Next week, I'm going to start a new mod, under the working title [A18] Journals. Essentially, it will be a "story creation assistant" for players wanting to transform their gameplay into stories. I'll be using [A16] Tale Log Tab (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=858563557) as inspiration, but with more interactivity.
Here's the basic idea:
At any time during gameplay, the user will have access to a "Journal" tab. Clicking it will pause the game and bring them to a full screen view. The left side of the screen will rely heavily on the Tales system, but will also have access to the new [A18] combat history, social history, pawn needs, etc. The right side of the screen will contain the user's gameplay journal. It will initially be empty. From the information on the left side of the screen, the user will be able to select any desired events and copy them into the journal. The user will be able to delete events, rearrange them, and group them into chapters.
So, based on what you see here, what am I missing? If any of you are already telling RimWorld stories, what information have you found to be the most useful? Please let me know.
I have a lot of other wild ideas for future version of the mod, and the ultimate goal would be to have plain English (and other languages) story generation with the user only needing to select the events they would like included - but that's a fairly challenging problem.
Related posts:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/294100/discussions/0/144513524089000780/ (https://steamcommunity.com/app/294100/discussions/0/144513524089000780/)
https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/5ntrb9/tynan_please_give_us_a_journal_and_a_notepad/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/5ntrb9/tynan_please_give_us_a_journal_and_a_notepad/)
https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/4um72e/is_there_a_mod_that_logs_events_in_a_similar_way/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/4um72e/is_there_a_mod_that_logs_events_in_a_similar_way/)
https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/51f7ep/is_there_an_automated_way_of_keeping_a_log_of/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/51f7ep/is_there_an_automated_way_of_keeping_a_log_of/)
I like the concept as a QoL mod. However, have you considered making a journal for the individual pawns? Sort of like an art object/book where a pawn could write down what happened to them recently, or their thoughts or ideas, and having pages that the player could flip forward or backward. The book could have a standard number of pages.
Even if a pawn passed, their journal would live on.
Quote from: The-Eroks on October 25, 2017, 08:34:26 PM
have you considered making a journal for the individual pawns?
I would probably leave it up to the user what they wanted to put in the journal. If the user wanted to only follow one pawn, that would be fine. However, it's probably a good idea to support any number of journals, if possible, to support different story/play styles.
Would definitely use this mod. Great idea :)
I would like a menu with a number of tabs so that it would be easy to keep track over different pawns, or different locations of your base. Most of all it needs to be very well optimized. I used the Signs & Memorials mod for my last game as a journal for the activities of my colonists, it included raids, travels to and from things, and injuries. After a short time it took a very long time to load when I tried to add more things. It also defaulted to the top of the writing, so I had to scroll for a long time to add new things. Of course, a memorial or sign is not meant to be used in that way, but since a journal is, it might be some info on what functions it could have.
A search or filter option would be the best option to look after pawns.
To have it work decently you should create a few output files for different Journals, Worlds and Years.
Similiar to exported characters from prepare carefully.