Simulation Game Test Features! Game Dev Adventure #GDA3

[PATRON EXCLUSIVE]: This post is a Patreon Exclusive, please do not share until it becomes public! Enjoy ❤️

Hey friends!

How are you all doing? I hope the summer isn't too hot for those of you in the northern hemisphere..☀️ For us down there it's super cold!! I've never seen such a cold winter in Mauritius (I even wore a SWEATSHIRT for the first time in years here lol❄️)

Anyway I'm doing really well, I've been practicing Game Development in the Unity Engine this month and I'd like to share a few things with you! 

🎮 Simulation Game Test Features 🎮

As you may know, my ultimate goal for the future is to create my own Simulation/Adventure Game. Before I'm able to release (or even announce) such a big project, I need to learn, Learn and LEARN a lot! That's what I've been doing this month with various test projects, in order to create features that would be needed in such a game. 

So I've been working on two features: Camera Controls in the style of The Sims, and a whole new in-game Computer Ui. Watch the video up above to see these features and we'll talk about them down below⬇️

🎥 Camera Controls 🎥

One thing I learned this month is how to create a camera system that works similarly to our beloved The Sims Franchise! I've talked briefly about this in my last post, the famous free roaming rotational top shot camera (let's just call it FREECAM for now, it's way easier)

As you can see in the video, this camera system allows me to:

•  Zoom-in / Zoom-Out : Quite an important feature of course, in order get a close look at details, but also to zoom out to get a view of the whole world! If I'm creating a simulation game, I want it to be open world, similar to The Sims 3, where you can zoom out to see the full world from a far distance. And this isn't as simple as it looks, because when you zoom out, your computer has to render much more 3D objects, which requires both CPU and GPU performance. In order to make this possible, I'm also practicing something very important: optimization

• Optimization: in order to zoom-out / zoom-in smoothly, I had to create what we call "LODs" (Levels Of Detail) for 3D objects. This is also a thing in The Sims (and almost every single video game out there). When the camera is far away from an object, the quality of this object decreases, resulting in less Vectrices rendered on screen. But what are vectrices? They are the hundreds or thousands of small points that are connected together to create a 3D object. So, when I zoom-out, the number of points  in this 3D object decreases, it's a lower quality but you can't tell because you are far away. I hope that makes sense ahah

• Rotation: I added of course the rotation to this camera system, otherwise you'd be facing the same direction all the time and would look like a 2D game. The rotation of the camera works with the same controls as TS3 Camera, just click and hold the middle button on your mouse, and slide it to the sides to rotate horizontally, or slide to the top/bottom to rotate vertically.

• Movement: Once again, I created something similar to TS3 camera, click and hold the right button of your mouse and slide it anywhere to move around in-game. I also added the border movement (not in the video). When the cursor gets close to a border of your screen, the camera moves towards that border.

• Dynamic Cursor: if you look closely in this video, you can see that the cursor displayed changes dynamically depending on the mouse buttons I'm pressing. So if I'm rotating, a little rotation symbol replaces the round cursor. And if I'm moving around, there's an arrows symbol showing up!

That's it for this camera system feature, I hope you found it interesting to see what's happening behind the scenes of what seems to be such a simple feature when it's actually many functions working together. Now let's move on the Computer Ui!

💻👨‍💻Computer Ui (in-game) 💻👨‍💻

The other thing I worked on is an in-game Ui Computer (inspired by my own fictional Plumfruit brand 👀)

What would this be used for? I was thinking it would be kind of a central place for the player to do tasks such as online banking, furniture shopping, but also reading the newspaper!

As you can see I created a few features for this in-game computer:

• Menu bar: the menu bar on the left shows up when you click on the Plumfruit Logo, then all the apps show up and you can click on any of them for the app to show up with cool animations.

• Newspaper App: one thing I'd love to see in my simulation game is a newspaper that dynamically generates headlines depending on your actions and what's happening in the virtual world. For example if you find a very rare collectible during a quest, you'd see an article about you the following week in the local newspaper! How fun would it be? Also I called it the RedactedTimes because I don't want to give away the name of the sim game I'd like to create just yet, it's way too soon...

• Furniture Shopping App: another thing I'd like to see implemented instead of a Build/Buy catalog where you can get everything you want instantly is online shopping with delivery times. Let me explain: if you visit the RedactedShop online, you can purchase items and furniture that will be delivered to your place the next day (a few minutes in-game). This would be closer to an Animal Crossing system rather than the Sims, but still a bit different with much smaller delivery times. Otherwise, if you want this piece of furniture right away, you could visit the furniture store physically and take it home with you! What do you think about this feature?

• Other Apps: and of course there would be other apps on your virtual computer, I was thinking of an Online Banking App (with a fictional currency similar to simoleons), a File Management App where you could for example manage your Mods, screenshots, etc., but also a Social Media App where both the NPCs and your friends could post, or even a Weather App for an obvious purpose that is: checking the weather lol

And that's it for this Virtual Computer concept! I hope you like it as well, and that you will notice small details that make the difference in my opinion (dynamic blurred background, smooth animations for apps showing up, clock widget, etc.)

That's it for today friends!

Did you enjoy these concepts, do you have questions or other ideas? Tell me down below in the comments⬇️

Also, the Henwards Legacy video is on the way but taking more time than expected, can't wait to show you the spells and mysteries I made for this demo project...

Love you all ❤️

Arnie