Hey everyone,
FRAGLINE hits Early Access on August 26, and there's a demo up right now if you
want to try it before then.
Two things landed this round: the in-game esports portal finally has real
photos, and player contracts got a complete rework. Next time it's the match
engine, specifically how the AI plays save rounds.
The portal has pictures now
Until now, every story in the in-game portal was carried by a coloured
placeholder. Functional, sure, but it made the whole news feed feel like a
spreadsheet with headlines.
29 story types (signings, bitter transfers, upsets, win streaks, locker room
leaks, bootcamps), five different shots each. 145 images in the game.
They're AI-generated, then filtered and edited by hand. A lot more came out of
the pipeline than made it into the game. The rules below are why.
A few rules I set for myself and stuck to:
- No people. Every player in FRAGLINE is fictional. Put a real face in a
transfer story and the same guy shows up under five different names by
mid-season. So: rooms, objects, screens, light. Never a face. - No text in the images. The game runs in six languages and the world is
fictional. An English scoreboard sitting under a Turkish headline looks wrong,
so anything text-shaped became abstract light and geometry instead. - Everything stays in the game's palette. The shots are lit for the portal's dark
blue with one warm accent, so nothing screams for attention next to the UI.
The picture is picked from the story itself, so the same news item always shows
you the same shot: reopen a save two weeks later and it hasn't changed. The
photos show up on the portal front page, the news mosaic, article pages, story
files, and on the PORTAL card on your home screen.
Contracts are a book now
The old negotiation screen was a stack of modal windows. You clicked through
sliders, hit accept, and a number changed somewhere. It worked and it was
completely forgettable.
It's a book now. An actual contract on the desk in front of you: terms on the
left page, clauses on the right, and you turn the pages as you work through the
deal. When you're happy with it, you sign it, with your mouse, your own
signature, and the game remembers it for the rest of your career.
Under the paper there are 24 clauses to negotiate: 14 for players, 10 for
staff. Release clauses, loyalty bonuses, MVP bonuses, playing time guarantees,
sell-on vetoes, end-of-season exits, automatic renewals. These aren't
decoration: every clause is wired into the engine. A playing time guarantee you
can't honour will turn into an unhappy player. A generous bonus structure shows
up in your payroll. Promise a sell-on veto and you'll remember it the day
someone bids.
Asking for more gives you less each time, and there's a ceiling of six clauses
per deal, so you can't just tick every box. Transfers, staff hires and renewals
all go through the same desk.
What's next: save rounds
Next dev log is about the part that matters most: how the AI actually plays.
I'm going deep on in-round decision making, and the save round is at the top
of the list. Right now, when a round is lost and a player decides to keep their
gun, they don't always behave like someone who's genuinely trying to get out
alive. That's the behaviour I'm rebuilding: when to disengage, where to go,
what to do when a teammate is still fighting, and how the rest of the team reads
that call. Alongside it, a general pass over the engine, the small decisions
that add up over a full season.
More on that next time.
FRAGLINE is a solo project. Every bug report and suggestion so far has gone
straight into the build, so keep them coming.
Early Access: August 26. The demo is live now.
Wishlist it on the store page so you know when it's out.
FRAGLINE