Got the placement to stick, including the blending between different path types. Now tomorrow all that’s left will be saving and loading, which should be simple.
I’ve also taken the decision to leave the pathbuilding as instantaneous, instead of having the landscaper dude going around placing them. Makes more sense this way, since it’ll be something the player will be able to lay and relay quickly. Going to study more from now on what should be dealt by the landscaper/builders, and what should be instantaneous.
Anyway, check out how it’s looking like!
So nice, specially being able to move it in 8 directions! Breaks away from the usual grid style of building things.
Sorry for the silence recently. Sometimes life comes at you hard and you don’t have a lot of time to work on things!
I’ve been busy getting the new path-building system in. Right now, the preview display is in, and allows you to build paths in all 8 directions. As you can see below:
Right now, the preview is basically a line renderer with a very simple material, perfect for illustrating where your path is expected to go.
As you draw the path, you’ll see how much it’s expected to cost. Once you release the mouse button, the path will begin being built by the landscaper. You’ll be able to remove sections of the path at any time.
Later on you’ll also be able to choose the type of path you want to build, which will come with different materials, costs, and sizes! Should lead to some very interesting styles!
Now I’m working on implementing the procedural mesh for the path proper, which will take a bit of work but I think I can get it done this weekend. Being able to place the path in 8 directions will be pretty useful!
After much wrestling with the physics system in Unity, Boss Golf alpha has been updated to version 0.53!
Features included in this version:
Improvement on the grass shader
Scaled the entire world for better physics/effects/everything. Now each ingame square is about 10 yards long. As a result, your holes will take over much more space in the game world. (Previously, they were about 25 yards long)
Day/Night color variation on the lighting
Physics adjustments
Improvements on the AI
New terrain shader (temporary!)
And as for bugs:
Landscaper will now update the terrain after placing it. It had stopped doing so thanks to the division of the meshes
Fixed the angles for the Wedge clubs
Several fixes related to the physics of the game
Improved handling of the chunks and terrain bits
And that’s about it. Adjusting the scale of the entire world took a lot longer than I expected, and brought about several unforeseen complications that were promptly fixed.
As a result of the changes, we’ve had to update the version of the save file, which means you’ll start off with a new golf course.
That’s all for now folks! Now I can focus on getting the paths improved, then the hole creator, then the water tool, and we’ll reach 0.6!
As part of slowing down the pace of gameplay and integrating the management aspect of the game in Boss Golf, I’ve finalized the primary implementation of the AI for the landscaper as well as changed the system for laying down tiles to make him place them!
Until now, you’d plop down a tile, and it would immediately affect the environment. This would let you create a massive resort at a too quick a pace. There was no incentive for careful planning, and it wasn’t an action you could think twice before committing to.
All of that changes now with the Landscaper and its AI. The new implementation, which will be rolled out to the other building features in the game, delegates the act of changing the landscape to the AI, and works on a system of orders.
Players will now draw the areas like they did before; instead of immediately affecting the environment, an overlay is added and an order is created. The players can then view this order’s characteristics: price, time to finish, area etc. They can modify this overlay/order with the bulldozer tool, to trim things they ended up thinking twice over. (Editing of the height of the tiles is still free and can be performed at any time, instantly. Since this is a very vital part of finetuning your golf course, I thought it better to keep it that way)
Once they are happy, they can simply Approve the order, and the landscaper will get around to effecting it once he has the time to do so. Like in the animations below:
Player places zones for fairway and bunkers.Doublechecking the orders, the player approves the work to be performed.The lonely landscaper hard at work. Having more of them will get things done faster! (At a cost!)
Pausing and Resuming has also been reworked to match the new gameplay style. Time now flows at a constant rate, and can be paused whenever you wish. You can’t make time pass by faster; later, however, you’ll be able to go on “holiday”, and the Resort will autosimulate and resolve the events of the day until you come back, or while you are managing another resort. The timescale for the day still needs some tweaking, but that is simple enough! (Also, really cool to pause the game as the AI takes an awesome shot, and just seeing the ball lying in the air, waiting for time to unfreeze!)
Oh! And you are also able to set the working hours for your resort. This will impact your running costs later, but right now it controls when the landscaper will be at work, as well as when the golfers are able to be spawned on your resort!
That’s all for today, folks! Next up is connecting the money (receiving from the AI and spending on building), and adding more management. Perhaps the goals would be a fun thing to have!
