Hey friends!
Like I mentioned in the last dev log, this week I spent a lot of time working on longterm story and quest arc planning. I finished one of the pre-reqs for this which was a summarization system enabling better AI memory which we can also use for longterm planning, Basically it will periodically summarize the story making it so it can remember the broad details much farther back than it otherwise would.
I also did a brainstorm session some awesome folks who spent a couple decades between them doing narrative and game design at wizards of the coast and got a ton of ideas for how how to build a longterm story planner that can set up interesting and compelling quest arcs for the player to go on. After refining those ideas I've got a really good idea of what the V1 of the longterm quest planner will look like.
Eventually I want to make quest arcs for all kinds of things, mystical items you discover, companions you adventure with, factions you join etc...
For the next version I'm going to focus on two in particular, character backstory arcs, (were you an orphan that needs to discover their parent's killer? Or is there someone who wronged you that you need to avenge?) and brewing trouble / world arcs, for example an evil necromancer that slowly grows in power that you have to learn about, discover the tools to and eventually defeat.
I also spent a lot of time scoping out what it will take to get to the first early access version. And while I don't want to get people's hopes up, I think it will be sooner than a lot of people expect. 😉
I've done a lot of playtests with friends and family and consistently people are really excited about where Heroes is at already, with many of them telling me that this is the AI Dungeon they always wanted the first time they played. So I'm feeling pretty excited about where we're going! 😁
– Nick
