Course of Temptation Dev Diary #47 (Patreon)

Hello friends. It is Friday the 19th! And time for another dev diary, with the first days of work on 0.6 under my belt.

Current version is 0.5.1k, with another couple of bugfix updates happening in the past week. Opening up free interaction with the roommate created some obvious-in-hindsight weirdnesses... like when you're having a "just chill" dorm date with your roommate and then their roommate walks in... wait a second, that's you! But I think that stuff is pretty much cleared up now.

Over the weekend, I ran with a suggestion I saw on discord and ended up adding... pets!

Except for fish (which you can also get), pets aren't strictly speaking "allowed" in your dorm room, but when has that ever stopped you? Available pets are smaller ones that live in enclosures, and they can give small but convenient boosts to your Attention and Relaxation needs.

Why pets? Mostly I was amused by the mental image of adding a squealing guinea pig to the growing chaos of stuff accumulating on your side of the room. But mostly I just thought people would like them and I was able to implement them quickly, so the benefit vs. time factor was high. Things like this — mostly code without much writing — are actually usually pretty quick adds, more or less just an afternoon project, and very satisfying to be able to toss into an update. I plan my work by weekdays, so anything I do over the weekend is usually just sort of "extra."

You'll be seeing pets in the August update. I'll continue using the weekends for a bit of overtime work on the August update, making sure I have time to add things to that too, as well as starting work on 0.6. It's always a balancing act!

Speaking of 0.6, I got a good start on it this week. Most of what I've been doing is outlining, planning, and creating some data structures and core functions — not exactly glamorous work, but necessary!

I created a baseline of upgrades and designated some as default, representing the characteristics of the River Rat we already know. These upgrades will show up in the place's description, changing the look and feel of the place over time.

If you've a keen eye, you may be able to spot where the variable upgrade text appears! It's a bit of a block of text, so I'll probably end up rewording it or at least adding a linebreak or two.

In addition to creating new options, I would like each upgrade to change the demographics of the clientele, and their different reactions to you will further change the character of the place and the things you'll need to do to ensure you're tipped well.

My current list of demographics is:

• Revelers: Looking to have the loudest possible good time.

• Escapists: Mostly just looking to get drunk as efficiently as possible and forget the day's troubles.

• Elites: Wealthy, potentially good tippers, but particular and looking for class.

• Geeks: People who want to go to the type of bar that'll host a watch party for that one dragon show.

• Punters: People looking for cheap titillation. A topless bar is their ideal.

• Sports Fans: Given that the River Rat starts as a sports bar, this is sort of the default demographic.

These aren't really locked in at this point, so if anyone has any input or ideas, this is the time!

This demographics idea is complicated by the recent addition of predictable nightlife schedules. What will need to happen is that changing something at the River Rat will need to selectively rebake some nightlife schedules, repelling some people who were previously regulars while attracting new ones. But I think literally seeing the clientele change as you make changes to the venue will be cool, bringing in NPCs with specific inclinations and thereby changing how they tend to react to you.

I also spent a little time writing the passages where you actually get the job. There's not really too much to that; the job will start out fairly simple, then gain complexity as you get promoted and start to get into upgrades and stuff.

I've also had the idea that maybe certain changes should be the owner's idea instead of yours, as demographics start shifting. "Oh, you just clocked in? Listen, before you go out there... a lot of people have been asking me to make this a topless bar, and I agree, so..." Could be fun!

After posting this, I'll work on the changes to nightlife schedules as discussed, then start building out more of these mechanics, including the upgrade UI. Moving into next week, I'll work on the serving mechanics and write some of the core events and interactions for those. My goal will be to get the system to a working baseline, then I can really go hard on writing different events depending on the bar's character.

And, again, I'll be using the weekend to add in some things intended for the August update. There are a bunch of requests that are relatively low-hanging fruit, so I'll be checking off as much as I can.

But that's it for now! As always, thanks so much for your support, it's really appreciated. And I will see you again next week!