I'm very happy with the progress since the last update. If I'm allowed to say so: I think the new features are awesome, hilarious, and some of them are horrifying in just the right way. There are tons of bug fixes along with the new features, and the overall game quality continues to get better and better.
Something I'm finding particularly gratifying as a "Software Developer" is that as I continue with this project, adding new features gets easier, not harder. In a lot of software projects, the bigger they get, the harder it is to add new stuff. I feel the opposite: as this project gets bigger it gets easier to build new stuff, and the quality just keeps getting higher. Looking back at what I've built so far makes me very proud, and I'm excited to see what I can build going forward.
The demo is already pretty hefty for a narrative focused game with limited replayability. I have estimated the completion time at around 3 hours. I only expect the full game to be around 6-8 hours, so putting half the game in the demo is a little... much? That being said, I'm not planning to release in Early Access, so the demo is one of the primary ways I can playtest and get feedback. I also think it's important to let people see the progression between the tasks, and the capability escalation over time, and you can't do that with a demo that ends too quickly.
I think this point specifically is a good spot for the demo to "end". It hints pretty strongly at what's to come in terms of capability escalation, and hopefully leaves the players wanting more. It might be so long that it isn't a great "funnel" into a purchase of the full game, but I've been toying with the idea of making a version of the full game free anyway, so I don't really mind if I'm not maximizing sales.
I've started submitting HAE Stack to a few different festivals & gaming events. I don't have any news about them yet, but that's something that will start taking up more and more of my time as I approach the game's launch. If you're running a festival, indie game event, or do press coverage of smaller games, please let me know via discord or email.
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In the previous build, I introduced "HAE-Gent", an "AI Agent" built into HAE-Eye. That version was a proof-of-concept. It was simplistic, only did one thing, and wasn't that useful or "agent-y". In the latest update I've fully revamped that feature: HAE-Gent is now significantly more powerful, does a lot more, and is WAAAAAY more annoying and wordy, just like the "agent" features in real software!
Remember: there is NO AI in the game, these "AI Agents" are a parody, I wrote them myself and they don't do any Gen-AI stuff.
No, not that kind. While it would be in-line with this project to have a fake social media website you use to spy on people, that's a huge can of worms. I'm pretty against social media in general (never really used any of it, find it more exhausting than interesting), so the idea of immersing myself in it enough to make a fake one and then filling it with fake content sounds like an absolute nightmare. No, this is leaning into the "Network" part of "Social Network".
I zoomed out a bunch so I don't reveal any actual data, but this app lets you view, filter and create associations between people and places in a whole new way. It's revealed as a teaser at the end of the demo, but it works and you can play around with it as much as you want. It will become very useful in the post-demo content of the full game.
List of changes in rough chronological order:
BUG: Fix employee image not loading on login.
BUG: Fix issue where you couldn't add spaces to the end of nicknames.
UI: always show the up/down arrows on numerical input elements (instead of only on hover).
WORDING: Change wording on Question 6 of DOTA New Hire Training 1 to "Saved Lists" from "The Lists feature" for clarity/consistency with the buttons.
FEATURE: Support "downloading" apps from chat.
FEATURE: Add an App installation UI.
BUG: Fix bug where Tasks with multiple inputs would have the last one selected by default.
UI: Docked windows now adjust with the game window when it is resized.
UI: App windows will adjust their positions and size when the game window is resized so they don't end up off-screen.
FEATURE: Expand search box UI to allow searching both people and place at the same time.
FEATURE: Add "Agentic Overlap Time" feature to HAE-Eye.
FEATURE: Add a link icon to some search boxes to jump directly to the selected person/place.
BUG: Fix issue where sometimes an app window would be stuck minimizing any time it was moved.
DEV: simplify Notes app code & functionality.
UI: add link to open Agentic Overlap Time from relationship cells (if it's unlocked).
FEATURE: Fully redesign and reimplement HAE-Gent agentic association UI.
ASSET: Update the Agentic Assication preview image.
MINOR: Support spaces in wavy text element text.
PROGRESS: Add more badge levels for repeatable badges.
WORDING: Change the unimplemented HAE-Eye tool labels to "Restricted".
BUG: Fix bug where unlocks were not reset when switching profiles.
BUG: Fix issue where app window docking wasn't being stored properly.
WORDING: Change the name of the job application website to "Labor Nexus".
BUG: Adjust the visible map elements so that the high school name actually shows up.
WORDING: Change main menu "Apply for a Job" button text to "Find a Job".
CONTENT: Support "Naval College" as a kind of school for business hours and employment.
BUG: Fix bug in ScheduleEditor that could cause home locations to have no lat/long.
BUG: Fix custom employee avatars not rendering as a circle.
UI: Differentiate the title bar color for Settings.
DEV: Add support for "not working" as an employment type in the ScheduleEditor.
BUG: Fix various ScheduleEditor issues related to Lat/Long syncing and copying.
DEV: Add link to open HAE-Eye from ScheduleEditor.
BUG: Properly use the mph setting when calculating "flying" navigation paths.
DEV: Automatically reload the position history in HAE-Eye when it is regenerated by the ScheduleEditor.
DEV: Decouple internal event names from the input element so you can type properly in ScheduleEditor.
CONTENT: Support additional place categories from map files.
CONTENT: Add/audit authoritative relationships for every person.
CONTENT: Add authoritative advertising flags for every person.
UI: separate the day of the week from the date in ScheduleEditor.
FEATURE: Add support for Tasks that are assigned, but not "IN PROGRESS", to handle cases where someone is going to add a comment before you start a task.
DEV: Fix bug in ScheduleEditor where the "Show more relationships" button didn't work.
CONTENT: Update the teens task position history and update the EXIF metadata to match.
UI: The window docking preview animation for docking to the left side was offset by 5px.
UI: Show the docking preview animation above other windows.
UI: Add support for italic text in Teams.
BUG: Resizing docked windows now properly clears their previous size.
BUG: Media Viewer image "Location & Time" button could fail to go to both the location and the time.
RESEARCH: Add more articles to the Research section.
SFX: Add hover and click SFX to basically everything.
DEV: Remove deprecated "listener" system in favor of newer "pub-sub" system for various game events.
FEATURE: Add Social Network app.
FEATURE: Sync changes between Social Network and HAE-Eye.
BUG: Fix bug in TRCE task where it would unlock long before Brentin says it was fixed.
FEATURE: Restore the state of various apps when locking -> unlocking the computer.
UI: Make Tasky input area slightly more noticeable.
UI: Prevent the time of day indicator from overlapping the buttons on the time slider.
CONTENT: Add a 4th day to the game.
TEXT: Minor tweaks to the end of demo messages.
BALANCE: Increase the score requirement to reach Employee Success Level 3.
UI: enforce the app's minimum size when docking windows.
BUG: Fix bug where docked windows would move to a different location when you lock -> unlock the computer.
UI: Increase HAE-Eye minimum height to better fit its contents.