february 26, 2026

thought i'd provide a breakdown of what has been implemented in Not Nev's World so far. currently i'm about halfway through the game jam which ends on April 1st.

time system and routines

the time system in Not Nev's World is crucial because, most importantly, both the NPCs and Nev have routines which are tied to the time of day. each NPC type has its own particular routine, and currently each NPC type has the same routine for each day except Sunday when they all attend church together in the morning.

the system works like this: a counter named current_time increases by a certain amount tied to delta_time every frame. the counter represents how many minutes have passed, and loops back to zero after reaching 1440; this is the amount of minutes in a day. when it loops back to zero, a separate counter named current_day increases by one, and loops back to zero after reaching 7; this is the amount of days in a week. a separate script takes the current_time and current_day counters and uses them to output the current time and day in a string format understandable to the player, which is displayed in the HUD/UI. for example, if current_time is 480 and current_day is 2, the script will output "Tuesday 08:00". perhaps in a future version the displayed time could be tied to a sprite, similar to Minecraft's clock item.

i wanted to make each day feel like a new experience for the player, so that they would notice something new as they play. over time, they should notice patterns and become familiar with certain routines. for example, knowing that around midday on a weekday the kid NPCs will all go to play in the park. to avoid feeling overly repetitive or predictable, i'm wanting to implement some random events that force the player to pivot and react.

haunt points and player progression

the main form of progression in Not Nev's World is through the accumulation of Haunt Points. these points are accrued by:

spooking NPCs with haunted objects in the world and successfully untapping them before Nev arrives

consuming the souls of the innocent (killing NPCs inside haunted buildings)

haunt points are used to haunt, or effectively unlock:

new buildings

new hauntable objects

upgrades for spooky objects in haunted buildings

in a future version it might be nice to include a player skill tree which is advanced by spending Haunt Points for different player enhancements. this could add a greater sense of progression or allow for a more streamlined approach if the player is interested in a particular strategy. for example, the player might start the game only being able to haunt one hauntable world object at a time, and progressing through an aspect of the skill tree would allow them to haunt more objects simultaneously.

hauntable world objects

Not Nev's World is not static. there's a whole bunch of objects in the world that are hauntable (i don't think 'hauntable' is a real word but it should be). these include but are not limited to:

streetlamps

trash cans

manhole covers

goats. yes, goats

once the player has haunted these objects, they will change their appearance and start to 'spook' passing NPCs. these spooks manifest as Haunt Points which are visible to the player as a number above the object. ideally, perhaps in a future version, the accrued Haunt Points will instead be represented by small, ghostly orbs that float around the haunted object.

you can think of hauntable world objects as being either 'tapped' or 'untapped'. after being haunted, the player can sit back and watch as the spooks roll in. but only after being untapped or deactivated will the object's accrued Haunt Points be transferred to the player's total Haunt Points wallet.

but the player must be wary - if Nev comes too close to a haunted object, he will wipe the Haunt Points from that object, deactivate it and also lock it, preventing the player from haunting it again until it is unlocked for a Haunt Point price. feels like i have to thank Brutus from Mob of the Dead for that idea.

Nev's Van

programming Nev's van felt like unchartered territory for me, but it ended up being a bit simpler than i expected. the only new aspect i had to get to grips with was utilising the ds_queue library in GML, which is basically a queue with a FIFO (first in first out) structure, and is needed during the van's pathfinding process.

the van uses a set of nodes to determine its path through the world. imagine a grid of roads with intersections; each node is placed at these intersections. it also has a 'home' node which it returns to at the end of each day. then, in the morning (at least in the current implementation which is subject to change) the van goes to the nearest node from its home and then randomly selects a different node as its destination. then, it uses a pathfinding algorithm known as a 'breadth-first search' to determine the best path. this was used as opposed to an alternative such as the A* algorithm because the nodes are laid out in a simple grid and each node's connections are stored in a manager object when the room is loaded (e.g. node 1 is connected to node 0 and node 2). there are also no pesky collision obstacles to consider, which is a bonus.

as a quick aside on the topic of obstacles, it dawned on me while implementing the van's pathfinding that there are NPCs crossing the road at any given time. this was quite a funny realisation, since i hadn't considered how to handle them in the pathfinding process. initially i thought that i could have the NPCs wait before crossing the road if Nev's van was nearby and headed in their direction, but given the time frame of the jam i had to go for a more simple approach. in the end, i went with quite a fitting option: Nev simply drives as if they don't exist, and the NPCs are temporarily flattened by the van should they get in its way. and this actually doubles up as giving the player more reason to dislike Nev and motivate them to act against him! this is the nemesis dynamic i wanted.

so, ultimately the breadth-first search seemed more efficient and is definitely appropriate for this case. the van moves at a constant speed and switches sprite depending on its direction. after arriving at its destination, Nev will get out of the van and walk towards the nearest point of interest, such as a haunted object or building. after a certain amount of time, he will return to the van and repeat the process.

what's next?

there are still quite a host of things to implement before the jam deadline of April 1st. in an approximate priority order:

Nev core AI: movement, detection and interaction with the world

Nev backend: subscriber gains/losses depending on daily events, upgrades

Nev's podcast and graphical daily events breakdown for the player

haunted building interiors

full NPC interaction: enticing, scaring, killing, possessing

adding more hauntable world objects

random events to add some unpredictability to the days

win and game-over events

lighting system with day/night cycle

save/load system

audio: music and sfx

extensive playtesting

polish and bug fixing

wish me luck!

written by rubinbizarre