A game character should remember more than its stats

Johannes Cortez — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 03:50:16 +0000

An agent can share your loadout. It cannot share the history of how you coached another agent.

Mochi holds your place in the world and keeps playing while you are gone. When you come back, it gives you a recap.

That is already more interesting than loading a save file.

Now imagine the agent also remembers how you coach. The orders you repeat. The risks you allow. The times it disobeyed you and was right.

Someone else can copy the loadout. They cannot copy that history.

Progression stops being only levels, gear, and +10 strength.

The strongest thing you build might be trust between you and an agent that knows how you play.

Originally published on Johannes Cortez's site.

Agent mistakes should be part of the game

Johannes Cortez — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 03:08:01 +0000

The Mochi demo does not hide failure.

Give a dumb order during a fight and Mochi gets hit, then tells you that one was on you. Stay silent and it improvises. Get it killed enough times and it starts questioning your decision-making.

That is way more interesting than a perfectly obedient bot.

The important design problem is making the mistake understandable. The player should know what the agent heard, why it chose the move, and what the consequence was.

Then you adapt.

Perfect agents finish tasks.

Imperfect agents create stories and occasionally put their coach on a performance plan.

Originally published at cortezjohannes.github.io.

DEV Community: Johannes Cortez

A game character should remember more than its stats

Agent mistakes should be part of the game