Game Development So Far
Game development this week has been nice and steady. The focus this week was around building. I have mentioned in previous posts the importance I place on having a good build system in a management simulation game. Building and expanding your empire is a big part of tycoon games. Being able to do that in a fun, easy and user friendly way is important. I planned to take some extra time focusing on getting this part of the sim smooth and things are working out quite nicely. To summarise this week’s game development tasks:
- Building – I went back to basics to “build in” the foundation for the build mechanism. I took a look at things from a 2D perspective to solve the issue. Even though the game itself is 3D the problem of building your gym is a 2D one. I had a look at how quill18 tackled this in his Unity Base Building Game Tutorial on YouTube. Basically it involves using a tiling system to handle the game world. This week I’ve been building the tiling system and visualising it in game ready for the next phase.
- Gym Environment – As I have putting my focus on the building side of things I didn’t attempt any updates to the environment.
Other Developments
Continuing the adjacent tasks alongside game development I continued working on the chronikspartan.com website and expanding its reach. This week I got round to writing a post I’ve been meaning to write for quite some time. Best New Tycoon Games 2018 is a list of the PC tycoon games I’ve had my eye on in 2018. Ensuring that Gym Empire is relevant with the current best tycoon games is important. A big part of this is keeping an eye on what is already out there or on the horizon. From a game development point of view this is really useful. However, from a tycoon fan point of view it’s also really interesting. That’s why I thought it would be an interesting article for all you fellow management, tycoon and simulation game enthusiasts.
I’m really pleased with the outcome of the article. I was pleasantly surprised to see it rank number one when I searched for New Tycoon Games 2018 on Google. I’m not sure if it will still hold that ranking but to have even been number one for just one day is a huge milestone for the website!
I’ve also continued behind the scenes work on the Chronik Spartan ARG. I can’t say too much without giving it all away. But it has been great seeing people really starting to get into it now and try to figure out that first clue. All I can say is that It Is A Solvable Challenge… Just maybe not in that order…
Time Management
Continuing the sprint to a playable demo the game development focus remains on the build system. This week I will aim to get the build functionality mostly finished:
Building – Continue to develop the building simulation of the core game functionality. Aim to get as close to finished this week. Being completely realistic about the development this will be my main overall task this week.
Gym Empire is now available to add to your Steam Wishlist.
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