Progress Summary: Game’s Core

At the core of Toplife, we have:

• Time progression

• Aging

• People

• Location

I’m going to go over what I currently have set up for these core parts of the game.

Time Progression

Time in Toplife progresses by days instead of years. This is so that time is concrete and not abstract in the game. There are 24 hours a day. You decide what your character spends those hours on, then the next day approaches, and the clock is reset. I decided to omit years and focus only on days so that the game moves at a good pace while being flexible. I want you to know the exact time your character has to be at work, the exact time your character’s child was born, and the exact time the bar closes, I want you to know the time your character’s partner is supposed to be back home and then wonder why they aren’t home yet. Time has meaning.

Aging

The ages in toplife are divided into life stages. Every life stage is divided into a predefined number of days, except the last life stage (there is no specific day a character is expected to expire). This works fantastically with the time progression and allows the game’s pace to be more flexible. If you want longer life stages or you prefer a fast-paced game so you can move on to the next generation, it’s as easy as changing the number of days in a life stage.

The current life stages are:

• Baby

• Toddler

• Child

• Teen

• Young Adult

• Adult

• Elder

People

People are characters with an origin, personalities, and strong opinions. It was important to me that the world feels alive and it honestly doesn’t get more alive than people.

You get to discover interesting things about others in the game because non-playable characters are just people living their lives, just like your character. You get to experience them without having to dictate their every move, you can just focus on your character.

Location

Locations in toplife are countries. Every country contains states. Each state contains a city, town, and village in an abstract sense. Characters can currently travel between cities, towns, and villages in a state; as well as between states in a country. Traveling is a big part of the game, characters might need to commute to another state to visit someone or commute from their home in town to the city for their jobs.

Countries have laws that dictate what is acceptable there. They also have economies that determine the worth of money earned in one country compared to another.

I’m looking forward to adding culture so that countries are truly different from one another.