NPCJason v1.8.0

NPCJason v1.8.0 makes Jason feel more companion-like over long stretches without turning him into a noisy little process goblin.

• Added a lightweight familiarity and relationship system that persists across sessions and gently influences greetings, reactions, and unlock pacing
• Added intentional greeting and sign-off behavior so startup, winding down, and quiet transitions feel more alive
• Added milestone moments for days used, longer sessions, recurring interaction, and other long-haul desktop habits
• Added ambient world bits so Jason can occasionally seem busy with his own tiny off-screen nonsense
• Improved unlock and discovery surfacing with lighter, funnier announcement beats and tray-visible reward status
• Expanded mouse life with Crumb Heist, Mug Recon, Zip Tie Recovery, and calmer background sidekick presence
• Added daily mood surfacing and theme-linked content rotation to keep long-term sessions fresher without overpowering the normal mix
• Added clearer success, cooldown, interruption, and confusion reactions so behavior reads as intentional
• Fixed upgrade migration so existing users keep meaningful familiarity history instead of starting cold on the new system
• Fixed milestone consumption so missed or blocked milestone moments are not silently lost
• Tightened suppression and timing so greetings, sign-offs, and automatic reactions are less likely to collide with fullscreen, quiet-time, or active scripted behavior

NPCJason v1.7.0

NPCJason v1.7.0 adds more world, more timing, and more layered desktop nonsense without making Jason louder than he needs to be.

• Added a new desk-item interaction framework with real coffee mug, keyboard, and tiny network rack bits
• Added selective notification/context reactions so useful title observations can trigger short little behavior beats
• Added quote conversation chaining for follow-up punchlines and mini conversational bits
• Added more idle micro-actions so long sessions feel less repetitive and more alive
• Added lightweight skin specialties so Astronaut, Network, Office, Responsible, and Squarl Suit moods feel more distinct
• Added more Jason-and-mouse sidekick interactions, including Desk Patrol, Cable Audit, and Victory Scamper
• Added the new Networking Meltdown & Helpdesk Chaos content pack
• Added behavior tuning controls for activity level, quote frequency, and companion frequency
• Improved context-aware comedy so desk items, quotes, companion bits, title humor, and existing systems play together more cleanly
• Fixed persistence and runtime handling for the new behavior controls and layered prop interactions
• Polished pacing to reduce overlap between automatic speech, desk bits, movement, and companion antics

NPCJason v1.6.0

Highlights

• Added a lightweight companion framework and the first real sidekick: a pet mouse that idles, follows Jason, waits, reacts, and joins the desktop chaos without taking over the app.
• Added the Feed Cheese interaction with a readable backflip routine and the exact punchline Ansible Chris made me do it.
• Expanded dancing to three routines total so Jason rotates between distinct little victory bits instead of repeating the same move every time.
• Added Squarl Suit Jason as a proper first-class skin with full metadata, offsets, tray colors, and quote affinity.
• Added smarter app-title humor so Jason can occasionally react to useful foreground window titles without feeling invasive or constant.
• Added a dedicated Cisco joke pack for networking moments, Cisco-adjacent titles, and smug post-routing desktop energy.
• Tuned comedy/context biasing so companion moments, dances, title jokes, and the existing quote packs play together more cleanly.

Fixes And Polish

• Fixed companion shutdown so the mouse window cleans up correctly when the app exits.
• Hardened title handling so empty or missing window titles do not break reactions, and generic titles no longer over-bias the quote system.
• Ensured the cheese/backflip gag can still land its final line instead of losing it to the normal ambient speech cooldown.
• Normalized selected companion persistence so bad saved values recover safely to a valid companion.
• Added validation coverage for the new title packs, companion-aware template tokens, tray snapshot state, and Squarl skin registration.

NPCJason v1.5.0

Highlights

• Expanded personality states so Jason feels moodier, smugger, busier, sneakier, and more intentionally confused.
• Smarter desktop movement with pacing, hesitation, edge inspection, and safer recovery around screen boundaries.
• Reusable gag chains and mini-scenarios, including Busy IT Morning, Homelab Troubleshooting, Network Victory Lap, Responsible Adult Moment, and Office Chaos.
• Favorites and taste-shaping that bias skins, toys, scenarios, and quote packs without flattening the randomness.
• Discoveries and unlockables, including Astronaut Jason and longer-session surprises.
• Seasonal and special-event support with manual override for modes like Monday Morning Survival, Patch Day Panic, and Homelab Weekend.
• Richer optional audio behavior with category-aware mute handling and quick mute control from the tray.
• Stronger persistence for mute state, favorites, unlocks, enabled packs, special modes, and continuity between launches.
• New "what do" sayings folded into the structured quote-pack system.

