Persons of Interest

Time for part three of the Groups of Interest tour.

First off is the Black Queen

An enigmatic figure with possible ties to the serpents hand, Foundation personnel, and many severe security breaches across the world.

The Black Queen is listed on the Groups of Interest page but she really isn't a group unless you count her theorized ties to the Serpent's Hand. This got me thinking that a slightly different approach would be good to take and would open up some interesting modding options: Persons of Interest.

Their functionality would be similar to groups of interest and would reuse much of the code, but instead of spreading influence and establishing bases they would move around as a single individual. Depending upon their motivation they might look out for anomalies and respond to them in order to collect them, or take on contracts from GoIs to infiltrate base facilities to cause containment breaches or steal objects. The player would also be able to issue contracts to Persons of Interest they are able to contact and would also have the option to recruit them as a staff member.

This would play nicely into the various strange personalities one can find in the staff section of the wiki and provide the framework for defections of staff and O5 officers. It also would make it easy for modders to add various anomalous humanoids to the game. I also don't think it will add to much complexity to the code since it will reuse much of the logic needed for GoIs.

Let me know what you think.

Next is Alexylva University

They don't interact much with the Foundation. In fact they may be a good candidate to make in a manner similar to Prometheus Labs where they generate items every so often.

Otherwise they will be made into an Influential GoI. This means they do not take an interest in territorial struggles or combat, but try and gather revelvant SCPs and anomalies often spreading them in the process. They will have an interest in historical SCPs as well as ones tagged as Alexylva.

Their HQ type will be dimensional. Entrances may appear if the players surveillance is high enough allowing an attack or infiltration.

Then there is Are We Cool Yet?

The anartist terrorists. Highly unorganized but whose members are focused on art pieces with maximum exposure. There HQ type is cells. They will spawn bases all over the map that work towards producing high profile anomalous art installations that will be highly disruptive to the Masquerade or the secrecy the Foundation is trying to uphold. It will be advisable to destroy or infiltrate cells before this can occur.

They are also set to be global so their activities can occur across the world. I also hope to implement the Sommes-Nous Devenus Magnifiques? as a requirement for the destruction of AWCY. One must take advantage of the presentation and exterminate the lead artists and critics in order to finish off a weakened AWCY.

AWCY will be interested in all artistic SCPs as well as ones tagged AWCY.

The Church of the Broken God is fairly straitforward.

Very disorganized, likes mechanical things, operates in cells, and if you let them go on for too long... they'll rebuild the Broken God. You don't want them to rebuild the Broken God.

No really, you don't.

Dr. Wondertainment is a fun one. Doesn't take an interest in territory, but wants to distribute anomalies and SCPs across the world. It will take an interest in toy SCPs as well as any tagged as Dr Wondertainment.

I'm also tossing around the possibility of an ESOTERIC foundation being able to convince Dr. Wondertainment to allow them to test his products before their release. Not sure what benefit the player would get from the arrangement, but I find it amusing.

Once again this post is getting long. I'll leave these thoughts for you to think over.

As always fire back the feedback and suggestions. Hopefully I will be able to finish the rest of the GoIs on my next post.

Nobody Important

Time for the second post in my Groups of Interest series. Hope everyone is enjoying the year end festivities.

First off is Nobody.


Nobody is an interesting creation compared to the other Groups of Interest. First off its not clear if it is even a group or just an individual. Its also a complete mystery what Nobody's goals are or if they/he even has any. One of the most interesting interpretations I've heard is Nobody as Mirror. 

In short, Nobody is unable to affect the world around him in any significant way. He cannot be the origins of any change in the world. Anything that he tries to do will inevitably end up as if he was never involved. His goals are to try to affect something, so that he feels that his life will have meaning.

Taken from http://www.scp-wiki.net/nobody-hub 

So it seems Nobody has a particular talent in moving about unnoticed, disappearing, being incredibly hard to contact, etc. All of these attributes clash with the current implementation of GoIs. On top of that Nobody's goals are unlike any of the other GoIs. But I don't want to drop such an interesting part of the universe.

In the Foundation I see Nobody as the force attempting to balance the various GoIs. He will provide information and assistance to groups, including the player, who are lagging behind. This assistance can help them regain support and power making even weakened GoIs a possible risk. He would also know the real SCP-001 and will provide intelligence as to its identity and where it can be located. Some information can lead to the generation of time-sensitive events that can be intercepted. And some information may be false so the player must be careful they do not fall into a trap.

Hopefully this fits into the canon and utilizes Nobody in an interesting way. Let me know what you think and if you have a different idea on how to implement Nobody.

Next lets address Oneroi Collective. It will be short.

These guys are new to me and there seems to be very little information about them. I honestly haven't found much besides they like using dreams. Because of this I really don't know what to do about adding them to the game.

I considered making them a mechanic similar to Nobody. A group that communicated with the player through dreams and depending on how you reacted to their requests they would either help you or hinder you down the road.

