Dev Simulator

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<<timed 0.5s t8n>><img src="images/TITLE.gif"/><</timed>> <<timed 2s t8n>>@@.joketitle;###NOTE - Add fancy graphic here later### @@<</timed>> <<timed 4s t8n>><<link "Quit">><<script>>window.close()<</script>><</link>> [[Continue]]<</timed>>

/* Date time */ <<set $week to 1>> /* weeks since start */ <<set $day to 0>> /* Days since start */ <<set $morale to 4>> <<set $arraymorale= ["Shot", "Exhausted", "Low", "Faltering", "Middling", "Good", "Enthusiastic", "High", "Elated", "Ecstatic"]>> <<set $pop to 2>> <<set $arraypop= ["Persona Non Grata", "'That Dev'", "Accepted", "Trusted", "Posterchild"]>> <<set $teamamount to 0>> <<set $dev to 0>> <<set $polish to 1>> <<set $arraypolish= ["Leviathan-Tier", "Untested", "Bug-ridden", "Playable", "QA Approved"]>> <<set $testamount to 0>> <<set $namelist= ["Mirthfulrhino", "Crankyoas", "Pinkponse", "Mile2", "Maltbird", "Codejourneyman", "Belgiancrepes", "Grandtester", "Steve"]>> <<set $gamelist= ["Rictenreich", "NEIOU", "Seeds of Discord", "Ancient Earth: Depression", "Gravity Falls At War", "The Path to 84", "Expanded Horizons", "Imperium Eternium", "Coloured Buttons 2"]>> <<include [[daytext]]>> <<set $codeday to 0>> <<set $testday to 0>> <<set $teamday to 0>> <<cacheaudio "song" "gamesong.ogg">>

<<if tags().includes("title")>>\ <<else>>[[Info]] <</if>>

by Skip

<<set $name = $namelist.random()>>\ <<set $game = $gamelist.random()>>\ <<audio "song" volume 0.25 loop play>>\ Your Name is <span id="name"><<textbox "$name" $name >></span>, A newly minted junior developer for the popular mod <span id="game"><<textbox "$game" $game >></span>, developed for Pairosocks Interactive's hit new new 4X strategy game: Hearts of Earthia: Star-Kings, or HoESK for short. \ <<button "Change">> <<unset $name>> <<set $name = $namelist.random()>> <<replace "#name" t8n>><<textbox "$name" $name >><</replace>> <<unset $game>> <<set $game = $gamelist.random()>> <<replace "#game" t8n>><<textbox "$game" $game >><</replace>> <</button>> While you're pretty new to this whole genre, your reserve quantities of enthusiasm, energy, and naivety earmarked you to join this prestigious cabal of code wranglers and professional idea-havers, and you're keen to get started. But what particular skill do you bring to the team? <<button [[Keen Graphicksizing|intro]]>><<set $gfx to true>><</button>> <<button [[Laudable Writeration|intro]]>><<set $loc to true>><</button>> <<button [[Impressive Codeamentals|intro]]>><<set $code to true>><</button>>

This is a dumb joke taken too far as per usual, and more importantly, it's all in good fun. Please don't take anything in this game too seriously, unless you like it, in which case take it incredibly seriously. I hope you enjoy this love/hate letter to Paradox Modding and its lovely communities, and if there's anything buggy or broken in this game, just consider that part of the immersive PDX experience(tm). Sincerely, //Skip// <<return>>

<<set $start to true>>\ <<timed 0.5s t8n>>You're introduced to the team with a fanfare of greetings, gifs, and inside jokes you don't understand, in the next hour you're given the grand tour; Access to the mod files are wrangled from a begrudging git-custodian, and you're ready to get to work!<</timed>> <<timed 2s t8n>>Unfortunately, despite the gargantuan workload for the upcoming update, nobody has any jobs to give to you. Opting to show some initiative, you decide to self-assign yourself some of the more egregious gaps in the public build, and open up your text-editor of choice.<</timed>> <<timed 5s t8n>>[[It's time to make something terrible.|daypassage]] <</timed>>

