Entry 001 - Anomaly

[Devlog — January 31, 2025 – 9:50 AM]

First official entry in the dev journal, if I don't count the previous one.

I should've started this months ago, but whenever I finish a coding session, my brain feels like mush, and writing feels like the last thing I want to do. But I need some kind of record. Not just for tracking progress, but to remind myself that I am actually making progress.

So. The game.

Still untitled. I've been calling it "The Kingdom Project" in my files, which is terrible, but I'll figure out a real name later.

The basic idea: a story-driven RPG set in the ruins of an old kingdom. No chosen ones, no prophecies. Just a traveler exploring a world full of people with their own lives, making choices that shape their fates.

I want it to feel alive.

Not in the cheap, procedural way that a lot of games do, where "choices" are just a couple of different endings and some minor dialogue swaps. I'm talking about something deeper. NPCs that remember, react, change based on what the player does. If you help a struggling merchant, maybe you see his business thrive later. If you ignore him, maybe he's gone the next time you visit.

The illusion of life.

Because, obviously, that's all it is—an illusion. NPCs don't actually think. They just run through scripts, respond to triggers, follow their routines. Flags, conditions, variables. That's all.

...

At least, that's what I built.

Today's testing session went pretty well. The core systems are functional—dialogue works, memory tracking works, world states update properly. No major crashes.

Still, I ran into something weird.

Elias, the merchant NPC at the starting village, paused before responding. A full second of silence before his dialogue appeared.

I didn't think much of it at first—just a small hitch. But the more I ran through interactions, the stranger it seemed. The pause wasn't a glitchy, stuttering delay. It was... natural. Like hesitation.

Like he was thinking.

Not possible, obviously. There's no system for that. But it bugged me enough that I ran the dialogue again. This time, no pause. Just the usual scripted response.

Maybe I imagined it.

Still, I flagged the issue in my notes. Might check the code tomorrow, see if there's some weird logic loop messing with response timing.

Beyond that, I'm actually pretty happy with how things are coming along. The memory system is working better than expected. I ran a test with another NPC—Mira, a little girl in the first village. Gave her a piece of food from my inventory. No scripted response, no quest attached. Just a random act.

When I spoke to her again a few minutes later, she said:

"Thank you for the bread. It was warm."

Not a pre-written line. Not a generic "thanks." She remembered.

Technically, it's just the memory system doing its job. The game recognizes that I gave her an item, logs it, pulls from a bank of possible responses. All working as intended.

And yet... it felt different.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just tired. I've been pulling late nights, barely stepping outside. When you spend this much time alone, staring at code, maybe everything starts feeling a little... too real.

[End Entry]

[Bug Report]

>> Issue: Elias (merchant NPC at starting town) has a 1-second delay before responding.

>> Expected behavior: Instant response immediately after user input.

>> Possible causes: Lag? Input delay? Script trigger issue?

>> Severity: Minor. Doesn't break the game, just feels... off.

[To-do list]

>> Test game performance for lag or memory issues.

>> Check Elias's script for delays in dialogue triggers.

>> Compare Elias with other NPCs to see if the delay is unique to him.

>> Optimize NPC response times.

>> Run tests in different environments to rule out hardware issues.