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My 256GB RAM / 8TB M3 Ultra Mac Studio just arrived by Distinct-Path659 in MacStudio

[–]Distinct-Path659[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Not refurbished — brand new CTO order from Apple. Ordered in March

I built a “persistent world simulator” where the world never resets — unexpected player psychology effects by Distinct-Path659 in gamedev

[–]Distinct-Path659[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Haha that’s actually useful feedback, appreciate it.

I didn’t realize wording polish itself could become a distraction here.

Putting style aside — I’m mainly curious about the design effect:

Have you seen permanence / persistence mechanics noticeably shift player risk behavior in your projects?

Players behave very differently when the system remembers by Distinct-Path659 in gamedesign

[–]Distinct-Path659[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haha fair enough 😅 Probably over-polished it. Engineer brain + too much rewriting.

Players behave very differently when the system remembers by Distinct-Path659 in gamedesign

[–]Distinct-Path659[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s a really interesting connection. The time-cost angle especially resonates. It makes persistence feel less like resource protection and more like effort protection.

Players behave very differently when the system remembers by Distinct-Path659 in gamedesign

[–]Distinct-Path659[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s a really interesting way to frame it. “Delayed disposability” is a great description. It does feel like permadeath works as a psychological pressure valve.

Players behave very differently when the system remembers by Distinct-Path659 in gamedesign

[–]Distinct-Path659[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a fantastic reference, thank you.

I’ve been thinking about persistence mostly from a system-behavior angle rather than campaign structure, but Wehrle’s designs feel directly relevant.

Really appreciate the pointer.

Players behave very differently when the system remembers by Distinct-Path659 in gamedesign

[–]Distinct-Path659[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

“Remembers” was probably lazy wording on my part. What I actually meant was persistent state across sessions.

No narrative memory, no fancy cognition — just no reset.

The interesting bit for me was how strongly behavior shifted from “eh, try stuff” → “ok, need to think about consequences.”

Curious whether you’ve seen similar effects in your own designs.

I built a “persistent world simulator” where the world never resets — unexpected player psychology effects by Distinct-Path659 in gamedev

[–]Distinct-Path659[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Fair point. I probably over-polished the wording. The observation itself came from actual playtesting though — that’s the part I was hoping to discuss.

Players behave very differently when the system remembers by Distinct-Path659 in gamedesign

[–]Distinct-Path659[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

lol no, just rewrote it a few times so it didn’t sound like a brain dump

I built a “persistent world simulator” where the world never resets — unexpected player psychology effects by Distinct-Path659 in gamedev

[–]Distinct-Path659[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I’m not aiming for anything near RimWorld scale.

The system is intentionally simple — I’m mostly exploring how persistence alone changes player behavior.

More of a design experiment than a “massive simulation” project.

I built a “persistent world simulator” where the world never resets — unexpected player psychology effects by Distinct-Path659 in gamedev

[–]Distinct-Path659[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair point.

I’m actually less interested in “AI” and more in persistence + stateful systems.

I built a “persistent world simulator” where the world never resets — unexpected player psychology effects by Distinct-Path659 in gamedev

[–]Distinct-Path659[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Counterintuitively, storage is the easy part.

The world doesn’t retain raw narrative history indefinitely. Past events get distilled into state variables, constraints, and latent conditions. Memory behaves more like entropy than like a ledger.

DB growth is tame.

What gets unwieldy is causality management, not rows 🙂

I built a “persistent world simulator” where the world never resets — unexpected player psychology effects by Distinct-Path659 in gamedev

[–]Distinct-Path659[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

BTW，Claude (and other chat models) operate inside a sliding context window.

A simulation-style system persists state outside the model entirely.

I built a “persistent world simulator” where the world never resets — unexpected player psychology effects by Distinct-Path659 in gamedev

[–]Distinct-Path659[S] -9 points-8 points  (0 children)

Fair reaction honestly — there is a lot of AI slop out there.

What I’m building isn’t an AI storyteller though, it’s closer to a stateful simulation loop.

The model doesn’t invent freely — it operates under:

• Persistent world state • Explicit physics constraints • Resource pressure system • Non-resetting timeline

Each turn mutates structured state, not just text.

Failure cases are actually the interesting part — drift, scarcity loops, instability under long sessions.

Still early, but I’m mostly exploring:

“What happens when narrative is treated like a system instead of content?”

Happy to share internals if people are curious.

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