There are still some other issues, and currently only rooms on the first floor will work right, but it is a start. Hopefully in late August, I will release a version with working elevators and generally more stuff, but with a current full time job, progress has slowed down more than I had hoped. If I can no longer work on the project, I will release what I have.

I also have an artist on board, and will hopefully be getting rid of the plain solid color graphics that I’m using right now as placeholder art.

In terms of things related to behind the scenes stuff, I’ve mostly been ripping out old code from Sim Mine and redoing some of the GUI system so it’s a bit more flexible. There’s still a lot left to work on in both of those elements, so it’ll be an ongoing project until I’m done. I’ve also been working on code to allow for a flexible room plugin system. Mostly likely, plugins will require an XML file and graphic file for the actual room graphics. I want the game to be flexible, and be able to load different room sets based on a settings file, most likely something similar to how OpenTTD works. It’s in the early stages right now, though.

I’ve been thinking about how the interface itself will function, as well. I will likely use category buttons along the top which will contain drop down menus with the actual build buttons in them, similar to Sim City 3000 and Sim City 4’s construction menu, combined with Rollarcoaster Tycoon’s icon menu along the top. I’m hoping this will be effective, but the only way to find out is to try it. I might look into making the interface configurable, but that will likely come at a later date than initial releases. The biggest stumbling block though is getting an interface for elevators. In the original, it was easy to expand (and shrink) the elevator shaft up or down a floor or three. Yes, you had to choose a specific tool to do it, but it was still pretty simple. With an isometric view, there’s a problem, since you can’t really see what’s happening with an elevator, nor can you easily raise an elevator up a floor when you have to view the building in slices, instead of the whole thing from the side. If anyone has ideas or comments for how to implement the elevator interface, I’d love to hear them.

So, why isometric instead of straight up 3d or a straight 2d remake? Well, the original 2d lacked a lot of depth, in that you couldn’t really lay out the building with more designs beyond the basic large base, smaller top, or even the less exciting sold rectangular block. Yoot Tower improved things a bit with the ability to build multiple bases, and have sky bridges that spanned the gaps, but you were still limited to two dimensions. Actual towers are usually a bit wider than a few meters. Thus, the decision to include a third dimension. However, full 3d requires additional complexity with the code and graphics, and good 3d graphics take longer to do than good 2d graphics. Plus, I had an isometric engine that could do multiple levels already made, so why not?

So, what’s next? Currently, I don’t have much more done than most of the remake projects, and nothing that’s worthy of showing off. Any screenshots right now would consist of terrible graphics made within 5 minutes in Paint.net, downloadable version isn’t too exciting when there’s nothing to do outside of build some blank flooring. My next goal is to get some of the basic game elements in, such as offices, a lobby, and elevators, and possibly more. I hope to get there in a month. At that point, it will probably be worthy of a demo. For now, terrible graphics screenshots.

Skybridges are possible.

Cutaway view of the skybridge.

Additionally, the coding turned into a horrible mess and it got to the point where adding any more features would be too painful. The project was scrapped with plans to revisit it at a later date. I spent some time with Ludum Dare projects to get better at coding overall, and get a better grasp on what was needed to complete a game. Post Mortems of those games are on this blog.

Almost two years later, I returned to the project of Sim Mine, starting it in October 2009. This time, using a isometric tile engine, I was able to make graphics that were larger, and thus, generally more recognizable, plus the code was vastly improved overall from 2 years of learning. Adding features to the game was a lot easier, since the code was more modular and things weren’t tied together as much. The overall game was designed to be much like a combination of the Caesar series of games and Dungeon Keeper, plus some additional variety to keep things interesting.

Above the ground, and below the ground, in Sim Mine 2007

Above the ground, and below the ground, in Sim Mine 2009