so I just called it punish.

In the future, the "punish" and "love" will be replaced by a deck of cards for a variety of social interactions you can do based on meeting certain criteria (eg. if your alarm buddy is well cared for, they may be able to flirt, charm, and seduce people. if they have been neglected, your only options may be to lash out, yell at, or criticize others.)

[awetos]

ANNNYWAAAYYY~~~



Bitch you thought I died, surprise, I still got them double thick thighs

AHahahahahaha. I love your attitude XD

Thanks lad gotta entertain yourself somehow in the gamedev grind 

[awetos]

I learned how to use SpriteLibrary today. I found out you can keep the animations so long as the bones are the same, though I haven't tested having mismatched bones yet.
I also learned to use the IK resolver too! As I say, learning is a form of progress.



As I said, I'm going to make the most OBSCENE town simulator. I think I will even let people inherit traits like hair color.

I'm having an idea about the "goal" of the game. It's just to try to keep your citizens happy and secure.

It's supposed to be a story simulator, so I think I'm even going to have ridiculous events like "your fairies have a war against orcs, 90% of your men die" "The women have gone on strike, 50% of the women leave the town"

I decided to use the super short chibi as the "babies" and I think if you have secure-secure pairing, each year they are together they have a 50% chance of producing a baby. After 25 years, there should be a new generation and the adults leave and the babies become the adults.

So if you don't foster enough secure pairings, your town dies.
But if you do really well, the average security in the town increases and at some point, maybe becomes self sustaining.

This is becoming so complex I might just release it as its own game instead of part of alarm buddy (you're the "angel" that's supposed to help the town, as you wake up on time, your alarm buddy becomes more secure, and is able to help your citizens become more secure)

If I release it as a stand-alone game, I might make the alarm buddy into a scientist/researcher trying to help a dying elf village. Either way... I want it to be tragic and funny despite the cute graphics.

[awetos]

w-wait you're telling me you can't just press "w" and the walking animations will magically appear?!



I spent all day making the walk
I learned to combine the blink and the walk using separate layers today.
I had to implement blinking because it was too creepy trying to work on the walk with them staring at me.

I don't know yet if the walking will bind to the male NPC too, I did copy the rig bones.

As you can see, the animations transfer between different hair colors too! That's exciting.

[awetos]

3/14/24
Words can't describe the overwhelming happiness seeing my NPC holding a bouquet of flowers


(Made walking and idle animations)

It's all coming together... 
I'm still debating whether to make the game side-scrolling or isometric.

But to see him actually walking with the flower, and the script working to show/hide the sprites is so joyful.

[awetos]

3/27/24

Progress since last post!





Detect NPC and Interact - disable collider on interact
Hover NPCs
Select NPCs
Display Friends List
Reset Town
Connected Main page and Town page

[awetos]

Wake up babe, new devlog just dropped.