How a 40-Day Narrative Game Built on a Strict State Machine Survived 130 Flags and 33 Endings

Developer Mykola is building NICHLYST, a narrative game set in Kyiv, currently in a 14-day Google Play closed testing period as of September 2026. The game spans 40 in-game days, 130 boolean flags, six moral axes, and 33 distinct endings, creating a state-space that the developer describes as an exponential engineering challenge. To prevent cascading logic failures common in branching narrative games, the project was built around a strict, centralized state machine rather than mutable global JavaScript objects. The 40 days are structured into eight thematic waves, each carrying its own narrative tone and mechanical rules, from a bunker awakening to a climactic archive-or-broadcast decision. The devlog, written on an aging laptop amid air sirens in Kyiv, details how architectural discipline — not creative shortcuts — kept the project from collapsing under its own complexity.