DD#286 Say My Name!

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another week's developer's diary.

Since I have been quite busy in real life at the moment, I am taking a detour from the main storyline and working on a feature on our wishlist. That is, the addiction system.

For quite a long time, people have been able to just pump in those funny piles and needles in their veins when facing unspeakable horror during their adventures just to gain some advantages. Well, it's based on real-life. That's very realistic. After all, it's quite common during wartime and conflicts. Some well-known examples are Benzadrine, used by the Allied forces in WWII; Pervitin, used by the Germans; and Totsugeki-Jo, used by the Empire of Rising Sun. There are even rumors about the usage of similar substances in the current ongoing war in Ukraine. But we may not be able to verify until it's over. However, there are consequences of extended usage of those substances. But, for all kinds of reasons, history books in schools simply skip those parts.

Even just for educational purposes, we shall have this system in place. Let's start with something people quite commonly use during certain styles of gameplay.

Who doesn't like that Riot Juice? They can make you very angry. Anger is an emotion that is even more destructive than discipline, more powerful than motivation. It allows you to put aside all your emotional burden just to destroy your enemies and achieve your goals at all costs. Thus, you can find people weaponizing such an emotion quite often. We will talk a bit more about this later. But here is the thing: it can now cause addiction, as you can see in the screenshot.

When your body gets so used to a high-adrenaline state. It craves more. If it cannot get it, you will feel extremely tired and exhausted. The only way to relieve this is to get another shot. You are now dependent on it. Is it worth it? Well, I don't judge. It's all your choice. The negative impacts only make the choice more meaningful. Otherwise, people will not be so respectful to some anti-heroes.

The addiction is permanent; it will keep reminding you of your choices in the past. But there shall always be a cure, a way of redemption. After all, we can all make mistakes when we're young, lacking life experience and not familiar with this world. (Fun fact: Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, and Elon Musk were all once either Democrats or supported the Democratic Party at an earlier stage in their lives. It looks so beautiful at first glance, isn't it? But once they saw how rotten it is inside, smart people know to cut the ties with those snakes.) Thus, through supernatural science, there is a cure for all addictions.

But it's expensive. You also cannot find it on the "normal" side of the world. You know, in the game setting, the Illuminati works quite hard to keep such things out of civilian use. Otherwise, it's going to bankrupt a lot of their businesses. They sell other, less-efficient medicines. They run Drug Addiction Treatment Centers to get government funding. (But, hey! At least they still treat people, just less efficiently. Unlike those Minneapolis day care centers, which are just outright fraud! :D) Anyway, you can get a cure if you can pay the price.

But science is one way to solve the problem.

There is an old saying

the weak seek power from outside while the strong seek power within. There are endless examples of people getting rid of addictions just by their willpower. For example, a young handsome Chinese general of WW2, Zhang Xueliang, was once a hedonistic young man. He did drugs, smoked cigarettes, and drank alcohol until one day the Japanese murdered his father. He sought revenge, but before that, he knew he must fix himself. So, he locked himself in a room and told his man that whoever brought drugs near him would be executed with his pistols. (He was probably very angry. But, as I said, weaponizing such emotion can be really powerful if you can control it.) Anyway, after some painful months, he got rid of his addictions and was reborn anew.

So, the moral of the story

You don't need expensive medicines to cure addictions. You can heal it with strong faith!

In the gameplay, a new prayer has been added to many faiths. It will require a lot of devotion. After all, you can't just half-heartedly make a phone call to God and say, "Hey! I want redemption; please show me a miracle." It has to be much more difficult than that.

Now that the first iteration and a very basic circle are done. Let's move on to something far more than just drug usage. It's a plot in Katan, the town of outlaws. There, you can find a certain drug lord.

