Check out the official Roadmap for the game here!

This devlog comes a little late than planned due to the update that comes alongside it. I'm proud to announce Synthaar has achieved its first milestone, focusing on the development of the homestead, the basic needs of characters, and the foundations for which the rest of the game shall build upon! The roadmap has been updated, and now development will march on toward our second milestone; relationships and progeny! 

Hands down, the most difficult part of accomplishing this first milestone is getting the AI to work and work well. While there are still a few kinks and unknown bugs to find and work out, of course, the AI of Synthaar is able to sustain its characters, utilize objects with intelligence, and prevent collisions, crashes and errors while doing so. With being able to take care of the basic needs with basic items, this opens the door to begin creating new and more diverse items in which to buy, furnish the homestead with, and make life easier for characters overall. Being able to buy nicer and more efficient items is one of the keystones to progression in any life simulator. 

Unfortunately, because so much has been focused on refining and cleaning up systems rather than adding content, it has been difficult to showcase new things in Synthaar, as it is difficult to show how a character is more capable of keeping themselves alive than perhaps showing a new piece of furniture or building option. Moving on, new content will be provided alongside new systems, as many of the fundamental systems have been put into place and are operational. 

With this milestone complete, the next milestone is focused on relations, building your legacy through offspring, venturing out into commercial and communal lots to meet new people, and managing your family tree and the memories made along the way. As characters are not able to live forever, it is important that they secure their lineage with children. Children will be able to be conceived through natural and scientific methods, and grow from infancy, to childhood, and beyond. 

It is exciting to see Synthaar progress into becoming the game that was envisioned, and quite a challenge with the complexity of the systems that are going into its overall simulation. Smaller improvements, bug fixes and more features will of course be implemented even if they are not explicitly laid out in the roadmap, and due to my rather eclectic design style, some progress on future milestone markers will be furthered as needed. 

Stay tuned every other Tuesday (or around Tuesday, sometimes!) for a new Devlog regarding the development of Synthaar! Thank you so much to those who have been interested in my game. Please join our Discord for more information, and help us out by wishlisting Synthaar on Steam today!

V0.1.0 PATCH NOTES

ADDED

• Characters can now blink and close their eyes
• Z's appear when characters are sleeping
• Items you can't afford now appear with a red icon in build mode
• A Speech Bubble appears over talking characters
• Characters can quickly grab a snack from the Cooler for a fast treat
• Object descriptions in build mode now clearly state what motives or utility they provide for, on a three point scale
• Room Environment Scoring is now operational, affecting character's environment motive
• The Utility Box now allows you to connect or disconnect to the nearest city's utilities, if you have a road connection

CHANGED

• Windows, Doors, and other wall objects are now always visible in Build Mode
• Temporarily set the Responsibility motive decay rate to zero until there are things that demand it
• Altered how power and water utilities income and storage are displayed in the Resource tab

FIXED

• Extensive Overhaul of AI and general decision making among characters
• Randomly generated NPC civilians no longer start off as infants
• Characters no longer try to use objects that are already in use
• You no longer receive a condolence message for characters who die that aren't yours
• Several tasks now properly unfreeze motives when no longer being used
• Entering populated lots will no longer start with build mode activated on occasion
• Characters now align properly while sleeping in single beds
• The build menu now properly appears when building on an unpopulated lot
• Character creator properly resets options and palettes when creating another character
• Character selection icon no longer tries to track a character that isn't on the lot
• Reworked collision to make it easier to select and grab doors and windows after they've been placed
• All 8 characters in a full legacy will appear as icons in the Legacy Bin, instead of just 7 maximum
• Characters will no longer hold onto deleted objects in their inventory
• Roads now appropriately adopt the color of the roads of a planet while in lot view
• Plumbing objects, such as showers and toilets, now have a water draw dependency