So please help me figure this one out. Without more information I think I had better skip implementing this one. I don't think I can do it justice at the moment.

The last one for this post will be Prometheus Laboratories.

The interesting part about Prometheus is that they are a former Group of Interest.

On 01/09/98, one of Prometheus Labs' projects, [DATA EXPUNGED], resulting in the annihilation of their base facility. In the aftermath, the Foundation swept over Prometheus Labs' ground zero and recovered several surviving products and personnel. Products were retrieved as SCPs and survivors inducted as Foundation personnel.
-Taken from http://www.scp-wiki.net/groups-of-interest#toc17

Given this group has been more or less destroyed that makes it unlikely they would be a significant player in the GoI struggle.

However I have an idea to propose for them. According to the wiki the Foundation is still reaching out and trying to assimilate the remaining Prometheus personnel and facilities. I plan on making the game generate the discovery of Prometheus assets from time to time and displaying them on the map. All GoIs may end up seeing this location and the race is on. Successful recovery of the assets before another group strips it down will provide useful benefits and possibly SCPs or other anomalous materials.

Well this article is getting long and contains some significant feedback requests. Read them over and fire back the feedback. I'm doing my best to put all the GoIs into the game in a meaningful way, but it doesn't mean I'm doing it right.

Next post I address the Black Queen, Serpent's Hand, and others.

I look forward to reading your responses, and the eventual alpha release ;)

Paradigms and Groups of Interest

Its been a while since I wrote a DevLog. Quite a bit has happened since then. The Foundation even made spot 52 on the top 100 games on indieDB for a while! Now if I can only get it to stay there. Keep spreading the news and excitement for this game to everyone you know. The more this grows the better it can be.

Now that I am deep into the Groups of Interest code I felt it necessary to explain how I plan to implement each GOI. Hopefully this means if I am really screwing one up the community can slap me, instruct me on the proper canon and we can be on our way to a better game.

With that being said lets begin with paradigms! No really it has alot to do with GOIs as will be seen later. I've tossed this word around in the last couple of videos, but I didn't take much time to explain it. Its a concept that came out of the discussion around the Ethics Committee screen. A paradigm is a mindset and in The Foundation's case the collective mindset of its staff, leadership, and task forces. As the player makes choices and enacts policies their paradigm will shift towards one of three possibilities.

ESOTERIC : An esoteric foundation embraces anomalies. They are the foundation that creates MTF-7, Recruits humanoid scps, builds anomalous weaponry, and makes deals with the elder gods. This all may come at the cost of their humanity but if it helps to protect humanity why not use it?


REALITY : A Realist Foundation is dedicated to the containment and eradication of all anomalies without and within. They only research anomalies in order to perfect containment. Science and logic rules their world and they refuse to cooperate with humanoid scps or utilize scps that could be helpful.


BALANCED : A balanced Foundation resembles the current foundation of the wiki. Anomalies and esoteric tech are only used when necessary. Tech is researched and developed to combat current needs.



During the first part of the game the player's choices will be recorded and alter interactions with other GOIs. An ESOTERIC Foundation is more likely to get along with The Serpent's Hand for example.

Around the midpoint of the game the player will have to choose between the three paradigms in order to unlock the final tier research and policy options. Each branch will have unique technology and policies as well as variations of several techs and policies.

Hopefully this gives a good overview of paradigms. There will be many more details once it is time to talk more about policies and research.

This brings us to the first GOI I wish to discuss: The Chaos Insurgency.

My original plan was to implement it exactly how it is described on the wiki. But a conversation I had sparked a different idea that I am super excited about. Its less canon, but canon on the wiki can be pretty flimsy at times so hear me out.

The CI is a rogue splinter group of the foundation that broke off in 1924. They are basically the opposite of the foundation except for an apparent similar desire to protect normality. However in the game the Foundation can vary in the approach it will take. Making it so the two groups might not differ as much in beliefs as rival factions should.

So I propose that CI will not exist at the start of the game. When the player selects a paradigm in order to unlock the final levels of research the schism occurs. Based on the player's choice, the CI is created with a paradigm opposite of the one the player chose. Staff members and task forces leaning towards this counter paradigm defect. Due to their opposite alignments, the Foundation and Insurgency are unlikely to reconcile their differences and it creates a much more personalized conflict.

The CI will also be implemented as a Global Conflict style GOI. Being global they fight for influence and position across the entire world. Having an focus on conflict they will try to exterminate groups not aligned to their interests. They will have an interest in all anomalous activity and objects. Currently I don't have any other specific behaviors in mind besides their SCP-001 interactions, but that will come later.

Well this article has already grown in size considerably and covered alot of ground. Please leave feedback and suggestions and let's make this the best SCP game yet. Next time more GOI implementation plans including Nobody and Oneroi.

Cya Then!