Conviction Chronicles blog post #17 - Evidence gathering implemented

 This is going to be in an update to the demo, but there won't be as much text for this as most of the content done is backend code, which is more technical and doesn't much more to talk about for the average person.

Evidence

With evidence gathering, I had to go back to everything to add support for slots to be used to store certain information for the player and each living character. Basically it's a very dynamic way of gathering information and pushing it to the storage whenever possible. Lots of checks to make sure it runs well, and I still need to re-review it later to make sure it's doing every thing of evidence correctly.

Evidence is stored between

>The Main evidence text

>Description for the evidence

>The date

>tags

The date is separate since certain tags, like getting evidence from someone else, uses numbers and storing a date in that same slot can make some errors where code might think a tag of getting evidence from someone else means a date instead.

The tagging system is mainly for the trials, as later on I can use the tags to restrict what evidence can be used for who instead of needing to dig through the main evidence text for it. It also stores the type of evidence it is.

Different types of evidence:

> Alibi - These are always good and gives protections. Alibis are very limited in nature, mostly restricted to if they can use their laptop for auctions or not and if they hanged out with someone. 

>Evidence - This always is negative, but it's negativity varies from being tame to being outright convictive by itself.

>Fabrication - This isn't implemented as much yet due to reasons I'll go into later, but this means the evidence or alibi has been altered in some way.

Why can't the player or AI make fabrications before trials?

Anybody can tell a lie at any time, but this is a game, and the moment the AI can do anything at any time they gain the power to abuse it. Since the idea can't be restricted to a certain location, while testing they would attempt to spam it as much as they can which makes every evidence/alibi into a fabrication. The idea for the fabrications is to have strong evidence always in your favor but it being more punishing as most truth still exists in some shape or form to catch the lie. So it's being limited to trials and it might have to become more limited to make things interesting/fun. 

Evidence limits

To make it more gamey and for my own sanity, evidence is limited to 10 slots for everybody. This follows in line with the limited inventory space for everybody and forces the player to prioritize evidence. The AI sort of have a system, but they are kind of random what they keep and don't keep overall even with the equations in place, mainly to keep them intelligent but also random enough where they won't always choose the same options for more dynamic gameplay. 

Evidence Sharing

During investigations, the AI and player can share information with each other.

If the AI has hatred for the player, they will let the player give evidence but not give any back.

If on the fence, they will decide randomly.

If they trust the player, they will give some evidence before the player chooses to give any or not.

It's a way to make evidence spread around a little more, and it can happen once per character per investigation.

If evidence is given that is harmful to a character, it transforms into blackmail.

Blackmail

Blackmail is rare but allows you to sacrifice any good will you have for some sort of reward. The person being blackmailed can accept or reject it, the AI uses the severity of it to choose to accept the blackmail or ignore it. Ignoring it keeps the evidence in play while blackmail fully removes it from the blackmailer's evidence inventory. Once accepted it's impossible to back out of the selection.

The blackmailer could destroy the evidence for increasing their bond. Or they can force the blackmailed to not vote for them or vote for a specific person during the trial. Or they could demand all of their money as payment. 

It's made to be rarer for the AI, but over time, it becomes more active that an AI will actively gain more of a chance to do blackmail the less people there are. It also follows in line how much having any evidence against you matters more the less people there are, due to the decreased votes and voices to manipulate. 

This also means the blackmail can be gotten from someone else, and the original holder may still hold the evidence. 

Player Only Content

The fact of the matter is there are certain things only the player would do, mainly since it's really dumb to do so. So the AI can get convictive evidence against the player if they decide to do things like enter someone's room without permission, go into the ladies bathroom as a male character and take a shit, burn evidence in front of other people, messing with items in a dorm room while the person is awake in that room, etc. 

UI

The evidence UI is kind of basic, it has everything it needs. It's a little different looking with Lily vs everybody else, since Lily is more off than everybody else. Most things for images are made with 3D grey man models I made and posing them in an environment along with putting a sketch filter to make it seem more like a police sketch. Lily on the other hand looks more like she was on LSD. This made making the menu content a little more annoying, but it adds more details.

Anything else?

Originally the plan was to jump right into the trials right after this, but it's becoming more clear certain things should be added for the middle part of the game to keep adding variety like 100 line does, and for more group events. Mainly since the social events right now focus on 1 on 1 and there is barely enough for showcasing group dynamics as a whole which is needed for slice of life for the characters to define them more with smaller detailing, is needed to add more reactions, etc. This is being attached to the cafe, since the player doesn't have a good reason to skip it, and having more interactions be done if skipping it would be nice for extra choices to make everything feel more dynamic/alive. I also want to add more to the title screen to make it more dynamic feeling, and there are certain things I really should have in the bonus menu for viewing. Along with making the menu easier to navigate so it doesn't restart the scene when trying to go out of the bonus menu. A lot of smaller improvements and some bigger are really needed here.

That does mean a couple of months of development, which is what I'm expecting, are being added to the game to make things better before trials can start. I do want to do this to make the demo better along with the main game, and I don't want to start the trials until everything I want for the demo's content is done.