Seeking Ren'Py - Autonomy

[Mr Sandman]

Hi, I was just wondering if there was a game (which uses Ren'Py engine) where characters/NPC's whom are NOT controlled by the player have autonomy.
I and a couple others are making an adult a game like this using the Ren'Py engine and we were just curious if there was one already out.

In other words, I am specifically talking about mechanics in Crusader Kings 2 (CK2) and The Sims... The characters/NPC's in both those games are not just static 'objects' for the player to interact with but have their own autonomous interactions with other 'objects' in the game world. These characters form their own relationships with other characters and not just the player character. Additionally, based on their relationship 'level' (or score or whatever) they can act independently and like real people (or at least seem player controlled). in addition, If two characters have a high enough "love" level they can start dating and if two characters have a low enough "friendship" level they can become enemies and for example "plot" to kill each other - much like the plot system from CK2.

This is REALLY hard to explain lol!

We have been using Daz3D and iRay for our game and it has been in development for around 4 months. - It is not ready for a public release yet.

So... Is there an adult game which has this feature?
And would this type of game interest any of you?

Thanks,

 

[gamersglory]

Ren'Py is far as I know is not robust enough for some type of AI/Vi mechanics. you would need Unity to implement something like that unless you were to program something in Python to work with Ren'py. Ren'py is pretty basic on it's own

 

[Avaron1974]

Yeah, Ren'py is a pretty limited engine, there is nothing like that. It's only really used for simple VN's and very basic RPG's.

You'd be looking at more advanced engines and very advanced coding for that to work. The only thing you could possibly get out of Ren'py is having NPC's appear at set locations at various times.

 

[DarthSeduction]

Ren'Py is far as I know is not robust enough for some type of AI/Vi mechanics. you would need Unity to implement something like that unless you were to program something in Python to work with Ren'py. Ren'py is pretty basic on it's own

This... it's certainly possible to create some sort of basic NPC AI in Python and apply it to Ren'Py, but it's not something that Ren'Py was intended to be used for.

I can think of a few ways to easily simulate such autonomy without it actually being there, though, just setting up a large list of scenarios and calling a random one every hour or whatever makes sense for your game's mechanics, for any given NPC to be doing. If the list is large enough it would take quite a long time to find them all. If it's too small it would be no different from any Life Sim where the characters are doing different tasks during the day depending on the time.

So the question I would have is just what kinds of things are they doing. How are they interacting? Is the AI taking into account relationship status and having sexual encounters occur between NPCs without your input? Or is it just events, like you'll go to the pool and find it populated by citizens based on a set AI routine that makes them feel genuine?

 

[Epadder]

I don't know a way to make Ren'py actually do real time simulation, but I could see ways to instead make the world act like it is being simulated.

You could essentially track the state of every location and character in your game every in-game 'turn'. You could then run another function that essentially examined every location and if it found people in that location give them a chance to interact. If they did interact these characters would then be sent into the function to deal with the interactions that could change their state. Depending on states and how and what was tracked you could then essentially unlock events for your character to experience.

Also so the player was aware of the state of things in a modern system you could have some simulated 'Social Media' thing that would let you in on how things were going with the other characters in the game.

While that sounds sort of interesting it also seems like one of the most ambitious things you could try and do .

 

[W65]

Not an expert with Ren'py or even Python, but it does sound like what you'd be doing would essentially end up as complicated event scripting.

Some of the Japanese era games simulate this by having a time system and giving the characters artificial schedules. X is currently in location 1, will be there for 5 minutes, heading to location 3--that kind of thing. HHS+ does a similar thing. Characters interact with each other I think more or less at random when they're together. I imagine each has little counters for various kind of interaction points that fill up to simulate growing needs to talk or masturbate or whatever--kinda like what the Sims did in the open. I dunno if that takes a lot of clever programming so much as a lot of gruntwork of deciding on, typing up, and then managing all that scheduling information for everyone.

Like the other posters have said, maybe you haven't chosen the best engine for what you want to do. It's nice to have all the VN-type interactions set up for you, but you'll do a lot of work in what might not be the best language for doing it, and then you're fitting it into the Ren'py framework somehow. Then again, if you used Unity or something you'd still have to set up or find a framework for VN-style interactions, and then you'd still have to set up your simulation engine, but you wouldn't be restricted to however Ren'py implements the external libraries you'd be setting up.

I dunno. I'm no expert--just musing.

 

[Mr Sandman]

setting up a large list of scenarios and calling a random one every hour or whatever makes sense for your game's mechanics, for any given NPC to be doing

The system we have already created is very similar to this but instead of scenarios being random, they are based off of their stats.

Is the AI taking into account relationship status and having sexual encounters occur between NPCs without your input?

Yes this, you explained it much better than I did. We have the basic system in place - The AI will base every decision it makes on their relationship status as well as their personal stats.

 

[Mr Sandman]

While that sounds sort of interesting it also seems like one of the most ambitious things you could try and do .

Ahh yes I agree completely but at the moment things are going reasonably well. I'm glad you find it interesting, it seems that there is a gap in the adult market for this type of game.

 

[sbarabaus]

but then you will show a render? how many would you need to create?

 

[Mr Sandman]

but then you will show a render? how many would you need to create?

Before we release or first build, it needs to have 40 - 60 minutes of game-play. Currently we around 500 renders excluding 21 animations (which have around 1200 renders in total) and 10 minutes of game-play although the following mechanics are not complete; inventory, some aspects of the AI, shop.

We may open a thread on the game development section to showcase our renders as I am not sure if I can post it here.