<<if tags().includes("title")>>\ <<else>>@@.joketitle;BETA@@ <</if>>

<<widget "advancetime">><<if $day lt 7>><<set $day += 1>><<elseif $day is 7>><<set $day = 1>><<set $codeday = 0>><<set $teamday = 0>><<set $testday = 0>> <<set $week += 1>><</if>><</widget>> <<widget "addnext">> <<if $day is 7>><<replace "#next" t8n>><<link 'End of Week Recap' "dayend">><</link>><</replace>> <<else>><<replace "#next" t8n>><<link `_randommessage` "daypassage">><</link>><</replace>><</if>> <</widget>> <<widget "addcode">>\ <img src="images/addcode.png" title="Code Up!" />\ <<if $dev < 100>> \ <<if $code is true>> \ <<set $dev += 3>> <<else>> <<set $dev += 1.5>>\ <</if>>\ <</if>>\ <</widget>> <<widget "subcode">>\ <img src="images/subcode.png" title="Code Down..." />\ <<if $dev > 0>> \ <<set $dev -= 1>>\ <</if>>\ <</widget>> <<widget "addteam">>\ <img src="images/addteam.png" title="Popularity Up!" />\ <<set $teamamount += 1>>\ <<if $teamamount > 2>>\ <<if $pop < 5>> \ <<set $pop += 1>> <<set $teamamount = 0>>\ <</if>>\ <</if>>\ <</widget>> <<widget "subteam">>\ <img src="images/subteam.png" title="Popularity Down..." />\ <<set $teamamount -= 1>>\ <<if $teamamount < 1>>\ <<if $pop > 0 >> \ <<set $pop -= 1>> <<set $teamamount = 0>>\ <</if>>\ <</if>>\ <</widget>> <<widget "addtest">>\ <img src="images/addtest.png" title="Quality Up!" />\ <<set $testamount += 1>>\ <<if $testamount > 2>>\ <<if $polish < 5>>\ <<set $polish += 1>>\ <<set $testamount = 0>>\ <</if>>\ <</if>>\ <</widget>> <<widget "subtest">>\ <img src="images/subtest.png" title="Quality Down..." />\ <<set $testamount -= 1>>\ <<if $testamount < 1>>\ <<if $polish > 0 >>\ <<set $polish -= 1>>\ <<set $testamount = 0>>\ <</if>>\ <</if>>\ <</widget>> <<widget "addmorale">>\ <img src="images/addmorale.png" title="Morale Up!" />\ <<if $morale < 10 >> \ <<set $morale += 1>>\ <</if>>\ <</widget>> <<widget "submorale">>\ <img src="images/submorale.png" title="Morale Down..." />\ <<if $morale > 0 >> \ <<set $morale -= 1>>\ <</if>>\ <</widget>> <<widget "codewidget">> <<set $codeday += 1>> <<addcode>> <</widget>> <<widget "teamwidget">> <<set $teamday += 1>> <<addteam>> <</widget>> <<widget "testwidget">> <<set $testday += 1>> <<addtest>> <</widget>>

@import url(https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat); @import url(https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans); body { background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Montserrat', sans-serif; font-size: 24px; } a { color: #999999; } a:hover { color: #333333; } #ui-bar { background-color: white; color: black; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; } #menu li a { color: black; background-color: white; } #ui-dialog-body { color: black; font-family: 'Inter', sans-serif; background-color: white; } #story-title { color: grey; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; } span.title { color: grey; } button { color: black; background-color: white; border: 1px solid grey; }

<<set $daytext = $arraydaylist.random()>>\ <<advancetime>>\ <<print $daytext>> What will you work on today? <<button [[Work on the Mod|daycode]]>><<codewidget>><</button>> <<button [[Spend Time with the Team|dayteam]]>><<teamwidget>><</button>> <<button [[Playtest|daytest]]>><<testwidget>><</button>>

<<set $arraydaylist = [ "There is absolutely nothing interesting or of note happening in the dev team today. The silence is terrifying.", "Today, half of the team has changed their profiles to zalgotext, the other has declared this an act of treason and perhaps constituting blasphemy.", "Political infighting in the breakroom chat has seen the loss of another team-member, the radical centrist faction blames themselves, as does everyone else.", "A writer you've never seen contribute or even talk before has taken a stand against the 'corrupt and negligent leadership' of the dev team. They promptly left the group before any further questions could be asked.", "It's teaser Tuesday! Today's teaser is: Upcoming spelling error fixes.", "The death of a beloved yet controversial public figure in the anglosphere has devolved into a mudslinging match between people who hated the guy and people who also hated the guy but like to play Devil's Advocate.", "The one eastern-timezoned member of the team has informed the group that they cannot make the next meeting, as it will be 3 AM, and also Christmas.", "There is an in-joke spreading like wildfire across the group, nobody knows where it started but everyone wants to pretend that they get it.", "The senior leads of the team have convened a secret exclusive group meeting to discuss the overproliferation of secret group meetings. Mitosis will occur in half an hour.", "Nobody thought the meme you posted in the off-topic chat was funny, you may as well quit now, really.", "Signs increasingly point to your lead GFX artist being recently radicalized, as all your new background images have half-transparent swastikas hidden inside them.", "A code lead was recently banned for having the wrong opinion about Chilean politics, nobody knows what the right opinion is.", "To promote inclusivity, a resource buff has been applied to all lesbians.", "Your team patreon has unfortunately dropped a tier this month, in response, developer t-shirt orders have been put on hold.", "Your most promising developer has been stealth-hired by Pairosocks, they are currently packing for the 18-hour flight to Stockholm and refuse to answer any queries on their half-finished code.", "It's a beautiful day outside, or at least it was when you checked last week.", "Crisis mode! The newly-released 'flavour-expansion-extension-14.99' DLC by Pairosocks has completely broken your mod! All members of the team are now on 'teaching people how to rollback' duty.", "It's raining somewhere else." ]>> <<set $arrayfooterlist = [ "Giraffes are heartless creatures", "Try not to make any lifelong enemies", "Go outside every once in a while, jeez", "Remember to stay hydrated!", "Remember: no warcrimes", "Try uninstalling TNO", "Be consistent, not ambitious", "Puppets are cool!", "Always check your error log", "Those who can't code, loc", "Please hire me to make music for your mod", "Push early, push often", "INDENT MOTHERFUCKER!", "It kinda sucks that new PDX games don't have tooltips anymore :c", "Dynamic > Unique", "Get some sleep", "Don't interact with Americans", "Comet sighted!", "I love you", "I hate you", "Don't date your horse in real life" ]>>

