Blueprint Mode

Hello, and welcome to the first ever dev post about Past Connections. These are going to be casual, infrequent posts about the game, what I’m working on, and the state of things. I’m really excited to show you some of the things that I’ve been working on. Lets go ahead and dive right in.

Since this is the first post, I want to give a little more details on what Past Connections is to set some expectations. Past Connections is an open world life simulator game that focuses on building connections and relationships with people in a town. This is done by filling a journal with notes about each person, collecting artifacts by progressing far enough in a relationship, and exploring the town.

The exciting part is that just like Lifespans, you will be able to interact with NPCs in whatever way you would like. The NPCs will be simulated characters that come to life with AI, letting you give full responses and have detailed conversations. These NPCs will also wander around the town and have their own life, forming unique connections without your input. Every playthrough gives you a fresh set of NPCs (and eventually a fresh town) to explore and uncover a story, or create your own.

So, on to more of the dev - loggy side of things. 🪵

To build the game itself I needed a way to design the interior and exterior buildings of the world and the town that it inhibits. The game is using assets from the wonderful creator Lime Zu, but these are designed for things such as RPG maker and godot that have tile engines.

Despite this I have decided to build this game in React (and next.js), which does not have a tile engine built in. Tools like Phaser have been very useful, but still I have been wrangling the tilesets both manually and with some ai assisted labeling.

I made the game in React because it is the language that I am familiar with, but it also gives me complete freedom over how I build the game. I felt like when I tried out RPG maker it was restrictive for what I wanted to build, so I kept with the language that I knew with the tech stack I was already familiar with.

This led to the creation of Blueprint mode. This is a building engine that is allowing me to create the games interior and exterior buildings, as well as put it all together in a town. I am going to release Blueprint mode to the players as well, so that you can build a town and interiors to fit whatever story you would like. Eventually you’ll be able to share designs with friends and the community and compete in best design challenges!

The first version of blueprint mode was not very blue at all. I wanted it to look like you were sitting at a desk, drafting with a piece of paper, but the design did not work. Additionally the UI was clunky, and the assets were miniscule when trying to select.

A few redesigns got it here, where there was a dedicated toolbar, assets were bigger, and it was slightly more navigable. But it was still hard to see things on the map with a big right bar, and the overall design just didn’t match the Past Connections vibe.

Now, blueprint mode has been revamped to actually be blue. The menu on the side was taken and placed on the top, and the icons reorganized. I kept the same tool bar and have slowly added functionality over time. This has allowed me to finally start building out some of the initial interiors of the game.

Here is a grocery store with a butcher's area in the back.

A cute bakery

A restaurant

A clothing store

A small house

A jail / police station

A bait shop

All of these buildings are still a WIP so they may change, but it gives a pretty good idea of the type of style the main game will have. As a little secret, the main jobs are going to act as mini games, so some of the interior designs have been made with that in mind.

If you like posts like this and want to be informed about the game when it drops, subscribe to the waitlist below! Waitlist subscribers will also get early access to testing and new feature announcements.

I look forward to working on this game, I have had so much fun so far and I think it is going to be something really wonderful. See you all on release day! (Whenever that may be)