Groundwork devlog

Going 3D

The game was a flat 2D grid until today. Everything but the interface moves to 3D.

Until today Groundwork was a flat, top-down 2D grid with small drawings for buildings. It worked: citizens walked, farms grew, and two days ago I added factory interiors, where you step inside a building and lay out its machines and belts. Yesterday belts learned to be dragged out in one stroke instead of placed tile by tile.

The town as it looked in 2D: fields, a river, a lake and the first workshops.
The town as it looked in 2D: fields, a river, a lake and the first workshops.

But every time I pictured the finished game, it wasn’t flat. So I built a quick 3D test to see how it would feel: belts carrying crates and barrels, and a small gantry crane moving goods between them. The pink boxes are stand-ins for models that didn’t exist yet.

The first 3D test: a belt, crates and barrels, and a gantry crane over it.
The first 3D test: a belt, crates and barrels, and a gantry crane over it.
The same test from the other side, feeding a machine.
The same test from the other side, feeding a machine.

That settled it: full 3D over a grid. Buildings, citizens and the insides of factories all become 3D. Only the interface, the buttons and labels, stays 2D.

The grid stays. The game is still about laying things out on tiles, so the rules don’t change, only how you see them.