Fixes And Polish

• Fixed unlock logic so normal content stays available while true discovery content unlocks correctly.
• Fixed speech sound playback to respect the speech sound category instead of bypassing mute/category rules.
• Fixed scripted movement focus so edge/corner inspection beats land where the scenario asked them to.
• Hid locked scenarios from normal tray selection until they are actually discovered.
• Fixed packaged builds to load bundled resources from the frozen app directory without duplicate skin/pack overrides.
• Hardened toy startup so missing UI support fails safely during headless validation.
• Improved installer and run/build scripts so they work cleanly with py-based Python installs and local-user Inno Setup installs.

NPCJason v1.4.0

Highlights

• Introduces Skin Framework v2 with richer metadata, quote affinity, sound hooks, accessory offsets, and per-skin animation support.
• Adds four new built-in skins: Office Jason, Homelab Jason, Network Jason, and Responsible Jason.
• Adds a reusable toy system with tricycle rides, rubber duck visits, tiny homelab server cart roll-bys, and stress-ball interactions.
• Adds structured quote-pack loading with enable/disable controls, weighting, repeat suppression, and contextual affinity.
• Includes the new Jason quote pack exactly as provided.
• Improves tray, quick-menu, and settings controls for skins, toys, quotes, sound, and special behavior toggles.
• Adds lightweight rare events and tighter contextual behavior between skins, toys, and quote selection.
• Includes stability and release-polish fixes for quote-pack persistence, installer discovery, and runtime validation.

NPCJason v1.3.0

Highlights

• Refactored the desktop runtime around focused controllers for state, scheduling, persistence, tray behavior, window management, and coordination.
• Hardened suppression, pause, screenshot, fullscreen, and recovery behavior so the pet keeps running through common Windows interruptions.
• Added stronger settings/shared-state sanitization, corrupt-file backup, atomic writes and exports, and safer content loading for dialogue, skins, and sounds.
• Expanded the regression suite across scheduler recovery, runtime state, persistence repair, speech history, tray-state modeling, update coordination, and platform geometry.
• Aligned docs, packaging, and release automation with the current architecture and build flow.

Validation

• python -m unittest discover -s tests -v via the available interpreter in this environment: 55 passing tests
• python -m compileall npcjason_app tests npcjason.py

Notes

The GitHub release workflow will build and attach the Windows EXE, installer, and checksums after this release is published.

v1.2.0

Highlights

• named pets, favorites/history, and auto antics scheduling
• quiet hours, fullscreen do-not-disturb, and granular reaction toggles
• settings import/export/reset plus diagnostics logging and recovery shortcuts
• skin metadata/validation feedback and placeholder-aware dialogue packs
• CI release packaging updated for v1.2.0 and version-driven installer asset names

Validation

• python -m compileall npcjason.py npcjason_app tests
• python -m unittest discover -s tests
• source smoke launch
• packaged EXE smoke launch

Notes

• Local installer compilation was blocked on this machine because Inno Setup was not available without admin install rights.
• The release workflow builds and attaches the installer artifact on GitHub.

NPCJason v1.1.0

Highlights

• External skin packs with hot reload
• Settings window for sound, startup, updates, reactions, and skin switching
• Real generated WAV sound assets with volume control
• Better multi-pet management and pet-to-pet chatter
• Event-driven Windows reactions for USB, power, and focused windows
• Hot-reload for sayings and dialogue packs
• Modularized codebase with automated tests
• Standalone EXE packaging plus release automation for EXE, installer, and checksums

Validation

• python -m unittest discover -s tests
• python -m compileall npcjason.py npcjason_app tests
• source startup smoke test
• packaged EXE startup smoke test

Notes

• The attached standalone NPCJason.exe was built locally and smoke-tested.
• The GitHub Actions release workflow will also build and attach the installer and fresh checksums for this release.

NPCJason v1.0.0

NPCJason v1.0.0 — Initial Release

A pixel art desktop pet companion for Windows. He lives in your system tray, dances when you click him, and dispenses NPC wisdom throughout the day.

Features

• Pixel art character rendered on a transparent, always-on-top desktop window
• System tray icon with Show/Hide, Dance, Say Something, Quit
• Left-click to dance (5-frame animation)
• Floating speech bubbles with random sayings (NPC humor, tech jokes, motivational lines)
• Auto-pops a saying every 3–8 minutes
• Fully draggable — move him anywhere on your desktop
• Right-click context menu on the character

Install from source

pip install -r requirements.txt
python npcjason.py

Build standalone EXE

build.bat

Requires Python 3.8+ and pip. Produces dist\NPCJason.exe via PyInstaller — no Python needed to run the output.

Build the installer

Install Inno Setup 6, then:

build_installer.bat

Produces NPCJason_Setup_1.0.0.exe.

Note: Pre-built binaries (NPCJason.exe / NPCJason_Setup_1.0.0.exe) are not attached to this release — build from source using the instructions above. Future releases will include compiled artifacts.