Iron Log #6

Hello everyone,

I'd like to start sharing some images from the game but since it still looks like a prototype filled with placeholder art here is some concept art.

The last two weeks have been spent adding things that make the game playable.  I worked on the main menu, settings, save and loading games, new game options, etc. It's not exciting work but needs to be done.

Foundation and building snapping

Positioning of building pieces in games can be tricky. When you have a square foundation and want to place it next to another one the game should try and help the player align it. Often games do this by "snapping" the position so it lines up on the edges or at specific places. When the player aims too far away it will un-snap and go back to freeform, or snap to another piece. This is what I'm doing in Belts of Iron as well. But the tricky part is when and where building pieces snap. After some trial and error I'm going with "sockets" on building pieces that have information like what can be attached to them and what direction they should rotate.  In order to determine what the player wants to snap a building to, I think I'm doing some clever heuristics with distance and the angle the player is looking at. For example if the player is placing foundation pieces and is looking forward at the edge in front of them they will most likely want to snap the foundations side by side. But if they look more downwards toward their feet they might want to place the foundation directly on top of it. So far I've added only a few building pieces but it's working pretty well for me.

That's all for now. Hopefully have more to share soon!

As always, thanks for reading and head over to the discord to learn more https://discord.gg/xmmPeZHj4T