Working on integrating ideas for needs and wants from another game and integrating that into Incarcerate. Getting stuck on what actions to include initially even though that’s pretty unimportant until I get the system working.

Initially system I was looking at was intended for a more real time so it will probably be a little strange shifting it to work on a month-to-month basis like what I’m trying to make.

Will probably just be a more what did they spend the majority of their time on this month or some similar abstraction. Not perfect but I can always tweak it later or throw it all away.

Not sure how the best way to actually visually represent this will be though? Maybe have a button when you look at a prisoner to ask what they’ve been up to but I don’t think that should get accurate information necessarily. Especially depending on what available actions I include. Perhaps some buildings or programs you can add in the future will give you a way to get better information about what they are up to and why.

Maybe that could even be a way to encourage players to provide useful services on their inmates. Things like psychiatric service giving you a better idea on how they’re all doing.

Of course that could lead to the negative path of if you just care about what they’re doing going down a monitoring path. Should be something you are allowed to do but maybe find some way to discourage it.

I want the design and systems to push the player away from their prison being an actual prison and them effectively dismantling the prison aspects of it but I don’t want to be obvious or heavy handed about it.