Hello everyone
Unfortunately, I will not be able to finish the demo by the end of this year but I still wanted to give an update on the development! As some of you may know, I made a bit of a change of plans back in August 2023 and created a small map called Thorpes for now. Don't worry, I will still continue working on the Pashire County Map later on but wanted to be able to work on a smaller scale for now. I've also been working on a number of other small features that I'll talk about at some point in the future.
Thorpes
Thorpes is a small rural town with 11 residential homes, a bank, a police station, a general store, and a sawmill set in a pine forest. The economy is mainly based on the export of lumber to outside factories and wholesale companies.
Phones
You and the NPCs can now use phones for talking to each other over longer distances using the normal Social Interaction System.
calling emergency number
Outside Shipping
You can now ship goods to places outside of the map by driving down the main road. This will let you select where to ship and what goods you want to deliver. Once you hit Deliver, the game will start a progress bar and set the game speed to maximum. While you're travelling the game will trigger all kinds of events where you can make your own decisions.
outside delivery UI
Illicit Goods
You can now use closedmarket.com to sell or buy illegal goods. Currently, this is mainly intended for illicit drugs. Some drugs can be foraged, others have to be grown and/or synthesized. You can also sell them directly to NPCs if they're interested.
closedmarket website
Logging
Trees can now be cut into logs of different lengths with a chainsaw/ axe. You can also carry a complete log directly to a sawmill machine and quickly process it into different kinds of items.
Police
As mentioned, there is now a working police station. The law enforcement system is completely dynamic. If a NPC/ Player observes a crime, they first have to report the crime to the police, for example by talking directly to a nearby officer. If there aren't any officers nearby they have to call the 911 phone number by phone. An NPC dispatcher in the police station will then respond to the call, ask for details and will assign the incident to an active police officer via the Dispatch app. The police officer then receives the information for the incident on his police laptop and drives to the incident. The police can then arrest the suspect.
NPC improvements
I've also been working a lot on making the NPCs behave more human.
Households (NPCs only currently)
Every household now consists of at least one husband and wife (+ sometimes adult children). The husband usually works a job and the wife does the household activities (for simplicity at the moment but I will make this more dynamic later of course). In the game, a household actually functions very similarly to a company. New household features are: Managing household finances, managing household stock (currently just food & drinks), household meals, buying groceries.
Social
NPCs are now a lot more "extroverted". If they know someone, they will greet the person and occasionally make basic conversation. I've also added more social interaction choices for the player. There are also basic romance functions such as eating a meal together or hugging.
Recreation
NPCs will go for a walk or relax on a bench when bored.
Multiplayer
I've also repeatedly attempted to write my own networking system. Now I‘m finally at a point where I have a system that works. Many actions already synchronize but there‘s still a long way to go. It‘s very unlikely that there will already be multiplayer in the first demo versions.
Information Tab
Next to the knowledge tab you can now open the info tab. It contains information about your job(s) and your companies. In general I‘ve added a lot of features to make the game easier to understand & navigate.
info tab
Upcoming
The next time I will upload something here it will be the trailer for the Thorpes Pre-Alpha demo. As I mentioned, things took longer than expected so I‘m hoping to get it done by Q1 or Q2 of 2025. I got really sick twice in the last two months which stalled progress quite a lot but I will start doing exercise again and eat more so that I can prevent such problems in the future.
In the meantime, if you already want to try out a few mechanics (especially combat) that will also be used in CL you can try out the free Pre-Alpha demo of My Drug Cartel on Steam.
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