Boy...it's been a while.  How you guys doing?

2020 was a wild year, ultimately resulting in a lack of progress.  I found myself stuck at several points while trying to redesign the entire user interface for the game and ended up needing to step back for a while and reset my brain.

After that much-needed break I came back at the problem with full force and fixed most of what I said I was going to fix in the last devlog.

• Fixed the mess that was the PEA interface.
• Fixed the bulletin board.
• Elevator and lobby are done and only need to be added in.
• Female content is around 85% complete.
• Singh still talks like a nutcracker.
• Character Creation now includes Name input.
• Fixed dialogue issues with Unit 601.
• Minor proofreading.
• Removed numerous dead-ends and softlocks although I suspect there are a few more kicking around.
Here's a full breakdown of the major changes:

1. Complete redesign of the PEA interface.  The short version is that I streamlined something that I made complicated for no good reason. The robust answer is that I had originally set the PEA interface in it's own instance, separate from the live game world.  In theory this was going to make it easier to compartmentalize changes to the interface and allow me to keep certain scripts from becoming overly cluttered.  This backfired and ended with softlocks as my design didn't allow me to use certain shortcuts that ended up being exactly what I was missing.  Furthermore, I was determined to make using the PEA feel as analog as possible, with the player having to access menus and functions within the PEA/instance itself.  This bloated and I ended up with a keypad to navigate a set of five options on five/six different menus.  This was extremely cumbersome.  Not only was it frustrating to get it all working right, this experience was not adding the flavor I thought it was.  I decided to axe the menu system altogether, and after a quick redesign I ended up with this:

Most, if not all the same functionality has been retained in this new gui.  The recipe list was also de-instanced and merged with the new gui, as well as character information and stats (which previously had been non-functional).

In addition, this also means that the systems for skill leveling/usage are in place and ready to go. :)

     2. Player Input, Occupation system and Rank system are finalized.  Player Input right now is limited to entering the character's name during creation but will be expanded upon to include running InfoSearches on conversation topics and hacking.  The Occupation mechanic is exactly what it sounds like; at some point you will have to get a job.  This will affect dialogue options and interactions in the second chapter (more on that later).  The Rank system will be a reflection of your actions in New Jakarta.  Spend too much time sneaking around and you'll be known as a thief.  Eventually this rank will combine with your occupation, so you may be a "Burger-Flipping Sneak", or a "Shady Repairman", or any other combination.  Currently this will only reflect the highest number/rank among a pile of hidden stats but I'm toying with the idea of it displaying a combination of the top two in addition to the occupation, with the end result being something along the lines of a "Sneaky Custodian Tech Wizard"

     3. Female content/interactions are now active.  The only exception is interactions with GOLIATH, which are on the to-do list.

     4. Restructuring of the story/chapters. This game is a mess under the hood; I'm not going to sugarcoat it.  My original plan was to have Chapter 1 end in a "open-world" setpiece which allowed the player freedom to roam around the Zone and get into the core gameplay loop.  This has proven unrealistic; what I'd need to write would wreck havoc on the code I've written so far and to be frank there's no need to put myself, and this project, through the hell of redesigning all the scripts to allow for this.  The elegant solution is to move the goalposts, obviously.  Instead the transition between chapters will also mark the transition between gameplay styles, with the first being a linear experience and the second being more of a sandbox.

    5. Randomization of certain events.  At first certain units would be accessible and others would not and that was that.  This felt too rigid, so now 90% of doors are randomized to either open or short-circuit (they are currently weighted to open more often than not), with the unit beyond the door also being picked randomly from a pool of available units.  Potential loot will be randomized as well, although key items will be found in the same locations and will be excluded from the random rolls.

That's all the major changes, which constituted the bulk of what needed to be done for this to start nearing completion.  Still a few big to-do's left, but they just need love and time.

• Finish GOLIATH's dialogue and speech.
• Connect the elevator and lobby (easy-peezy)
• Autosave system
• Cutscenes
• Character transfer system a la Quest for Glory and Mass Effect.  This one will be tricky, but the idea is to produce a string of text/numbers that will allow you to port your character into the next chapters.  This is the big one, and the one I will likely leave for last.

That's it for this devlog.  I broke two promises to you all, that the game would be done by the end of 2020 and that the next devlog wouldn't be as long as the last one.  To make up for it I'm going to polish some rough edges and push out a build this upcoming week, so keep an eye out for it.  If you're down here reading this, thank you for your time.

-Axelord1942