Event Triggering Conditions - What do you prefer?

[metamira]

I'm neck deep in implementing the chores and events system for my WIP game A Very Full House (shameless tech demo plug) and I'm curious what sort of triggering conditions people prefer in their open world dating/corruption games? I'm leaning towards deterministic because it's the easiest to implement and I think it's the most straight forward for the player to plan around.

Also, are there any other options that you've seen for implementing random events in games?

 

[Trace101]

Tough to say!

I like the idea of 'Mixed', imo, but I can completely understand how Deterministic would be much easier to account for and I don't really have anything against that either.

 

[metamira]

Tough to say!

I like the idea of 'Mixed', imo, but I can completely understand how Deterministic would be much easier to account for and I don't really have anything against that either.

From the programming side of things it's a tiny bit easier to make things purely deterministic, but from a game design view a little randomness is kind of helpful. Otherwise I need to make sure every event has enough "space" to exist without crowding other stuff out. If there are 7 different event variations for "doing stuff in the kitchen" I could have each one trigger on a specific day, but there's no immediately clear place to put an 8th event. I also imagine it's annoying as a player to realize you missed something because you happened to not try it on a Tuesday or something.

I'm slowly convincing myself that Mixed is the best option. Use purely deterministic checks for specific characters, specific times of day, specific outfits (i.e. all the stuff you have some control over). Then if there are multiple events that could happen within those parameters randomize between them.