Dev Log — December 2022

Hi everyone!

Another month, another development update! I'm really liking how these are turning out and how they help me share the progress I might otherwise forget about.

I have started developing the next update with purpose, and expect it to be out in two weeks or so. I have also decided to name dev logs after the month they are posted, instead of the month that passed. So no one missed out on the November dev log!

Dynamic Avatar

Since I'm doing a lot of coding in my work life, it's nice to sometimes treat myself to other tasks that need doing on BMR. For that reason, I decided to spend some time this month designing the backbone for the dynamic avatars: what variables do we need to track and how should they be stored and processed?

Here's a link to the specifications: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VDaTvfX8yj1lwoIqmC5dYXbGtFb887PIzi7Y7-TAKIg/edit?usp=sharing

Unlike now, where all changes to your character are unique traits, the new system will use a number of innate characteristics that describe any person's appearance. Right now, each size is a trait with a unique id, which makes tracking it unnecessarily complicated, because the system doesn't have a basic understanding of what size is, or how something like lactation might relate to a person's breasts. Instead, all these interactions are coded into the individual trait, creating a complex web of relationships between traits that should've been an integral part of the system. The idea was good: to make the system incredibly flexible to allow for virtually any characteristic to be manipulated, but ideally, some things should be known by the system to better support other features, such as absorption-themed forms.

I plan on upgrading how characteristics are tracked and processed behind the scenes with the next update, so while everything will look the same, it will in fact be running on a system that could support dynamic avatars and body part forms. That way, the only thing I'd need to add in the future is how a character's appearance is being presented to players.

Hair

A character's hair will consist of four base values: color, style, length, and special effects. The color will be tracked as an actual hex value, allowing spells and effects to gradually change someone's hair towards a different color, say by making it more red, blond, blue, or dark!

The shape of an avatar's hair will be determined by its style and length, instead of similar hair of different lengths being unique styles, as it is in most games. I think this will create a very immersive experience for players when their hair grows out for any reason.

Lastly, special effects will function much like traits do today, and are any unique effect that might affect the hair in some way. It could, for instance, be that you have goo or snakes for hair, or that it's gold-colored. These in turn might give your avatar a unique hairstyle as well, but since they are tracked elsewhere, your character will revert to their hairstyle, and what's more, you could have short or dragging medusa hair!

Hair is a good example because most other traits use similar logic (makeup style, color, and special effects; eye style, color, and special effects, etc.)

Gender

The concept of gender will also be removed, and a value for tracking genitals will be added in its place, allowing for characters to have anything from no genitals to multiple genitals of the same or varying kinds! Pronouns used by the game will also be made gender-neutral for all player characters, as the determination of anyone's gender identity is conceptually unfeasible, more so in this game as gender traits are likely to change constantly and at any time.

Effects

Effects resemble the current traits the most, in that they can virtually support any changes to a character. These will be used for any characteristics that don't affect your character's appearance and in turn the dynamic avatar. This could be any mental change.

The greatest difference between now and then, is how it is being stored. Currently traits are stored as a json string, which is incredibly inefficient, while the new system will store a string of characters/bytes grouped into threes.

A byte supports a number from 0 to 255, and these three numbers give us a myriad of possibilities. The first number is used to determine the effect type, which could be a speech impediment. The purpose of the other two numbers can change depending on the type, but for a speech impediment, they would store the exact impediment and its severity.

For comparison, the minimum data required to store traits for a character right now could be used to store effects for over 100 characters! With more than 100,000 characters in the game already, such efficiency is important!

New Hire

An artist who is working with one of my clients is interested in helping out with the game, and from next year they will be hired part-time to help with a steady influx of new content. They will be working on anything between fullscreen scenes, updating old item assets, and the dynamic avatar. I assist in implementing their graphics into the games for our mutual client, so it just made sense to hire them on to help with BMR whenever they are not overwise occupied.

This is a bit ahead of schedule, considering the reward goals here on Patreon, but I am willing to invest some of my own economy into the game at this point to help it grow faster!

Thank you again for all your support, and since this should be the last dev log before the update is out, I hope you are looking forward to it! ♥️

Cheers,

Tinon