Dev Journal: I Fucking Did It.

So where are we in development? The good news is, we’re very close to a new release! The bad news (for me) is that we’re in one of the most frustrating parts of the process. I want to make some claim about being done before the end of the year or something like that, but at this point issues keep coming up and I have to pace myself to stay motivated, so I’m not ready to set a deadline like that.

That’s the short version. To get into the details, let’s start with a quick review of what’s even going on.

The biggest challenge (and hopefully, eventually, the biggest attraction) of this game is a handcrafted system for making NPCs act in a more intelligent, emotional way that allows players to really enjoy interactions of all sorts with the characters they encounter. Building this system, which I’ve been calling the AI Overhaul, requires a ton of work behind the scenes building all sorts of different systems I’ve talked more about in other updates. Right now, the important thing is that I’ve started with focusing on one major subsection of the AI: how it interprets and stores information. Anytime you or any other character in the game does something, every other character present perceives that, interprets it by context, and stores a lot of guesses as to why that was done, which in turn fuel its ideas of what is going on and what might happen next.

There’s a lot more than that I plan to add before the system is really fully operational– I have rough plans for having multiple sets of goals and levels of satisfaction in each character, the capacity for forming basic plans, and of course emotions to throw some extra chaos into the mix, and all of that is before I get into all the fancy side stuff I’d like to implement. It’s a lot. But each new stage will be built using a lot of the same tools, once that toolset is built, and building that toolset may well be the hardest part of the entire process.

Well, I BUILT that toolset. And I’ve BUILT the first chunk of the AI, for interpreting and storing input. I fucking DID it, and I am tremendously proud of turning this batshit, pie in the sky idea into a reality. I have officially accomplished a lot of huge things that I expect will serve as the centerpiece to just about everything to come from here.

But there’s a problem. If you build something you’re super proud of, but it doesn’t do anything useful yet, that’s not really going to… excite anyone. The prototype steam engine sitting on a table is just a science experiment. I need this engine to DO something, and I need it to show that all this work has been worth something, and it’s… not really there yet? You guys deserve a playable version of what I’m working on so you can see I’m making progress, but this system needs a lot more work before it can actually make decisions on its own, and I’ve gone way too long without a new release already.

I grumbled about this problem some in the supporter dev journal I put out a while ago, and the keyword then, as now, is “throwaway work.” I hate to put in too many hours working on something I know I’ll throw away later. A big part of why the current AI system has been such a shamble and I’ve avoided adding new actions so much is that I knew the current AI system was going to be replaced completely and I didn’t want to keep putting work into something that would “soon” be gone.

Welp. Building the new system has taken a long time, and at this point, I don’t really have a choice but to work with the old system some for this update. That said, a big part of that has been aggressively replacing parts of it with what I can plug in from the new system– NPCs are still making decisions in the old way, but they’re receiving much richer information, getting a more consistent and wide-ranging understanding of the situation for making their decisions. I’ve been forced to put in a fair amount of work expanding the old system I know I’ll be throwing away, and that’s frustrating, but I’m nearing the end on that.

I can’t say, however, that the frustration ended there. This has also been such a large process, touching on so many parts of the game, that as I’ve started wrapping things up and testing the game, I’ve run into more and more random issues from all across the board. Sometimes it’s been challenging just because the game is so complex at this point that I sort of have to “load” one portion of the game’s mechanics into my head at a time and remember how everything works before I can fix a random issue from that area, then dump it all and “load” another area for the next problem, or go back to the main area I’ve been working with. I’ve had random corner cases I did a quick patch job on suddenly flare up all over again and need a more permanent fix. I’ve had strange design choices I made a year or more ago suddenly become a problem, and when I replace one, I can’t help but worry there was some other reason I had for making it that way that I’ve forgotten.

And as the worst and most obvious bugs start to clear away, I enter what might be the final stage before I’m shipping this to my proofers for polishing: making the NPCs actually act in reasonable ways at all. And… in a way, this is the most annoying part of all for me. The old system is very much designed to work on the assumption everything is carefully balanced. If you add a new factor, you need to check and rebalance everything. Well, this update has added a lot of new factors, and translating between the two systems is a little messy. I need to basically go through and test encounters over and over both to tune up the new system and make sure it’s working smoothly without any unexpected issues and to tune up the old system for how to handle the input. And of course anytime I find a new issue in the new system, everything in the old system needs re-tuning all over, but issues in the new system only become obvious when the old system is tuned enough to reveal them. It can feel like an endless back and forth, and the whole time, I’m very aware in the back of my head that almost all of this is throwaway work.

So I’ve been grouchy about it, and things have slowed down some, but I’m plugging away at it. We’re damn close now, and I’m really hoping I can mesh these systems well enough that all the new, good stuff shines through the old, mediocre stuff. To be honest, that’s another downer lurking in the back of my head. I’m proud of my work, but I know it’s not exciting on its own, as it is. I think some folks that really dig into how the characters behave will have fun with it, but most folks just want to casually have fun with the game, and the difference may not be very obvious compared to stuff like adding all the new Descriptions or adding more upgrades or something. I’ve debated a lot on adding more things, on throwing in some easier, flashy bits to make it feel more “worth the wait,” but I know that can be an emotional trap for extending the wait nigh-indefinitely. I’m nearing the point I’m ready to show what I’ve got, and that’s when I should share it.

Besides, it’s true a few side bits have made it in anyway. I’ll talk more about it at the release, but it feels like the NPCs will actually have an easier time showing what they can do if they have more options in some cases, so I’ve finally implemented an idea I’ve been sitting on for some time for giving you more fine control over how your character acts. That meant expanding the GUI to make room for more buttons, and while I was doing that, I added a few small quality-of-life things I’m hoping you’ll enjoy. It’s nothing huge, but I’m hoping it’ll help a little with the update “feeling different,” and just generally make the gameplay better.

We’re basically at the home stretch for this update, and I’m feeling ground down, but we’re getting there. Incidentally, I’m sorry if this journal ends up coming off like a bunch of complaining, but that’s sort of why it came to exist. I had been debating between writing it and getting some more work done, and when I tried to work, yet another new, frustrating problem came up and I decided it was time for a change of pace. So here we are! A touch of procrastination being put to good use. But don’t worry, we’ll get there before long.

Well. I may grouse now, but I am happy with how things have turned out, and I’m excited to see how folks feel about the system so far, even if there’s some old junk getting in the way for now. I appreciate everyone’s patience and support while I chase after my crazy dreams with this game, and I hope that in the end, I won’t be the only one going crazy over it. Keep an eye out for more news before long!