Sooo it’s been a while! I had planned to do another update on my Business Ethics Management Simulator project when I’d finished the next steps from my last post. It’s taking longer than I thought as I’ve been working on some other projects, so I wanted to do a quick post on where I’m up to.
Improve the UI
I’ve added some initial art for the UI (art is not my strong suit), though I want to make changes to the layout and what info to prioritise on the main screen.
In-game events
I’ve written some side events and I plan to add a lot more, as well as change the timing for when they happen around the main story. I’m also updating the event system, so that events can be triggered by objects the player purchases and staff they hire.
Re-doing the grid system for placing objects
This wasn’t on my list in the last post but it has been something that’s never really worked as well as it needs to, and I wanted to take some time to fix it before going any further. It was one of the first things I’d worked on when I started this game and learning Unity, so it felt messy and I wanted to start again with something that was easier to build on.
I followed this series of tutorials from Code Monkey to re-do it: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzDRvYVwl53uhO8yhqxcyjDImRjO9W722 and added some changes from the previous system, like checking if there’s enough budget for the item or if the cursor is over a placeable area for a certain item.
Bugs!
There were a fair few bugs that I wanted to fix before adding more features in, for example when items were placed they didn’t update the NavMesh so customers and staff would walk through them, or staff on the register wouldn’t go on a lunch break but other staff would.
Next steps
I’ve got a rough plan of everything I want to include in this level and I’m making my way slowly through the list of work to get there, the next things on my list are:
- Changing the event system so that events linked to certain items and staff can be added
- Changing the timing for when events happen
- Adding events and UI for in-game advisors