The First and Final Devlog
schilcote on 2021/09/27 03:57
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Interstate Neverending is a terminal-based simulation game where you have survive in a post-apocalyptic scenario where reality itself is breaking down, and if you stay in one place for more than 48 hours, you disappear. As you drive and scavenge for supplies you encounter random events, from animals sneaking in to your vehicle to having to escape a twisted non-Euclidean forest.
The simulation side of the game is simple; it tracks the player character's hunger, thirst, sleep debt, and need to use the toilet; if you run out food or water you die, if you get too tired you pass out, and if you wait long enough you'll pee yourself.
I'm pretty happy with the simulation aspect of the game, though I wish I had more time to actually balance it. I'm really disappointed in the quantity of random events, though; let me explain. There are three types of text-based 'events': driving, get-out, and scavenging events. Driving events come up randomly when driving, get-out events come up whenever you get out of the vehicle, and scavenging events come up when you select the scavenge option on the out-of-vehicle menu.
Scavenge events are typically opportunities - though not always, sometimes when you go out looking for trouble you find more than you bargained for - driving events are just there to break things up and add a little tension to watching the highway cycle through its animation frames between scavenging, and get-outs are supposed to mostly be dangerous, or at least scary; they're the stuff that came to you, and the idea is that getting out of the vehicle at all is risky. Getting a second cassette toilet is supposed to be a big deal, 'cos that doubles the time you can spend without having to go out.
The reason I mention all this is... I didn't have time to write nearly as many events as I wanted, and it pretty much ruins the game. There's only one get-out event, and it's a deliberately confusing and trippy one that was supposed to only come up later in the game - in retrospect I probably should have just removed it. There's also only one random road event, but those are just for extra fun and not critical to the game design.
Still, overall, the game came out okay.