let it leave me like a long breath

further progress with the history generator

here's the initial html output, that's just dumping all history data into a lightly-formatted html file.

here's where it's at now, with most references between interactions linked, but with no actual index of events (looking at the actors list just gives you their state, not a list of every event they were involved with)

still, it's getting there. i mean, obviously the dataset i'm using right now isn't exactly the most robust, but the output data format is getting into shape. like, i have a lot of plans for how to use this -- games, etc -- but probably the most immediately-reachable one is that i kinda want to set up some kind of automated tumblr, where i generate some gigantic sprawling universe history and then have it start by posting a single random event/actor/object/location/whatever from the whole thing, tagged with its references to other things in the universe like "this is the plant (whatever), which grew in {location:4632} during {time period:45462} and was used by {this culture:12835} as a dye", and then let people send in asks that are those tagged chunks to get whatever thing that is. kind of slowly uncovering the structure of the universe.

and obviously in terms of content i'm nowhere near that being interesting to do, but at least i'm getting closer in terms of generating a properly-formatted output.

actually with this it's been a mix of feelings, because this is something i've wanted to do for ages (years and years) and always figured it would never really happen, or happen, you know, in the vague-and-hazy 'future'. but now it's happening now. and it kind of sucks? i mean that is not really an output that's particularly interesting to read. but also, that's a dataset that i've been working on for all of a week, on a parser that i'm still working the kinks out of, so you know it's important for me to not compare this project, with its week of actual work plus maybe a few months of infrastructural work, to something like dwarf fortress that's been under active development for the past decade.

anyway you know, it's got a lot of potential. just gotta work to make that potential into something actual.

so as you might know, i'm working on a twine porn game. it's been coming along, and right now i'm at the point where i'm mostly finished getting all the code written, and am now on to writing actual content (read: sex scenes).

and like that's going fine but wow it's easier to just outline stuff forever and never write it. unsurprisingly.

so when you do character creation there are a few options about your starting tfs, which are mostly all basic early-game stuff that you can get very easily elsewhere. except. one of them is "start off with a knotted dick". and wow that one has been a hassle. since that's a fairly late-game tf it means i have to actually consider knotted-dick variants for basically every sex scene, whereas for all the other big tfs there's generally a specific point midway through where i have to start thinking about supporting them (because it would be impossible to get them before then). plus a knotted dick can't just have a slight variation, because uhhh if i want that choice to have any weight whatsoever that means i need to actually write a proper knotting scene for all the times it would come up. like this one character creation option has been by far the smallest thing that has had the largest impact in terms of increased requirements.

and like that's fine b/c i made that choice very early on and was basically prepared for the extra work, but now i'm looking at the character creation thing going "you know it IS weird that the dick is the only thing that has two options. i can think of some upgraded versions of the other choices that i could add to even that out."

because like changing the character creation would be super easy. adding in a new tf and adding pc description support for it is pretty easy. but what would not be easy would be adding three more options each with as widespread consequences as having a knotted dick.

so like i'm not gonna do that but now that i've thought of it being a possibility it's something i want to pick at. but no, since i would like to get this twine game finished in a... somewhat reasonable amount of time, and multiplying my workload 3x is not gonna help at all.