<<set $RandomlySelectedPassage to 0>>\ <<if $week < 3>><<set $randomlySelectedPassage to either("code1", "code2", "code3")>>\ <<else>><<set $randomlySelectedPassage to either("code3", "code4", "code5")>><</if>>\ <<set _randommessage to either("Next page", "Proceed", "Next", "-->", "Ok", "Continue", "Okay" )>>\ <<include `$randomlySelectedPassage`>> <span id="next"></span>

<<set $RandomlySelectedPassage to 0>>\ <<if $week < 3>><<set $randomlySelectedPassage to either("team1", "team2", "team3")>>\ <<else>><<set $randomlySelectedPassage to either("team3", "team4", "team5")>><</if>>\ <<set _randommessage to either("Next page", "Proceed", "Next", "-->", "Ok", "Continue", "Okay" )>>\ <<include `$randomlySelectedPassage`>> <span id="next"></span>

<<set $RandomlySelectedPassage to 0>>\ <<if $week < 3>><<set $randomlySelectedPassage to either("test1", "test2", "test3")>>\ <<else>><<set $randomlySelectedPassage to either("test3", "test4", "test5")>><</if>>\ <<set _randommessage to either("Next page", "Proceed", "Next", "-->", "Ok", "Continue", "Okay" )>>\ <<include `$randomlySelectedPassage`>> <span id="next"></span>

<<set $choice to false>>\ In recognition of your service to God and dev team, you've been invited to participate in the next developer playthrough of the latest update, showcasing some of the new features and content coming to the players in the indeterminate future. The only problem is; your in-game rival and neighbour is the mod lead. While a gifted leader of fools, it's an open secret that they're hopeless at the actual game, but nobody wants to be the one to expose that. As the game opens up at half-speed, you're faced with a choice: go easyon them and possibly win favour with your superior, or crush them like a squishy bug underneath your boot. <span id="game"><<button "Play it safe">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>You keep your lead locked in an endless border-stalemate while the majority of your resources are spent on performing an artful synchronized dance with your army. The lead heartily "GG's" at the end of the match, while the rest of the team slags you mercilessly; nobody likes a brownnoser.<<subteam>><<addmorale>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>> <<button "Play to win">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>In ten minutes flat, the dev lead is out. They spend the rest of the match passive-aggressively commentating on the rest of the team, and they insist on patching the 'exploit' that made them lose so quickly. And would you guess who's the lucky dev who's assigned to that particular job? Congrats.<<addtest>><<submorale>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>></span>

<<set $choice to false>>\ As ye were once young, naive to the ways of modding and guided by your elders, so as the winds of change pass you have found yourself repeating the cycle. A new hire has joined the team and you've drawn the short straw for onboarding, an unenvious role considering the many social flaws and confusing grammar choices of your protege. To add to your troubles, you have no idea how to answer half the questions they're asking. Fobbing them off to another team-member is unlikely, and admitting your ignorance is out of the question, leaving you with only two options: Make up the answers as you go along, or ghost the guy. <span id="game"><<button "Lie your ass off">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>'Yes I know how to use the arrays,' 'Yes I can show you how to edit the GUI,' 'No I'm not scared of the map system.' These magical lies and more are now swirling around your junior's head, consequently, they believe you to be a minor demi-god. Unfortunately, your useless advice causes them to somehow cause a fatal system error leading to an electrical fire, and it will be several months before they can afford to buy a new computer and accompanying fire suppression system.<<addteam>><<subcode>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>> <<button "Go underground">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>You become one with the shadows, always offline, never responding to messages, a ghost in the system. However, because of your incredibly talented skills at not being around, you miss several group meetings and one intervention.<<subteam>><<addmorale>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>></span>

<<set $choice to false>>\ Today, the greatest minds of modding have come together to resettle the age-old debate: Hats? or no hats? The behatted crowd is imperious, regal, and magnificently crowned, they advocate for the immediate proliferation of hat based gfx for all aspects of the mod. The hatless faction is rancourous, spirited, and pure of dome, they have declared the hat's spread as a menace, and seek to eradicate it's existance from the project entirely. It falls to you to make the deciding vote, what will you decide: hats, or no hats? <span id="game"><<button "Hats!">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>The hats have it! anarchy and chaos descends upon the crowd, nobody is safe from the hattening. Leaders are hatted, buildings are behatted, hats are hatted! There is nary a head left uncovered by the end of the violence, but while the battle is over, the war has just begun. <<if $gfx is true>><<addmorale>><<addmorale>><<else>><<addmorale>><<subcode>><</if>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>> <<button "No hats!">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>The hats are defeated! caps, crowns, and trilbies are cast into the fire, the crowns and hoods burnt to ashes. No headwear can escape your wrath, but while the battle is over, the war has just begun. <<if $gfx is true>><<addmorale>><<addmorale>><<else>><<addmorale>><<subcode>><</if>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>></span>

