Course of Temptation Dev Diary #129 (Patreon)

Happy Friday! It's time for another dev diary.

We're also out with v0.8.1g today with another round of bugfixes. Unless something very important crops up, this is probably the last update of the month until early access begins for the August update.

This week I first did some more work on moods. Following your input on where and how to surface NPC moods, I kind of went "why not both?" about it and put them in, potentially, both the View Person dialog and when talking to them.

When chatting with an NPC, you'll get a little bit of a low-down about how they seem with a little system that borrows the dialogue line system to put together some mood text. This isn't always very specific, and some moods aren't exposed this way at all.

But someone made a comment about how viewing somebody by clicking their link represented taking a better look at them, or giving them some more thought. I like this logic — I had a similar justification in mind when I made the anonymous mask system, where an NPC will appear anonymous in the passage text but if you click on them (symbolically taking a closer look) then it will tell you who they are. So, the View Person dialog will reveal some more specifics.

"Neglected" is a more conceptual kind of mood and depends on very specific circumstances and their relationship to the PC. Fuckbuddies are neglected if you haven't had sex recently, and romantic partners will feel neglected if you haven't taken them on a date for a while or even talked to them in the last few days.

This is another reason why I wanted to work on the moods system in the leadup to working on the cheating system. The average NPC will require this Neglected mood before they'll consider cheating. (Some NPCs are of course more inclined to cheat, with the Cheater inclination, and don't really need a reason, while others are Loyal to the end. Also, I'll point out again here that the PC being cheated on has a toggle under Content Options and is fully optional.)

Someone else wrote to me once pointing out that cheating mechanics have to be handled carefully and not be completely random. Say an NPC inclined to cheat on you has a 10% chance every day of cheating, while an NPC who is very much into you has only a 0.2% chance of cheating each day. Those are pretty low odds... but over a long enough timescale, both NPCs will cheat on you just the same, which doesn't feel right. The NPC simulation system will leverage the mood system and take some of the randomness out, as the average NPC has to be in a Neglected state before they might consider cheating. This also gives a form of early warning to an attentive player.

As of writing this, I have the moods system finalized (though I'm sure more moods will be added over time), and the simulation now handles the PC's partner cheating in much the same way as it handles NPCs cheating on other NPCs: they may cheat randomly, but usually will eventually acquire somebody on the side that they cheat with regularly, and if your relationship with them ends, they will probably officially get together with their cheating partner in short order.

The next step is to make cheating discoverable by the player, which will also use the simulation system: simulation events queued to happen through the day can be surfaced by the narrative event system, it's just a matter of getting creative about various circumstances to witness them in. This is where the kink factor comes in too, as I'm sure there are some players who would be interested in watching the cheating actually happen.

I've also been thinking about some sort of gossip system to help surface things like this. This would tie into or, more likely, replace the current rumors system (where, for example, one NPC can tell another that you flashed them or some such) and involve a few more specifics about the event being gossiped about and spread more organically around the campus and town. Basically, catching you (or somebody else) streaking, seeing somebody go off alone with somebody else, etc., would all become distinct pieces of gossip that could float around, affect reputations, and eventually reach your ears.

This would also be a useful avenue for discovering cheating that you otherwise haven't witnessed, and just surfacing more simulation event stuff in general and adding more life to the campus. So, I'm probably not working on this next week or anything, but it is in the back of my mind, and I'd be curious to hear what you all think of it.

My current aim is to get done with these cheating mechanics this week or early next week and then start in on houses and apartments. Someone else (sorry, I am terrible with names, I remember what was said but not who said it!) pointed out that they'd rather have new housing on campus than in town. I want to accommodate both, so I think it's also time to build out something that's literally been on the map since 0.1 but not addressed: the special student housing on Bancroft Lane.

I'll talk about all of that more as I get more done, but, as always, I welcome your suggestions in the meantime! And that will also do it for this week's dev diary. I will return again next week for another progress report, and until then, I hope you have a good week! And thank you for your support — as always, I appreciate you!