Deluded
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Deluded Diaries: Roadmap. NPC Schedule
🕑 Added 2024-03-02 10:21:26 +0000 UTCHey! We've noticed quite a few questions popping up from your feedback, such as: Will we be able to customize the character? Why are all NPCs idle? Why can’t I go to the town? And the most popular: When is the Steam release?
Those questions mean that you really want to see this project flourish and we appreciate them! However, we couldn’t understand where these questions come from, given that the roadmap containing those milestones has been available since the very first release (do you guys not read the About section before pledging to creators? 🤔). Anyway…
In order to make a statement that it does exist and to develop the subject further, we’re starting a series of posts covering the roadmap in detail so that everyone can learn more.
Overall, the current roadmap is focused on the house quests and events, We took this opportunity to focus on the small playable area, where it is convenient to test all the game mechanics. Yeah, mechanics. This roadmap is mostly focused on the technical part of the game. Of course, that doesn’t mean we will sacrifice the content part, mechanics and content are being worked on by different people. But developing and refining mechanics will be our priority for now. As they say, without the base, there can be no superstructure.
So, let’s talk about the nearest roadmap milestone - the 0.4 update!
v0.4 - NPC Schedule
The next big update will focus on adding the NPC scheduling functionality. The NPCs will be able to walk between locations, sleep, work, eat, change clothes, etc. Though, no advanced AI or anything. Since Deluded doesn’t have enemies and combat mechanics, we think it’s unnecessary.
Each NPC will have its main and side activities. The main activity is when an NPC is the most available for your interaction. Sometimes they switch to a side activity, but not for a long time (30 mins of in-game time).
Here’re the rough schedules we have for our existing NPCs.
Mother
Willa Ginart, being a busy bee, will be working in the kitchen - washing dishes or cooking as her main activity. Her side activities would include: reading in bed, bathing and ironing.
Father
Jeff Ginart, on the other side, is a couch potato. He will occasionally read the newspaper trying to find a job and his other side activities will include: chugging beer, bathing, watching TV.
You’ll also be able to join him for a drink (don’t be jealous, US players 🙈).
Brother
Stuart’s main activity will remain sitting on a porch as it is now. Side activities are: playing on the console, returning from hustle-work.
Mr. Alan
Mr. Alan will be staying in the shelter (church) and coming every day to stand by the tree. From there you can continue dialogues and quests with him.
In the evening the whole family will dine together at the table. You’ll have the choice to either join or pass.
Dialogues
The current activity and location of the NPC will also influence the interactions. NPCs will talk about things differently when they’re not engaged in their main activity. For example, mom will get angry if you enter the bathroom while she’s bathing.
Reactions
Ever been confused about why is Alisa walking so freely in front of the family? Not anymore. Well… sort of. You’ll see the full-fledged version of it when we introduce the 0.7 update, but we’ll get to that. With the 0.4 NPCs will be able to react to different states of Alisa and her appearance. We’ve modeled 13 universal reaction types for each NPC, which include reactions to 8 various types of nakedness (underlined). That being:
- In Restraints (eg. ropes, cuffs)
- Naked in Restraints
- Fully Naked
- Visible Genitals + Nipples
- Visible Genitals
- Visible Nipples
- Dirty
- Visible Panties
- Visible Bra
- C*m on face
- Drunk
- Sexy
- Aroused
The Sexy parameter is measured by the sexiness and beauty of Alisa’s outfit combined with the character’s attribute ‘Sexiness’.
Since NPCs are unique, they will react to these states differently. For example, one NPC may find Alisa being naked as sexy, another will say she’s a whore. In the cases when an NPC is not unique -we’re talking about NPC fractions - those fractions will also have their own reaction pattern (we’ll talk more about fractions in the post about v0.9).
New NPCs
There’s a list of other NPCs that we plan to add in the prologue (not necessarily in 0.4):
- Stuart’s girlfriend
- Stuart’s best friend
- Alisa’s friends
- A homeless man with a shopping cart
Some of them are quest- or event-related and not all of them will have a schedule.
Other
A minor rework due to the introduction of NPC schedule system would be that the “Dirty girl” quest will only activate if Stuart is present in his room.
And, of course, not forgetting the Spring Mansion location. All the family members will receive their unique schedules on the camping day.
And that’s about it!
I don’t think I’ve covered all the features that’ll be present in 0.4, or some features are not fully confirmed. For example, we’re not sure yet if the type and order of activities will change from day to day. We’re currently focused on the next content update which will be 0.3.5. But that’s a topic for another post.
Do you have any questions regarding NPC schedule?
Please, leave them in the comments below!
We’ve decided to start these devlogs to talk about more about the game besides what’s currently being worked on. And we would like to ask you: what can we cover in these posts? Is there any game aspect you would like to know more about? Suggest your topics in the comments as well!
Peace y’all!
SRT
Comments
SRT
Hi. When we started development we were 5 people, now we are hiring a 9th team member, so I hope we can do more content in each update. Also one part of the team is working on the open world, the other part is working on the prologue. Anyway, I think the 0.5, 0.6 updates will be simpler in terms of mechanics, so they will be able to come out faster.
Frank Baum
Thank you for the update! For me, the update was good enough to pledge support again. I was supporting your project throughout a fairly long time last year but then unsubscribed. Here is what I personally am mostly interested in: I think it is great that you guys work on this in such a structured way. I don't think, it would be possible to realize such a project if you wouldn't. I also like the quality of your output. If so far you were focusing on "mechanics" then I would argue: these are working perfectly fine. I don't face any issues with bugs or the like. So that seems to be working great. Also, the artistic aspect - quality of 3D modelling, lighting, cut-scenes and so on, are all great from my point of view. My main concern would be the timeline. When I look back at when you guys came out with your releases, it seems to me that each 0.1 Version step takes about 6 months (0.1 in DEC 2022 / 0.2 in APR-JUL 2023 / 0.3 in DEC 2023 / 0.4 in ?? 2024). When I look at your road-map, the project will have real "playable" content at Version 1.0. That would be at least another 3 years from now at the current rate. That would be the part, that I would be concerned about in your place: All the stuff, that you guys are working on is nice and well, but so far has limited entertainment value (the content so far gets boring after maybe 30...45 min). I understand why that is. I just wonder, if you can keep up your own efforts and the support you need to focus on it, if it takes so long, before the entertainment part of the game gets beefed up. So my question would be: could you see yourself throwing in more entertainment in between or will you stick to the roadmap as such? If so: what is your own expectation as of when Version 1.0 could be achievable?
SRT
Hi, great questions! 1 - Most NPCs will walk around between actions, so you can talk to them about your quests/events while they're not busy doing something special. 2 - Yes, you will be able to change Alisa's hair via mirror or hairdresser, but only after the prologue.
pRoFtoWo
Asking two questions in one, sorry if that's a bother. Will the schedules and activities have a hard/instant switch between main and side activities once the appropriate time is reached or will we have a bit of a grace window just incase we're a little slow? And for customization I feel we've seen solid examples already but for things like Alisa's hairstyle, will that be something changed only through events she goes through or will we be able to take her to a mirror or a hair stylist for example?
Bastos
Noice !
SRT
This will be a stable version of the game, with complete mechanics, open world (1/3 of map area) and enough playtime to spend ~30+ hours on a single playthrough
Bastos
For the full roadmap, does 1.0 will be a finished stable game ? Or , if not, why not using 0.10, 0.11, ... versions ? :) Anyway, great work !