<<set $choice to false>>\ There's been a recent development with the alpha build in testing; specifically, it doesn't work. Trawling through the recent additions, you find out that a recent hire has managed to destroy the entire game in one fell commit. The artistry and skill to be this bad at modding is truly impressive, and your first reaction is to publically ridicule them for their massive incompetance. While incredibly cathartic, it wouldn't exactly solve the broken game issue, something which you'd unfortunately have to do yourself. <span id="game"><<button "Expose the Error">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>A hearty laugh was had by all at the expense of your new colleague, who promptly develops a frankly personality-enhancing insecurity complex. The error festers in the build, but in time you take to viewing it as a benevolent tumor, or a particularly inept town thug. When a later error somehow solves the previous error you're almost sad to see it go.<<addmorale>><<subtest>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>> <<button "Fix it Yourself">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>Forsaking the cheap thrills of sadism, you manage to promptly fix the error unbeknownest to all except the culprit. They quietly inform you that they now owe you a blood debt, one that will be repayed in kind. This is a positive outcome, probably.<<submorale>><<addteam>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>></span>

<<set $choice to false>>\ Disaster can strike at any minute, especially when working on the live development branch of a large-scale international modding project. In this case, it appears in the form of a instant crash whenever you try to start the game. While normally this'd be your fault, you haven't made any changes recently so this is hopefully someone elses failure. The diligent thing to do would be to rollback and chase up the error, alternatively, you could use this as an excuse for some probably well-deserved RN'R, at the expense of getting any work done. <span id="game"><<button "Go bughunting">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>As it turns out, the latest additions are actually working fine, it's only after arduously sifting back three months of commits that you find an innocuous manchurian-candidate bug that got activated by a recent indentation fix. By all metrics, you're a hero, but nobody cares.<<addtest>><<addtest>><<submorale>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>> <<button "Take a break">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>The life of leisure won't live itself, you take a much needed 2-hour sabbatical and come back to find the mod in working order, no thanks to you. Then again, you probably wouldn't have gotten thanks anyway, so it's a net even.<<subteam>><<subteam>><<addmorale>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>></span>

<<set $choice to false>>\ The time has come for the most dreaded part of the testing cycle: community feedback. While in a perfect world, the development, release, and success of a mod would function entirely independantly of the greater public, in this flawed society that we live in, eventually you have to get someone to tell you whether or not your game sucks. Today, the results come in, and the response isn't pretty; The majority of your testers are infuriated with the balance changes implemented, demanding a revert and a complimentary ice cream if available. A second, more 'hardcore' group of testers have drawn up a ten-page document putting forth their reasons as to why the changes don't go far enough, and would also like an ice cream if it's on offer. You can't please both of them, so it looks like it's time for a decision to be made, do you rollback or double down? <span id="game"><<button "Roll it back">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>Seeing the wisdom of the mob, you decide to pull the changes back, the meta remains stale, but for now peace prevails.<<subtest>><<addteam>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>> <<button "Take it further">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>Hardcore to the max, baby, your balance changes cause uproar and riots in the metaphorical streets, but it's a small price to pay for progress.<<addtest>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>></span>

<<set $choice to false>>\ You've been tasked with the internal workings for a new, highly anticipated, and integrated mechanic that will ship with the new update; you have no idea how to implement it. Pulling the feature is no longer an option, as the GFX work and several high quality photoshop memes have already been produced to accompany the release. Weighing your options, you decide could brute-force the code with 35 consecutive 'else-if' statements, or perhaps assume nobody will check the results and make it pull from a random list. Alternatively, you could actually attempt to properly code the feature, but this would require a level of commmitment and mental fortitude perhaps inappropriate for a mid-tier hobby project. <span id="game"><<button "Make a quick and easy hack">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>Your solution is simple, technically functional, and hidden behind a mountain of indentation; the team loves your quick turnaround and the quiet protest of the lead QA is drowned out in the adulation of your peers.<<addteam>><<subtest>><<subtest>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>> <<button "Become the code-wizard">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>After monumental effort, you have produced a solution that is elegant, efficient, and largely ignored by the rest of the team, who in the time it took you to code your masterpiece are now singularly focused on producing an accompanying story booklet to be released alongside the new update.<<submorale>><<addcode>><<addtest>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>></span>

<<set $choice to false>>\ To your eternal shame, you've been playing a mod that is not //$game//, but rather, it's modestly popular and completely nonsensical 'sub' mod, "$game-Reduxxx." the ideas of the mod are clever, if erratic in quality, and you're tempted to take 'inspiration' from some of the more well-coded content. Of course, you could also look at incorporating the content, and its author directly, but where's the glory in that? <span id="game"><<button "Take the code">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>It takes a little while longer than you thought to incorporate the code, but the team loves it! You also took the precaution of changing some of the localisation and neutering some of the more abmitious aspects to express the content 'in your own words' as they say.<<addteam>><<subcode>><<addnext>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>> <<button "Take the author">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>Your new hire responds to your offer with gusto!... that is, until two weeks later when they're fired for cyber-bullying of a junior 3DFX artist. Still, the work they contributed in the short amount of time is brilliant, if strangely parsed.<<addcode>><<addcode>><<addcode>><<subtest>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>></span>

