Course of Temptation Dev Diary #2 (Patreon)

Hello friends!

As you know if you've been following along, my first big post-release update has been focused on polishing up and improving NPC interactions, in particular letting you take initiative and decide to interact with specific NPCs beyond just hoping you collide with them in random events.

I've also been fixing a few bugs lingering in the release version as they've been reported. My plan is: finish writing the current event set, test, release updated build (probably approximately this weekend, give or take), and then continue adding a few things until this update really feels complete. Mid-update releases won't be my habit, but on this occasion I want these fixes in the public build sooner rather than later.

Anyway, let's get into what's new!

The Phone

Your phone is your new social tool, letting you have some contact with every NPC you've exchanged names (and, presumably, contact info) with whenever you want.

Sending your pals a text will grant you a few positive points in their attitude toward you. You can favorite the people you're most interested in to find them quickly in your contacts.

Hangouts

The phone also enables you to plan activities with specific NPCs.

Currently there are three hangout types: dates (hangouts with romantic expectations), booty calls (you can guess), then simple platonic hangouts between friends. Of course, NPC attitudes and your existing relationship can mean that even a simple movie night has the chance to become something more.

There are also currently two hangout activities: seeing a movie in town and just chilling at home. This is temporary, because as soon as I get this build out I'll be immediately working to add one or two more. This list will also expand in future updates as more locations are developed.

Each activity comes with its own set of events. Your choices in these events, plus the NPC's own inclinations, will determine exactly what happens. At the end of the hangout, you'll get a line about how the NPC perceived the activity and how their attitude has shifted.

So what is attitude anyway?

How NPC relationships work

As you've noticed if you've played for any length of time, NPCs have a set of attitudes reflecting how they feel about you: friendship/dislike, lust, and romance. These can shift depending on your own choices, though as in real life, you often can't do much to control how somebody else feels about you.

NPCs also have inclinations — all the same inclinations you can get, plus a few more that don't currently have unlock triggers (but they will!).

These attitudes and inclinations come into play constantly throughout the game and drive most of the variation in how events play out. An NPC doesn't do something mean to you just as a random roll of the dice — something about them made them inclined to do it. It keeps their behavior mostly consistent and helps to create narratives as you play.

On a wider scope, these things often boil down to an algorithm that determines what I call the desired relationship. This is the relationship that an NPC currently wants to have with you, whether it's friendship, friends with benefits, or they just hate you.

There are four possible relationships based on the axes of friendship and lust, plus a fifth one when romantic feelings come into play, and then a sixth when none of the criteria are met: indifference. Inclinations also play a big part. Whenever the game needs to broadly determine an NPC's reaction to you, it's usually this desired relationship that sets the outcome.

Relationships have momentum, too. That NPC who insists they don't want to date, if you hang out with them and make romance happen often enough, they will change their mind eventually. You can fix him!

That's all for now!

I could go on and on about how the simulation works but I don't want to get too longwinded. Future dev diaries will certainly go into it!

To sum up, the NPC relationship update is going well and you can expect a new build very soon. Even after that, though, I'm going to keep expanding on this aspect of the game, probably for another week or so, before moving on to a different area.

Until next time!