YEAR 2 - BA2b - Day/Night Cycle, New UI, Sex and Mingle, Cannibalism

Since the last post a lot has changed.
- Firstly, we now have the doll assets in the game with clothing that changes depending on the situation.
- I made a day/night cycle that currently is just aesthetic but I'm looking to sync it with how hungry/ tired the dolls are and with specif event too.
- Dolls now lay down when they're placed on a bed and if two dolls like each other enough they'll have sex (which raises their happiness drastically but lowers their hygiene drastically), they also start to like the other doll even more. This would be an unlimited resource of happiness however they won't sleep together if one of the dolls is unhygienic and they'll start to dislike eachother if they spend to long together. Since water is a limited resource, so is sex.

Initially I made it so that the dolls could have sex even if they didn't like eachother and that would make them dislike eachother even more. However, it felt wrong and pretty controversial to leave that in the game so I changed the code to make it so the dolls just lay next to eachother sharing the bed. I do think that controversy isn't inherently a bad thing but it's an area you have to approach with caution and I don't feel like I can give it the caution it deserves with the time we've got remaining.

The dolls get little hearts above their heads if they're going at it. They also remove their clothes. They also remove their clothes when they're alone in their room normally.

Side notes - I made the table to their right and I'm pretty proud about how it looks.
- The bed has a 50% chance of spawning as a different bed made by a different member of the team.


I actually trialed having a hand drawn 2D background that would animate with the time of day and I tested it out with an image in game. It looked okay but getting it looking good was a big responsibility and no one on the team had a particularly strong background in animation.

Next, I made a huge day/night circle that would spin around based on the time of day. This looked good but not incredible. With a dedicated artist working on it and putting little markers around the edges with the time on I think this could have worked well.

What we actually went with works best I think. I was doubtful of how good it would look initially but using UE4's inbuilt landscape editor (and a keen artistic eye) has turned out really nicely for us.

I think it needs some more work but the way the shadows roll across the hills as the sun moves overhead looks really good and it allows us to do loads in the background for the events (zombie uprising, thunderstorm, plane crash, etc...).

You can also see from this image the new UI Connor made for us. I think it helps to show how the dolls are feeling at a glance. A new variable that I've added is HP too. Currently this only goes down if a doll eats part of another doll in return for HP (cannibalism) (The eaten dolls fear will increase and their likeness for the doll that ate them will severely decrease) (The doll that ate the other doll will lose morality and this increases their chance of doing immoral things in the future). Cannibalism only occurs if a doll is very hungry and in the room with another doll. Lower happiness and higher fear contributes to a hidden variable called 'Irrationalism' and this + low morality increases the chance of cannibalism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHTCUcsFSbY - Follow this link to watch a video of the game in action in it's current state.