<<set $choice to false>>\ In a slightly embarassing turn of events, a small oversight in the latest patch's balancing fixes has lead to a new, overpowered, and utterly ridiculous meta-game strategy involving a combination of save-scumming and building unit stacks composed entirely of civilians armed with lasercannons. Needless to say, the community has taken this ball and ran with it, with several speedruns and a modestly popular youtube video all embracing the new strategy. The most obvious course of action is to simply patch the exploit, but this will draw the unceasing and eternal ire of the multiplayer crowd. You could also just roll with it, but you're gonna need to find one hell of a reason to justify why grannies with lazguns are in your game now. <span id="game"><<button "Patch that shit">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>As expected, the community is up in arms at your responsible and practical choice. You're subjected to several novel forms of hate-speech and a blackmail threat to reveal your address (thankfully they were off by two continents), but you did the right thing, probably.<<submorale>><<addtest>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>> <<button "Roll with it">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>><<if $loc is true>>Surprisingly, everyone thinks your hastily added retcon as to why this particular exploit is actually a feature is pretty reasonable, or at least funny, and the team agrees to leave it be. Thanks Creative Writing 101!<<addmorale>><<addteam>><<else>>Nobody on the team is impressed by your capitulation, nor the badly worded and confusing lore reason you added to explain it. Thankfully, the community is grateful, and they assure that when the coming deluge bursts, you and your family will be spared.<<subteam>><<subtest>><<addmorale>><</if>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>></span>

<<if $week == 1>> <<set _SelectedPassage to "end1">>\ <<elseif $week == 2>> <<set _SelectedPassage to "end2">>\ <<elseif $week == 3>> <<set _SelectedPassage to "end3">>\ <</if>>\ It's the end of the week, and time to reflect on all the great things you achieved! <<timed 1.5s t8n>>Days spent coding: <<print $codeday>><</timed>> <<timed 3s t8n>>Days spent testing: <<print $testday>><</timed>> <<timed 4.5s t8n>>Days spent ==dicking about== with the team: <<print $teamday>><</timed>> <<timed 6s t8n>><<include `_SelectedPassage`>><</timed>>

It's been a whirlwind of an orientation to the team, and you're glad to have a small breather before the next week of work. In the short time you've been on the team, employee turnover has been...frantic, and it's not long before your onboarder is promoted to senior leadership, and then promptly purged. On the bright side, this departure means that there's a new opening in your development area, and you're given the dubious honour of your predecessors position, with all the great perks and responsibilities it entails. Congratulations, you are now a Senior Developer! (Life comes at you fast) [[Time to start all over again|daypassage]]

The last week of frenetic coding has been enough hobby-work for a lifetime, and you're beginning to feel the burnout on the horizon as you burn whats left of the midnight oil. As a newly-senior dev, your eyes have been opened to the truely ramshackle nature of the operation. You've tried to let the lead know, but to no avail. The good news is following a spate of heinous, slightly implausible, and generally confusing drama-led accusations, the lead dev has now stepped down. The bad news is, as a reward for your incessant nagging, your peers unanimously voted for you to step up as the new sacrificial figurehead. What's more, the final act of the previous lead was to announce a release date for the mod next week! Design documents indicate you're already three months behind schedule, so it's about time to roll up those sleeves and get to work! Right after you purge some devs. [[It's Crunch-Time baby!|daypassage]]

With your first week of leadership and last week before release over with, the hour of judgement fast approaches. The code-freeze has been put in place, and uploading duties have been given to the easternmost-timezoned team member (who lives in an atoll in French Polynesia) to squeeze as much time out before it has to go live. The past few days have taught you much about the art of command; how much it sucks, how stupid everyone is in comparison to you, but mostly how much you never, ever, ever want to lead a community project ever again. Making a promise to yourself that when this is all over you will go under online witness protection and leave the scene forever, you close your last .txt file, and sleep the sleep of a goddamned hero. [[The Next Day...|ending]]

Thanks for playing! [[More Stories|http://serialsymphonytwine.dx.am/]]

<<if $dev > 50 and $pop > 3 and $polish > 3 and $morale > 3 >> <<set _SelectedPassage to "ending1">>\ <<elseif $morale < 2>> <<set _SelectedPassage to "ending2">>\ <<elseif $pop < 1>> <<set _SelectedPassage to "ending3">>\ <<else>> <<set _SelectedPassage to "endinggeneric">>\ <</if>>\ It's the moment of truth! let's see how well you did... <<timed 1s t8n>><<include [[endingcode]]>><</timed>> <<timed 3s t8n>><<include [[endingtest]]>><</timed>> <<timed 5s t8n>><<include [[endingteam]]>><</timed>> <<timed 9s t8n>><div style="text-indent: 22em;">─────────</div> <<include `_SelectedPassage`>><</timed>> <<timed 12s t8n>>''[[The End|endfinal]]''<</timed>>

