Relationship Interactions Part 2

Introduction

As mentioned in my last post, I am going to talk about the relationships interaction again. Now that I have had a chance to work on this system, it is now feature complete.

Favors & Promises

As mentioned in the part 1 of this post, the game features a favors and promises system, similar to that of Crusader Kings 3's hook system. A favor gives the player access to "ask" relationship interactions; a promise gives access to "demand" relationship interactions.

Favors are less influential than promises and can be gotten from blackmail and events. Whereas, promises can be gotten from bribery, events and also blackmail (depending on the severity of the blackmail).

Secrets

A main part of the favors and promises system are the secrets. A secret is an event that only certain peeps know. For example, if the player flirts with a married peep, then the player and that peep will be "in" on an unfaithful flirt secret.

Alternatively, peeps can hold secrets between themselves, which can be learned by the player through certain events.

Secrets can become "public knowledge", where peeps will start learning en masse about the secret.

Blackmail

Secrets that the player knows about can be used to blackmail peeps who are at fault in the secret. For example, "Mario" may have unfaithfully flirted with someone whilst married. If the player knows about this - and it isn't in the public domain, then the player can use this secret to blackmail the peep earning either a favor or promise from them. An example of blackmailing is shown below:

Sometimes blackmail fails, which periodically prevents the player from blackmailing again. Blackmailing is another secret which is kept between the 2 parties.

The two reactions to blackmail

However, peeps with a low relationship level may choose to expose any secret they have on the player, seen in the screenshot below:

Bribery

Bribing is a way of spending money for the return of a promise. Bribery also becomes a secret and is always successful. Bribing costs the "bribe price" for the specific peep, which is set at roughly their wealth.

The video shows bribery in action.

Gossip

A new interaction which was implemented was the "gossip" option. Gossiping is a way of sharing player-known secrets with any other peep that doesn't already know about the secret.

You can even share your own secrets, but depending on the person, sharing secrets may lead to a reaction from the other peep. At best, the peep will just learn about the secret and be happy that you shared it with them. At worst, it can lead to breakups and divorces.

Event-based Gossip

Sometimes peeps that you know will share secrets with you seen in the screenshot below:

This can be used in the same way as secrets the player creates can be. These secrets that don't involve the player directly can be exposed by peeps who learn about them (note, shy peeps will not reveal secrets).

A message will pop up like this when this happens:

Move Screen

When I implemented the groups screen I also added the move screen, which allows the player to move peeps between 2 properties. This works by tapping on a peep, which will move them to the other property shown. A video is shown below:

Roommates

The player can also choose to move into a house with a best friend, this will turn them into a "roommate", which is another secondary relationship. Note, there is currently a glitch where some peeps are sometimes shown as friends rather than their actual relationship.

Buying a House

Houses can be bought and then moved into through the move screen. Eventually I may add renting of properties. (Note, that as of now I have made it so buying a property will immediately prompt the player if they want to move in. This is not shown in the video, as it is a few days old).

Getting Married

Marriage was already implemented in part 1, but it has improved since then. Weddings take place with invited guests and last names can be changed. There was a funny glitch to the last name options, where double-barreled names were shown as an error. This was due to the popup system using dash-separated-values in the code, which conflicted with the double-barreled dash in the string. This was fixed by replacing the dash in the strings to a "£" symbol, which is then rendered as a dash.

Having a Child

Again, this is just fleshed out here being shown on video for the first time:

Divorce

I accidentally forgot to add divorce even after I added marriage, so this was added. This also added alimony etc.

Gift Giving

Finally, the player can give an inventory item to another peep. The amount a peep will appreciate their new gift depends on the "rating" of said item. This is a new property that items have.

Conclusion

To wrap up a long post, I have now completed the relationships interaction. Again, I'll post another blog about new features (for the finances this time) within a week.

Production has ramped up, and the game is soon going to be in alpha, where it will be tested before being released in a beta build for early access.

I have finalised my road map for the game until it can be realised, which should be within a month, fingers crossed.

Regards,

        Joe