Mr. Lambert just received a full 3D upgrade from his previous 2D placeholder arts. Now it becomes more obvious where this character is inspired by. You can also use his appearance on your main character or any customized teammates if you want to cosplay. One of his drugs is known as

Lambert's HIGH It can now also cause addiction. But that's just the surface. If you take a closer look at the addiction type, you can find the connection to a certain ancient mushroom civilization that is trying to reconquer this world that was once theirs. The ingredients of such a drug are from the spores of those mushrooms. Once the entire human population is addicted to their spores, the conquest shall be very simple. Unfortunately, Mr. Lambert is not aware of this. Thus, there is a side quest that lets you convince him to stop once you uncover the truth beneath a cave in Katan. That's a more sinister example of the addiction system. Or...if you are siding with those mushrooms, you can use those spores in alchemy and spread their addictions towards your enemies. After all, after witnessing all the terrible things humanity has done to itself, some may wonder if it would be better to just let another superior race take over the Earth. It's just like the Protectorate faction in Terra Invicta, and you can fully play someone like them in this game.

However, there are still people who have more faith in humanity! The SpaceX Operation continues! Those are my combat logs in the stock market. As the stock price overcorrects, things are getting a bit bloody, as they should have been. But as someone who has been meat-grinding in China's A-share market for decades, the entire US market is like an easy mode to me. I am still winning! Those noobs think we cannot profit from longing a falling stock. They simply don't know how this war is fought. Let me light up the mood a bit more!

Decades later, when our descendants on Mars ask us what we have done in July 2026, we can tell them with pride that we have fought the shorters, the Woke Leftists, and George Soros in this trench warfare with our bayonets to secure humanity's interplanetary future, the dream of stars at 3 a.m.! Each inch, millions of dollars perish. But we fought on without doubts. This is simply the RIGHT thing to do. This song has also been added to the game.

That's for this week. I expect the next week will still be quite busy. I may still work on this feature. But after July 20th, it's likely I will be able to come back to the main story.

Full update log of this week: 20260706 English ##########Content############### 【Addiction】The Addiction System hath now come to life and is fully live! 【Drugs】Riot Juice may now cause addiction. 【State Effect】A new State Effect hath been revealed: Riot Juice 【State Effect】A new State Effect hath been revealed: Riot Juice Withdrawal 【Perk】A new Perk hath been revealed: Addicted: Riot Juice 【Wiki】The State Effects page hath been updated. 简体中文 ##########Content############### 【上瘾】上瘾系统上线！ 【药物】暴动药剂现在可能导致上瘾。 【状态效果】新状态效果：暴动药剂 【状态效果】新状态效果：暴动药剂戒断效果 【特性】新特性：【上瘾：暴动药剂】 【维基】更新了【状态效果页面】

20260707 English ##########Content############### 【Item】A sound effect hath been added when thou usest Riot Juice from the menus. 【Item】If an item can cause addiction, such information now appeareth in the item description menu together with the chance of addiction, that thou mayest calculate the risk. 【Item】A new Item hath been revealed: NulliX 【Shopping】Dr. Jackel’s nurse robot now selleth NulliX. ##########System################# 【Addiction】Various cure functions have been added within the Addiction Management module. 【Addiction】A function hath been added to discern how many addictions a character beareth. 简体中文 ##########Content############### 【物品】为暴动药剂加入了一个在菜单中使用的音效。 【物品】如果一个物品可能导致上瘾，那么该信息会显示在详细的物品介绍窗口内，包含上瘾概率，用于你们进行风控计算。 【物品】新物品：灭瘾剂-X 【购物】豺狼医生的机器护士那里现在会贩卖灭瘾剂-X ##########System################# 【上瘾】在上瘾管理模块加入了多个治疗上瘾的函数。 【上瘾】加入了函数判断一个角色有多少种上瘾特性。