Despite everything, the infighting, the unrealistic expectations, the game-breaking bugs and the bug-making coders, the mod is...a success! It's not perfect, far from it; the error log is atrocious and there's more spelling error's than a midnight essay, but it more or less works. What's even more surprising is that the team is right there to celebrate with you, having accepted your entrance and eventual leadership with a grace and equanimity unheard of in a hobbyist project. Of course, this isn't the end, far from it. Your day-one patch is five minutes overdue, the roadmap looms in the distance like a sysphian boulder, and the post-update hires are already fermenting dissent, but if you've completed the impossible one time, how hard could pulling it off again be? //Congratulations, you're a success! Don't let it get to your head big guy.//

Leadership can be a strange calling. In your brief time as the leader of this rag-tag group of miscreants, you strove to be a kind, yet firm overlord; A shoulder to cry on and a helping hand, and most importantly, a friend. Unfortunately for you, your best intentions have been rewarded with the cruelest of betrayals. On the eve of the mod's release, you are summoned to a group meeting. One by one, they drive the knife of treachery into your back like Caesar, accusing you of megalomania, dictatorship, willful mismanagemant and an annoying, nasally-toned voice. Your purge is brutally efficient: your permissions are revoked, your vanity titles removed, and your self-inserts renamed. Powerless, you can only watch as your child is taken from you and released to the wild beasts of the public to mild acclaim, forever sundered from its rightful creator. You spend the rest of your modding career as a permanent pariah, a living cautionary tale on the dangers of leadership and calling one too many group meetings. Your name becomes a legend, then a myth, then a unfunny injoke between community members with no lives, the final death of all great leaders. //Your name is $name, look upon your works, ye mighty, and despair.//

The Mod is finished...The battle is over...The war has been won... But at what cost? As you look down from your throne of code, you only now begin to realise the true cost of your madness: Your fingers, turned to blistered stumps, and your keyboard worn near-featureless. Your clothes are rancid, rags merely clinging to the palid, sloughing figure you call a body, kept alive by the fires of manic passion and value-size chip packets. You extricate your self from the chair, dust and crumbs shaking free off your limbs. The world around you has moved on, grown wild and unrecognisable in your absence, it looms beyond your window, the searing light penetrating even the most fetid corners of your room. Perhaps it is too late for you to regain what you have lost, perhaps you'll forever be alone, incapable of rejoining the world you left behind. But maybe not, maybe there is hope out there for you, for me, and for all of us. And if you can make that first step, then the rest will surely follow. //One thing is for sure, however; you need a break from modding.//

<<set $choice to false>>\ This whole mod development gig has got you thinking: what if making games and mods like $game was itself a game? You've had to admit that sometimes the work does feel mechanical lately, what with all the binary choices and the quantifying of development. It probably wouldn't take too long to make a bit of a joke 'game' about the whole process, but it'd run the risk of being self-referential, not to mention utterly boring to everyone who hasn't had the very specific experience of working on Pairosocks mods. But hey, it'd be funny. Hopefully. <span id="game"><<button "Get meta">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>You get about halfway through the development process before the nihilism hits, but you salvage what you can. The team thinks the whole thing is a gas, but the art feels hollow for some reason.<<submorale>><<addteam>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>> <<button "End the loop">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>Thus, the snake devours its own tail. It's for the best, really, this joke's already running thin on the first inception.<<subteam>><<addmorale>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>></span>

<<set $choice to false>>\ It's Crunch Time! That's right, say goodbye to sleep, personal goals, hygiene, and the touch of another, because you've got work to do! No matter how well you planned the work, how forward thinking your scheduling was, Crunch comes for all, and now the bell tolls for you; Will you fight the approaching wave of soul-destroying productivity, or be swept along into the grueling frenzy? <span id="game"><<button "Accept your fate">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>There is no escaping the Crunch, there is only the delay of the inevitable, your nights become slightly darker days, and loved ones mere strangers, all thanks to the mighty power of the Crunch. praise be unto the Crunch, the devourer of souls.<<submorale>><<addcode>><<addtest>><<addteam>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>> <<button "Fight it!">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>No! Reason cannot be forfeit to madness, begone Crunch; Tomorrow you may call, but today, we shall sleep, shower, laugh, and live as men!<<addmorale>><<subcode>><<subtest>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>></span>

<<set $choice to false>>\ Modders are no stranger to the temptation of self-insertion. After all, what better way is there to cement your eternal legacy than in within the pages of your own creation? Having yet to bequeath your persona to the work, you have a few avenues available for securing posterity: You could go all out, giving yourself centerstage to the work and also making yourself a digital demigod, but making your presence too large might send the wrong impression. Alternatively, you could opt for a small, tasteful inclusion of your handle in a relatively obscure cranny of the game's writing. <span id="game"><<button "More is More">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>Who has time for humility? Go big or go home! You spearhead the addition of your glorious, high-statted and quite attractive 'Original Character' into the game, commandeering both resources and man-hours to achieve perfection. Everyone on the tame save for a few syncophants hate it, but for better or worse, you're part of the game now, permanently.<<addmorale>><<addmorale>><<subteam>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>> <<button "Less is More">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>There's no reason for gaudiness when a light touch will do. Your insertion is appropriate, subtle, and also completely unnoticeable unless you know exactly what you're looking for. Of course nobody else does, but you know, and that's all that matters. Probably.<<addmorale>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>></span>

