Modeling The Data

It’s time to get all the writing into the game. Data-driven assets. Rules, houses, nobles, letter templates, we put them all in YAML files. Once I have it set up it should be easy to add a new level, house, noble, rule. It should be ready for localization and modding.

Let’s get a rough feel for the model for the data.

The game is composed of multiple levels, which we’ll call days. In the end the entire game from start to finish is an ordered list of days. Each day has a world state and events that occur.

The day plays out as a series of events. When the first event is complete, the next event starts. If all events are completed, the last event is replayed until the day ends.

Each event generates a random letter that fits the conditions (templates, senders, recipients, mistakes weighed by probability, mistake chance) of the event. First a letter template is randomly chosen among all the templates that the conditions allow. The parameters of the letter (sender, recipient, seal, greeting, signature, message body parameters) are then filled out randomly into a letter that fits the conditions.

The world state contains a list of rules that are in effect on a given day, a list of court etiquette rules, and a list of high houses.

The list of rules is a subset of all rules, and all rules are a finite list.

The list of court etiquette rules is all court etiquette rules, this never changes.

The list of high houses should also be all high houses and never change. Each high house has a motto, wax seal color, wax seal shape, seal symbol (image), province, seat, capital estate, motto, list of nobles. None of these change during the course of the game neither the list of houses nor the properties.

—

I have created this structure for the YAML files: .

│   game.yml

│

├───days

│   └───day_001

│       │   day.yml

│       │

│       └───events

│               event_001.yml

│

├───houses

│       high_houses.yml

│       nobles.yml

│       provinces.yml

│       seals.yml

│       seats.yml

│

├───letters

│       templates.yml

│

└───rules

        etiquette.yml

        rules.yml

I haven’t managed to write all the files yet. I’m going to continue tomorrow.