DevBlog - The Farm 03 - UI & Map Additions
Tags: gamedev, devjournal, development, showdev
Published: 2023-06-08 21:53:14

#Introduction

Hi there! Glad to see you again here on my DevBlog about the Project "The Farm".
It's been 2 weeks since my last Blog and I can assure you, I've made a lot of progress towards my vision of the game.
But since there are too many changes for just one Blog, I'll focus on adding to my last 2 Blogs about [UI](https://dev.to/justlevidev/devblog-update-01-ui-overhaul-46l4) and [Maps](https://dev.to/justlevidev/devblog-update-02-map-overhaul-6n5) to show some of my changes.

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#UI-Changes
The last time I talked about this topic I specifically mentioned the new Trading-UI and the new Chest-UI, but now there is another completely new Window: *the PC-UI*!
While I won't go into much details about the whole story of the game (since that will be its own Blog when it's ready to be talked about), I can probably already mention that one of the most important parts about the game is the interaction with an AI the player found after first waking up.
And since it's not very realistic to have an up until this point random person to be able to just build machines, the AI will take care of the whole building aspect of the game. (besides maybe some smaller things of course).
For that the AI has a few different *modes* that do something different.

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##Building
The building-tab is focused around building Objects and placing them into the world.
Currently those range from chests with different inventory sizes to farmTiles, which the player needs in order to plant his crops on.
Maybe I'll add some system to sort for items, but since there are only 5 different ones at the moment I will keep that idea for later to instead focus on the more important parts of the game.

![A picture showing the Building-Tab-UI](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/hxkp4b9oqzslw06p4i70.png)

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##AI-Talk
In order to progress the story, get some help with understanding the games mechanics or just to feel a little less alone I've added the option to "talk" with the AI.

![A picture showing the AI-Tab-UI](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/gd2ju6ojg6klcya5qg9j.png)

Those "talks" can go from just asking how to plant crops to asking the AI to open a door for you, but there will be A LOT more options added later on.

![A picture showing the AI-Talking-UI](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/1jpahzfh3b18bjympnuw.png)

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#Map-Changes
During my last Blog I've shown the changes on the Tutorial-Map from the moment it first got created, and now there is another addition to it, but not for the first time you enter this map.

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##House-03/Memory-03
Throughout the game the player will learn (or to be more specific remember) informations and skills, which they used to know but forgot.
But real memories usually don't stay the same everytime you revisit them, so there is no reason for the map to stay the same everytime you remember it.

![A picture showing the spawn of the third Memory-Map](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/3k1qvjqgtdls8rek9b8s.png)

So this time you won't have to grow a specific amount of crops to progress (or wake up again), but instead you'll need to walk through a gate that suddenly appeared to press the button on the other side.

![A picture showing the second area of the third Memory-Map](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/zap1fya8seczihxzfjvn.png)

Now that may not seem that interesting to some, but please remember that everything I talk about is going through constant changes, some bigger, some smaller.

![A picture showing the end of the third Memory-Map](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/stl3bc03kpz9r7jvn1fo.png)

In the future this will be changed, but for now it works.

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##Dome
During game testing I found out that the main room in the Dome is a little big for its contents, so I reduced its size to fit comfortably onto the players screen.
To those of you wondering where the path at the top leads to, don't forget that, since it's going to be very important in the future.

![A picture showing the changed Dome](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/6ym53voi5468hrbzlvdd.png)

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#What's next?
Sadly I couldn't show every change I made today, mostly because they are part of vastly different topics, but I'll talk about more of them in my next Blog.
Another unfortunate point is that me being a student limits the time I can invest into the game, since I have to work on another game at the same time. (I might show it sometime in the future if anyone is interested in seeing that)
But even though I can't work on it as much as I'd want to, I'm not gonna stop making improvements and adding new thing to this game.
I currently can't give any promises regarding how long it'll be until the game is fully playable to the end of what I call "the early-game", but it's getting closer every single day.
The core elements are already in the current version of the game, so I'd guess that it won't take too long for the rest to be added.
Anyway, thank you once again for your time.
If you have any questions, ideas or just wanna say hi, feel free to check out my [Socials](https://linktr.ee/justlevidev) and follow wherever you feel comfortable.
I hope you enjoyed reading some more about my journey to become a full time Game Developer.
See you in my next Blog, have a good night.