<<set $choice to false>>\ The political machinations of internal development spin with a rapidity that beggars belief. As a former junior developer turned mod lead, your rapid ascension is proof of the upwards mobility present in mod creation, and now it's your chance to return the favour. There are two primary candidates for promotion as it stands: The first is a recent hire who joined around the same time as you. While wholly unremarkable in terms of skill, they seem to have decided to hitch their wagon to yours, and have been a stalwart, if occasionally repetitive voice of support and general syncophancy in the turbulent team meetings. The other is a veteran semi-freelancer who has provided several ingenuitive and utterly indecipherable mechanical additions to the mod of late. Unfortunately, they seem to hate your guts, and their constant second-guessing and undermining of your authority is a frustrating caveat to an otherwise well-liked team member. Also, picking both is out of the question, don't ask why. <span id="game"><<button "Promote the crony">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>Your newly-minted senior dev is ecstatic! They have no new ideas to bring to the table, no new burst in productivity or desire to improve, and generally speaking, nothing changes, but they're very happy all the same.<<addmorale>><<subteam>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>> <<button "Elevate the rival">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>Your new senior developer takes the promotion with a confused air, as if expecting you to set them up for something. Any fears you may have had that they'd perform some sort of coup proved unfounded; they proved themselves to be a true senior dev and went on a three-month sabbatical the next day.<<subcode>><<addteam>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>></span>

<<set $choice to false>>\ Insanity isn't contagious, or at least, that's what you thought before having to sift through yet another error log the size of War and Peace. In reality, insanity is quite transmissable, and you're beginning to worry you've caught the crazy-bug. Your hands are typing code you cannot understand, you haven't blinked in what feels like years and you've changed your profile picture to a blurry gif of a deepdream. A voice inside you begs for you to stop, to breathe, to look away from the trailing logs of pain and missing file references, and choose life before it's too late. Dare ye? <span id="game"><<button "Step off the edge">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>Few have come as close to madness as you, and returned unscathed, but have you? Who's to decide what is sane and what is mad? Certainly not you, you almost went crazy over a videogame.<<addmorale>><<subtest>><<subtest>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>> <<button "Lose yourself">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>In time, the fog lifts, the madness clears and your senses return. You're unsure as to what happened during the spell, but the throbbing pain in your skull indicates that it'd be best not to do it again. On the plus side, it looks like you got some work done during your fit of insanity!<<submorale>><<addtest>><<addtest>><<addtest>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>></span>

<<set $choice to false>>\ While Hearts of Earthia won over the majority of the fanbase after its release, there remains a hardcore, cantankerous, and generally baffling group of holdouts to the previous iteration in the series: Goosestep of the Imperium. While they've been mostly content to wallow in their 32bit hellhole of byzantine command sytems, a recent update by your mod has piqued their interest, and they have now vocally assembled to demand a backport to your mod's predecessor in their game. While in theory this should be a simple matter of copy-pasting the content to the old mod, in reality, the combined haphazard designs of both the game and the mod mean this will take far too long to complete for any meaningful payoff. Any work you put into this would therefore be purely out of the passion of your heart, something that in this situation is in boundless supply, surely. <span id="game"><<button "Delve into the classics">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>With trepidation, you dip your toes into the ancient code, sifting through old #devnotes to find relevant hooks, and reparsing the script to remove some of the more incompatible luxuries. While a painful endeavour, it was almost retro-stalgic to see the work of thhe ancients, and you even picked up a few ideas for the new mod along the way.<<submorale>><<addcode>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>> <<button "Choose life">><<set $choice to true>><<replace "#game" t8n>>While it may have angered the diehards and dissappointed some of the more nostalgic veterans of the team, in the end you chose life. Let sleeping mods lie.<<addmorale>><<subteam>><</replace>><<addnext>><</button>></span>

Though you had spent the last week in a whirlwind of frantic development, the final hours seem almost empty in their silence. Looking at what you've made, it's only natural to wonder how your work will be received. //$game// wasn't a masterpiece by any means, but nor was it terrible. It didn't exactly work, but then again it didn't not work either. Your team didn't love you and your leadership, but they didn't hate it enough to do something about it, at least, not that you know of. Are any of these a mark of success? Is succeeding merely the act of not failing? Was there anything that stood out for good or ill, or was this whole process simply a testament to the power of mediocrity? You leave this project with feelings much like the mod itself: mixed. //Congratulations and/or deepest sympathies on achieving such an unnoteworthy result! May your middling success live on just long enough for something more interesting to come along.//

<<if $start is true>>\ @@#1.name;$name@@ <img src="images/addmorale.png" /> @@#1.title;Morale:@@ $arraymorale[$morale] <img src="images/addteam.png" /> @@#1.title;Reputation:@@ $arraypop[$pop] ---- @@#1.gamename;$game@@ <img src="images/addcode.png" /> @@#1.title;Development:@@ $dev% <img src="images/addtest.png" /> @@#1.title;Polish:@@ $arraypolish[$polish] @@#1.title;Week:@@ $week | @@#1.title;Day:@@ $day. <</if>>\

