Dev Ramblings (Needs)

Hello there!

Welcome to another Dev Ramblings, this time a small one focusing on Needs. Firstly, we’ve changed how Need Changes are handled to make it easier when importing events. Now, this doesn’t change much for the players, but we also changed how need changes are displayed. As you can see in the below pictures, Koala has created a series of Need Icons that display when your needs are changed by an event.

This is a small visual change, but it’ll help set up a more constant visual style for the game going forward and overall, we just love the way it looks. You’ll be seeing more things like this in upcoming Ramblings and the update itself. We feel this will really just improve the overall look of the game once these changes are finished.

But I’m not going to leave you with just some icons.

One of the first two major things we are revamping, which everything we’ve posted before is working towards, is an overhaul of both the Arousal and Mood Systems. We hope to expand both of these to make them more dynamic and give up more options. I’ll wait until those are more finished and explain them in their own ramblings, but let me explain how Needs will fit into all of this.

Right now, needs will give you a positive or negative moodlet when high or low. You can also wet yourself and pass out if your Energy or Bladder need tanks. While fun, we plan to expand this system to make it more engaging. Firstly, instead of just giving a positive or negative bonus to mood, being high or low in certain Needs will instead cause your boy to fall into certain “Moods”.

For example, being low on Energy and/or Hunger may cause your boy’s Mood to become Tired or Exhausted. This not only makes your boy sad, but affects things such as skill checks. Too tired, you may also find yourself unable to do physical activities. Low Fun? Your boy may become Bored and be unwilling to do his homework. The expanded Mood system will make keeping your boy happy and healthy much more important.

This will be explained in more detail once the mood system is more finished, but I hope this preview has you as excited as we are for the upgrades to gameplay this overhauled system will bring.