Barvista - May 2026
Chairssssss
This month I've been working toward the build menu. Most of it is boring functional changes like "IF Object exists here, don't remove from existence". Once I've gotten this out of the way, I'll be looking to make some new texture designs, save state system.. rotations of objects also coming shortly. My old texture sheets were pretty rough for scaling furniture objects so they have been updated and improved!
This system unfortunately has a few more considerations. For example, customer queuing, if you place a cash register to a wall... the customers will just walk outside of the building and queue staring at a blank wall (which is not an intentional game feature :P). So some consideration is still needed behind object placement, e.g. space should be available in front of registers... coffee machines should only be placed if you can stand next to them.. things like that. I'm making a huge list of clauses for this, but it should make the system more bug free and awesome :)
Food for Thought
Up til now.. I've been using TileMapLayers for placing objects.. (these are essentially grids with set sizes). This is great for things like pathfinding, collision and rules. What it doesn't really allow for is freedom of design. I feel like the cafe should be the one place the player can truly express their creative design and so I've been thinking about off grid placement. Just little objects for design that maybe a player could add anywhere to the cafe (like coffee cups, teddy bears, plants). Things which will not intrude on the game loop, but add a personal touch to the world.
A cafe is a chaotic place at times, not a surgical hospital environment where everything exists all orderly. If I find that the build system restricts my freedom of design, I may come back and update certain layers for placement e.g. chairs can be placed anywhere as long as collison shapes are not obstructing other objects.
It's a design idea... but currently the game loop takes priority right now! Onwards and upwards!