<<if tags().includes("intro")>>\ <<elseif tags().includes("end")>>\ <<set $footertext = $arrayfooterlist.random()>>\ @@.footer; <<timed 1s t8n>>Goodbye<</timed>> @@ <<else>> <<set $footertext = $arrayfooterlist.random()>>\ @@.footer; <<timed 1s t8n>>HINT: <<print $footertext>><</timed>> @@ <</if>>

<<if $dev < 10>>Frankly, your coding skills are... below subpar. Maybe it was just the pressures of time constraints, maybe you can't do basic addition, either way, your code is a mess, and it really shows. <<elseif $dev > 10 and $dev < 25>>You're not going to be winning any accolades with your code, most of it is pilfered, repurposed, or plain copy-pasted across the mod, but it is there, and that's something at least.\ <<elseif $dev > 25 and $dev < 40>>If code is the skeleton of the mod, then yours is adequately bony. Your design principles are solid, and there's even a cleverly implemented idea or two hidden amidst the mechanical reskins. Don't quit your dayjob, but it's a respectable effort.\ <<elseif $dev > 40 and $dev < 50>> Despite all odds, you've managed to come up with a halfway decent code structure! there are flaws, for sure, but they're not yours, and you'll be damned if you waste time on someone elses missing indents. As far as code monkeys go you're sitting pretty in the jungle, just hope that the rest of your content is up to par.\ <<elseif $dev > 50>>You hear numbers, you breathe the scripting, you are the closest thing to a god that Pairosocks coding allows, and all gaze with fear and evy upon your works. Your mod, if it could even be called such, is a testament to the fine-tuned genius of the human brain, if that brain was applied to the utterly useless task of RTS modding. <</if>>\

<<if $polish is 0>>Calling your mod 'buggy' would be an insult to both bugs and the human language. The truth is, your game is functionally unplayable, and everything else aside, this is a slight problem due to the whole 'game' aspect of the product. On the other hand, it's a good CV for a job at Beth-ezra, they're //always// hiring.\ <<elseif $polish is 1>>Sometimes, your mod doesn't crash on startup, sometimes it doesn't crash on selection, and sometimes it doesn't even crash when you play the game. Sometimes. For the rest of the time, there's always task manager.\ <<elseif $polish is 2>>Your mod is...troubled. You can tell when it //should// be working, and that isn't often, and thus far no bugs have caused a fatal hardware failure or a maiming, but the bugs are multiplying, conspiring together, if you don't get a patch out soon, they might break out in revolt.\ <<elseif $polish is 3>>Your mod is playable, occasionally reliable, and sometimes even completable, not that this is a high bar to clear. You're looking at about a week's worth of 'Day-X' patches, but at least it cleared the starting line.\ <<elseif $polish is 4>>Surprisingly, your mod is in a pretty good shape, bug-wise. While nothing can be perfect, the errors reported thus far are mostly benign, and what major bugs there are have the good grace to be humourous, at least.\ <<elseif $polish is 5>>Honestly, I don't know how you did it; your mod is 100% bug-free. Are you a wizard? A robot? Belgian? Somehow you've done the impossible and honestly I hate you for it, good for you though.\ <</if>>\

<<if $pop is 0>>They say there's no I in team, but in your case there's no team, period. What used to be a cooperative collective of likeminded souls has degenerated under your leadership into complete anarchy, with only their disdain for you uniting these disparate tribes. Honestly, it's probably still their fault, but I'll be damned if I know how.\ <<elseif $pop is 1>>Your team is hanging on a thread that they are simultaneously attempting to cut. Nobody wants to be here, and honestly, nobody wants you to be here either. A more humble leader would step down, but thankfully you are filled with boundless supplies of ignorance and self-confidence.\ <<elseif $pop is 2>>Your team has seen better days, perhaps better years, but that's outside of your jurisdiction. While outright revolt is still unlikely, malicious incompetence abounds, and a 'spit' emoji has been added to the team chat to specifically show their disdain for your subpar leadership.\ <<elseif $pop is 3>>It's been tough, but through an intense regime of firm leadership, visionary direction and intense ass-kissing you've managed to win the begrudging loyalty of your team. While they're likely to abandon you completely if the mod turns out to be a flop, for now, your team is behind you, if only to use you as a human shield.\ <<elseif $pop is 4>>It may not seem like it from their cantankerous and naturally surly personalities, but your team has grown fond of you and your impromptu leadership. They have a funny way of showing respect, but it is respect nonetheless, and in some rare moments of sincerity and kindess they can be even downright humane to you, either that or they are incredible at ass-kissing, but the result is what's important.\ <<elseif $pop is 5>>In a Mansonesque display of charisma and leadership, you have turned your nigh-rebellious group of modders into a quasi-cult of personality. You can do no wrong, your commits are spotless, your roadmaps are visionary, and your jokes are very funny and not derivative at all. It is possible this adoration will get to your head, but for now enjoy it, Great Leader.\ <</if>>\

to do: add music, fix polish <<timed 0.5s t8n>>@@#introtitle;DEV SIMULATOR@@<</timed>>

<<if tags().includes("title")>>\ <<else>><img src="images/TITLESMALL.gif"/> <</if>>