shadow.bbs

character creator almost finished. Need to swap out the placeholder out and make sure i18n and stuff. Who wants some screenshots?

As always, unstable builds now at shadowrun.fly.dev/game/ if you would like to go reserve your account. Settled on 2E rules for now. #gamedev #cyberpunk #webgame

The point here with all this; directors (dragons) produce -pressure- on the simulation, pushing it in a particular direction, looking for entropy in the sim and "throwing a molotov" in some cases. Others, you may be working for a johnson owned by a dragon and never know it. Until its too late.

“A ghost in the Matrix.”
Otaku appear. Deckers investigate. Corps deny everything.
Reality gets thin.

“Power failures in Downtown.”
Transport slows. Wageslaves panic. Lone Star deploys drones.
PCs smell opportunity.

This manifests as these gradients of narrative storytelling:
“Aztechnology is hunting a traitor.”
Gangers lie low. Fixers demand hazard pay. Deckers go sniffing the LTGs.
Corps raise Matrix security levels.

Every agent consumes information.
Each agent makes decisions based on their personality (a kind of bitpacked genome) which inflates to over a thousand different traits that influence how it interprets information across the simulation. this means needs (money, safety, cred, drugs, purpose…)

The Sprawl isn’t driven by scripts.
It’s driven by information gradients.

These gradients are built from packets driven by dragons via rumors, news reports, intercepted comms, fixers’ whispers, ganger graffiti, corporate memos, Matrix anomalies, decker logs, astral sightings, street rumors, etc

“Why are the Yakuza suddenly pushing into Redmond?”
“Why did this runner get ambushed?”
“Why did the LTG grid spike with anomalies?”

These are "information packets" -- created by dragons (directors). Information packets don’t force world changes — they seed them.

It represents things in the simulation. things like e.g; economic pressures, faction movements, crime clusters, player actions, NPC motivations & rumors, stresses in the RTG/LTG/Matrix layers, unmet needs

and this thing i'm coining: “narrative gradients” (more later)

A dragon's currency is information. In fact, because this is an immersive sim, and because information is the core currency of that simulation, /verified/ information is priceless. How does information get verified? That's where the rationalization step comes in, but first, that information?

The Director is the shape of a particular actor in our simulation. Think of Dunkelzahn or Lofywr; power players of the sixth world unlike anything we've ever seen. They know everything about the sixth world, because they must.

What does a dragon do?

The Director in Shadows plays an analogous role:

It does not dictate the simulation. It _interprets it_, frames it, nudges it, and ensures the world’s emergent behavior feels intentional, coherent, and narratively charged. How? Well, with shadowrun, never deal with a dragon....

A huge shoutout to @unormal.bsky.social and @jfg.land for the inspiration for this idea, and for helping it all come to life. <3

In Caves of Qud, procgen doesn't create the world, it justifies it through history.
Events are emergent, but the game backfills meaning so the world feels authored.

Welcome to the sprawl.
It is very much alive.
And it’s waiting for you.

~sysop
--- END TRANSMISSION

Players, too:
We’ll be running early tests where everything breaks, nothing is balanced, and the world is raw.
If you like being part of the primordial soup of a new universe, we want you.

And yes — this is open for co-development! I would love nothing more than collaborators who are into the idea and want to help make it come alive.
Coders, writers, 3D people, Shadowrun lore-heads… -- we have a discord! discord.gg/V4nrGEE9Nr

We’re not chasing nostalgia.
We’re chasing the moods those old games gave us:
The feeling of wandering a living world, unsure of what’s scripted and what’s emergent.
Not knowing if the bartender is an NPC or a human.
Not knowing if that rumor is real.
Not knowing if you’re safe.

Everything — the street, the LTGs, the grid, the corporate hosts — is simulated by actor processes.
Tens of thousands of them.
Each ticking under a supervision tree that never sleeps.
When you jack out, the world doesn’t pause.
The sprawl keeps moving without you. The information never stops moving.

We’re building the Matrix the same way:
Not a menu.
Not a mini-game.
A parallel universe layered over Seattle, where your mind is another actor with its own body, physics, and enemies.
Two bodies.
Two risks.
One continuous identity.

“Information is the atomic unit of the Sixth World.”
Give an NPC a piece of intel — a rumor, a sighting, a betrayal — and their entire trajectory adjusts.
Fixers raise prices.
Gangers posture.
Johnson’s hire quietly.
Corps investigate.
Players feel the ripple.

We believe you don’t simulate a world by writing content.
You simulate a world by giving every agent enough autonomy that content emerges from pressure.
Corps apply pressure.
Runners push back.
Information flows.
Rumors spread.
Consequences accumulate.

In most MMOs, NPCs are set dressing.
In our game, NPCs wake up each day with needs, fears, obligations, debts, cravings, and beliefs.
Not “AI companions,” but residents of the seattle sprawl
Every one of them reacts to information, scarcity, opportunity, or danger the way a real person might.

a living Seattle sprawl, simulated in real time, where every ganger, decker, wage-slave, corp suit, or spirit is an autonomous process with a memory, a worldview, and a job to do.

gonna start posting through the dev journey now that i'm at a point where things are coming together.

1) How is procgen going to work in shadowlands?
2) What is it like being a player in the game?
3) how else beyond just being online on the game can I play it?
4) what is an MMORPIMSIM?

> _