LiSE, the Life Simulator Engine

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LogicalDash
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LiSE, the Life Simulator Engine

#1 Post by LogicalDash »

I'm writing an engine!

It's for life simulation games, which COULD refer to crazy complex stuff like The Sims or Dwarf Fortress. Then again, a "life sim" might be the sort of game that runs on an elaborate schedule, with a lot of options for where to go and what to do above-and-beyond what to say in any given conversation, which is nonetheless largely a scripted experience--the designer has decided what you have to do, and you have to find out what that is by paying close attention to who's where when. Cherry Tree High type.

For the latter type, LiSE requires very little actual coding. Instead it has a database that keeps track of how the game world changes over time. So you can open up the world editor, set it up how it should be at the start of the game, then advance it one day at a time and make tweaks to the world. LiSE will remember all that, and replay the same changes when it's time to play the game.

But if you want to include simulation rules, yet don't want to code more than you strictly need to, LiSE tries very hard to help you avoid that. Game rules are described by associating "triggers" with "actions" -- the actions say what the rule should do, and the triggers say when it should happen. Both actions and triggers are code -- Python functions -- but they're quite short, and if some other game already has the function you want, LiSE makes it quite easy to import it into your own game. (Obviously raises copyright issues if anyone ever makes something commercial with this. But that's a problem for another day...)

I've only just gotten to the point of making it do things like display styled text at particular times, because I've been focused on making the simulation core work. But I think I'll be sending out test builds soonish. Let me know if you want to test them.

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tigerrenko
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Re: LiSE, the Life Simulator Engine

#2 Post by tigerrenko »

Sounds very cool!

Cheers
R

LogicalDash
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Re: LiSE, the Life Simulator Engine

#3 Post by LogicalDash »

I'm keeping a development blog over on TiGSource if you just want to follow along.

I'm going to implement this game with it: Dungeon University. That's a good example of the kinds of things the engine should be good for.

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Re: LiSE, the Life Simulator Engine

#4 Post by LogicalDash »

I released a new alpha after all this time! It's still not much use if you're not fluent in Python, but the simulation part runs a lot faster now, so it might be fun to hack around with.

https://github.com/LogicalDash/LiSE/releases/tag/Alpha7

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Re: LiSE, the Life Simulator Engine

#5 Post by LogicalDash »

If you're interested in this engine, would you mind filling out this survey?

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