20260708 English ##########Content############### 【Faith】A new Prayer hath been revealed: Pray to Cure Addictions. (Each addiction requireth 5000 devotion to cure.) 【Faith】The following faiths now possess this new prayer by default: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Shinto, Una, Samujier, Zoroastrianism, Korean Muism. 【Addiction】When a character’s addiction is healed by item or prayer, a message shall now pop up. 【Wiki】A new Addiction page hath been added, listing all current addictions and their cures. 【Wiki】A link to the Addiction page hath been added upon the Item page. 简体中文 ##########Content############### 【信仰】新的祈祷：祈祷摆脱上瘾 （每个上瘾症状需要5000虔诚） 【信仰】以下信仰自带这个新的祈祷：基督教、伊斯兰教、犹太教、佛教、道教、印度教、神道教、Una、萨姆吉尔、拜火教、韩国巫教。 【上瘾】现在，当一个角色的上瘾症状被通过物品或祈祷治愈，会有一条信息显示。 【维基】加入了一个【上瘾】页面，记录了当前所有的上瘾症状和治疗手段。 【维基】在物品页面加入了前往上瘾页面的链接

20260709 English ##########Content############### 【Music】A new Song hath been revealed: Trade on SpaceX 【Boombox】Thou canst now hearken unto < > within thy Boombox. 【State Effect】A new State Effect hath been revealed: Psychedelic Spore 【State Effect】A new State Effect hath been revealed: Psychedelic Spore Withdrawal 【Wiki】The State Effect page hath been updated. 【Perk】A new Perk hath been revealed: Addicted: Psychedelic Spore 【Item】Using Psychedelic Spore directly upon a character may now cause addiction. 【Alchemy】Any potions crafted with Psychedelic Spore can now also cause Psychedelic Spore addiction. 【Alchemy】A higher amount of ingredients that can cause a certain type of addiction shall now likewise increase the chance of addiction. 【Wiki】The Alchemy page hath been updated. 【Item】Lambert’s HIGH Drugs can now cause Psychedelic Spore addiction with a greater chance, for they contain a condensed measure of Psychedelic Spores as ingredients. 【Item】Item descriptions now declare plainly which exact type of addiction they may cause. 【Wiki】The Addiction page hath been updated. ##########System################# 【Alchemy】A tag hath been added to allow ingredients to create potions that may cause addiction. 【Item】Items can now cause multiple addictions. 【Item】Items can now bear their own modifier to alter the chance of addiction. 【Item】The "addiction_substance" upon items is now an array of strings instead of a single string. 简体中文 ##########Content############### 【音乐】新歌：SpaceX交易中 【音乐播放器】你现在可以在音乐播放器里听《SpaceX交易中》 【状态效果】新状态效果：迷幻孢子 【状态效果】新状态效果：迷幻孢子戒断效果 【维基】更新了状态效果页面 【特性】新特性：上瘾：迷幻孢子 【炼金】使用迷幻孢子制作的药剂现在也会造成迷幻孢子上瘾。 【维基】更新了炼金页面 【物品】兰伯特的很嗨的药现在会造成迷幻孢子上瘾，并且有更高概率上瘾。因为其成分包含了浓缩的多份迷幻孢子。 【物品】物品现在会详细写明会造成哪一种上瘾症状。 【维基】更新了上瘾页面 ##########System################# 【炼金】炼金材料现在可以带有造成上瘾的效果。 【物品】物品现在可以造成多种上瘾 【物品】物品可以自行调整每一个上瘾的概率。 【物品】物品上的"addiction_substance" 属性现在是一个数组的字符串而非单个字符串。

20260711 English ##########Content############### 【Character】Mr. Lambert now possesseth his 3D assets. Thou mayest now also take upon his appearance for thy main character or customized teammates. 【Shopping】Dr. Butcher now also selleth NulliX. (Drug addiction shall be most common in Katan. Thus is the demand high, and consequently the price is raised.) 【Shopping】Samujier Hospital now also selleth NulliX. (The price is about five percent lower than usual.) 简体中文 ##########Content############### 【角色】兰伯特现在有了3D美术资源。你现在也可以将其外观用于你的主角或自定义队友。 【购物】屠夫医生现在也会卖灭瘾剂-X（在卡坦，毒品上瘾属于常见现象，所以，这种东西需求较高，因此价格也同样更高。） 【购物】萨姆吉尔医院现在也会贩卖灭瘾剂-X （价格相对其它地方的标准价格便宜大约5% ）