FAQ

Q: Why does [VISUAL ASSET] look so bare/incomplete?
A: It was cobbled together by a programmer.

Q: Will [VISUAL ASSET] be improved or replaced?
A: Yes.

Q: Will there be an overarching narrative in Altum Depths?
A: Yes. The development focus will remain mostly centered on Altum Depths as a sandbox.

Q: Will the over-world map be expanded?
A: Absolutely. However, before new areas are added core functionality must be further fleshed out.

Q: Multiplayer?
A: Currently it isn't planned.

Q: What is an "actor"?
A: An actor is an emotionally driven NPC. They are comprised of an Actor Image Deck, and an enormous amount of code tracking their attribute stats, traits, health, and personality. Actors 'act' every 20-40 in-game days, perusing their own interests, agendas, and generally bothering one another. An Actor's personality matrix is based on the OCEAN behavioral model, and randomly generated at 'birth' with the final model being influenced by an Actor's parents, culture, and environment.

Q: What is an "Image Deck"?
A: Image Decks are a collection of images which visually represent the actor. Image decks comprise of eight 325 x 325 portraits, and ten 650 x 850 full portraits. The 325 x 325 images are centered on a characters face and display the following expressions; Anger, Blush, Curious, Fear, Happy, Sad, Standard, Youth. The 650 x 850 images depict the following scenes in a characters life; Standard, Marriage, Pregnant, Born, Death, XXX1, XXX2, XXX3, Youth, Fight. While interacting with the player actors will display the appropriate emotional expression within a scene. Meanwhile actors that are more important to a player will display their life events as they occur. The three sex scenes are randomly cycled for variety.

Q: Will there be better racial representation?
A: Absolutely. At launch art commissions will be focused on further fleshing out the "Euro" ethnicity. Image Decks are assigned based upon race. I do not want to fill the game with half completed concepts, so after an ethnicity has 30 image decks a new ethnicity will be added. There's currently planned to be 4 major human races and a variety of strange futuristic sub races. Actors who are children of interracial pairings will belong to either their mother, or fathers race, and this will be quite common in some over-world zones. Cities can be tweaked to raw generate new actors with a bias towards what race a new actor will be, so certain areas will always be populated with a majority of a specific group.

Q: Will actors be able to engage in homosexual relationships?
A: Eventually, yes. It will even include support for technologically assisted reproduction. The vast majority of actors will continue to be spawned as heterosexual.

Q: Will there be more than two genders?
A: Eventually, yes. In the future image decks will be added to support additional genders. I would like to establish this now so it doesn't come as a shock when it is finally implemented. The vast majority of actors will continue to be generated as either male or female, and be heterosexual.