1976: The Trucks Just Stopped Coming.
The lights were still on.No one knew how long it would last.Society didn't collapse overnight.It simply stopped showing up.
A leadership and social survival simulator set in April 1976.The trucks stopped arriving. Workers stopped showing up. Stores emptied slowly, then all at once. Guide a community through uncertainty, scarcity, and the collapse of the systems people once depended on.
1976 is a leadership and social survival simulator.Guide a community through uncertainty, scarcity, competing priorities, personal conflicts, difficult decisions, and the gradual collapse of the systems people once depended on.The challenge is not surviving a disaster.The challenge is leading people through one.
Why 1976?1976 is set in early 1976, before computers, smartphones, social media, GPS, and the modern internet.When systems begin to fail, people cannot simply search for answers. Communities must rely on local knowledge, relationships, leadership, and trust.The focus of 1976 is not technology. It is people.
1976 isn't a game about perfect information. It's a game about living in a world where everyone knows only part of the truth. People make decisions from observations, memories, rumors, trust, and experience. Sometimes they're right. Sometimes they're wrong. Sometimes they never learn the whole story.
In 1976, you don't select dialogue from a list.Simply say what you want to say—by typing or speaking naturally.Your words are interpreted in real time, and NPCs respond according to what they know, what they believe, who they trust, and what is happening around them.There are no dialogue trees to memorize or scripted conversations to exhaust. Every conversation develops naturally from the people involved, what they know, and the circumstances surrounding them.
A Living CommunityEvery NPC has a history that began before the player arrived.Families, occupations, friendships, rivalries, neighborhoods, and community ties existed long before Day 1.As the world changes, those relationships continue to evolve. Alliances form, trust is earned or lost, rumors spread, and communities adapt based on the choices made by both the player and the NPCs.
Built Around PeopleIn 1976, understanding someone is often more valuable than outlasting them.Leadership, cooperation, memory, trust, communication, and local knowledge become just as important as food, tools, and shelter.Sometimes the right conversation changes more than the right tool ever could.People don't respond because the script says they should. They respond because, from their perspective, it makes sense.People don't survive because they know everything. They survive because they learn from one another.Designed to Work Offline1976 is designed to run entirely on the player's computer.Core systems—including speech recognition, and NPC conversation—
are intended to operate locally without requiring a persistent internet connection or cloud-based AI services during gameplay.
1976 has been in active architectural development since May 2026.
Before implementation, major systems are designed, independently reviewed,
and refined to establish clear subsystem responsibilities and historical consistency.
The entries below summarize major milestones and ongoing areas of development.
Development Progress
| Workflow | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Multi-review development process | Independent architectural review and refinement before implementation. |
| ChatGPT | Primary architectural discovery and system design. |
| Codex | Independent verification and consistency review. |
| Claude | Independent critique and alternative analysis. |
| Unreal Engine Copilot | Blueprint implementation assistance within Unreal Engine. |
| Action | Purpose |
|---|---|
| CityMap | Historical formation of the city. |
| Character Generation | Create historically grounded NPCs. |
| Family Generation | Construct households and relationships. |
| CityState | Maintain the objective post-Day 1 world. |
| MindComponent | NPC cognition and decision-making. |
| Vehicle Generation | Historically appropriate ownership and inventories. |
| Regional Culture | Improve authenticity through local customs. |
| Accessibility Interface | Improve speech and input accessibility. |
| Language Library (LL) | Provides shared conceptual descriptions for communication while allowing each NPC to form its own conclusions. |
| Technology | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Unreal Engine 5 | Primary game engine and Blueprint development. |
| Unreal Engine Copilot | Blueprint implementation assistance. |
| Speech-to-Text (STT) | Converts player speech into text for processing. |
| Text-to-Speech (TTS) | Generates NPC spoken dialogue. |
| MetaHuman | High-fidelity human character creation and animation. |
| Whisper (or chosen STT engine) | Offline speech recognition. |
| Piper / Kokoro (or chosen TTS engine) | Offline speech synthesis. |
| Convai (if retained) | Evaluated as part of dialogue and AI experimentation. |
Future Project Exploration
| Planned System | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Colony Management | Coordinate survivor communities. |
| Agriculture | Long-term food production and sustainability. |
| Dynamic Weather | Environmental effects on survival and behavior. |
| Historical World Generation | Construct the world before Day 1. |
| Social Recognition | Model pre-existing community relationships. |