Project Zomboid developer The Indie Stone has outlined how the upcoming branching narrative system will work for non-player characters (NPCs).
Planned for build 43, Project Zomboid will be receiving a narrative NPC system that the developers are currently working on. The planned event system will be able to add “context driven ‘storylets’ together into a somewhat convincing narrative for NPCs when they are away from the streamed-in world.”
According to the blog post, the system will define goals for the NPCs in Project Zomboid, and can evolve their situation, so that when a player eventually encounters them they have a convincing backstory. The systems will also “drive events with NPCs while the player is present, leading to interesting generated story events for the player to interact with.”
Events then set flags on NPCs, and move them along road networks and between houses, which are accessible by NPCs even though the game tiles haven’t been streamed in. The Indie Stone notes that it can add extra data and tags that will change the state of NPCs, allowing them to experience simplified narrative events which can branch and trigger randomly. These events also have dialogue lines attached to them that the NPC can recall to player characters later.
