Ivylane Manor | Simulator Game | Solo Student Project | Unity Engine | 2021
Overview
Ivylane Manor is a simulator game where players are a magic user who owns a cleaning business. They must use their magical powers to clean a house, but they are also given the freedom to redecorate and move the furniture around. One of the inspirations for the game was House Flipper and other similar simulator games, like Gas Station Simulator. Originally, the idea was to have randomized layouts and tasks for the players to do, but that made the game over scoped, so I cut it back to having a fixed layout and tasks.
Challenges I faced
Since I was developing this on my own, I was stressed for time as well as technical and art abilities. The 2D assets, I was able to make on my own, but the 3D assets were all from the Unity asset store. If I had more time, I would have tried to replace some of the 3D furniture assets or make new ones to have more options. I have also never attempted to make a simulator game before, so this challenged my technical abilities, but I was able to get most of the features that I wanted in. Originally, the game had character creation in, but I had issues getting the character to load in the main level, so I cut it in favor of focusing on the gameplay. I also experienced a bug in Unity that I had never encountered before where the lighting was dark if I entered a scene from another one. I did eventually fix it, but it was present for a few weeks before I figured out how to solve the issue.
What I would change
I think that the house itself does not feel very realistic for a lived-in house and the interior elements do not match the furniture at all. I would go back and change the style of the walls to look more modern to match the furniture better. The lighting in the game is also not realistic because the house is lit like it's an exterior environment despite having not too many windows and only 1 lighting source. So, going back in and adding more lights would create a more convincing experience.
How I would move forward
If I had more time, I would put the randomized layouts in the game. I would love to work on trying to get an AI that could randomize the layout of the house for me. I do not have the technical skill for that at the moment, but I would try to learn how to design that AI. Something else that I did not get in but would be a great addition would be to put more narrative into the game where you actually meet the homeowner. Getting the character creation back in would be nice, but it does not add to gameplay, so it would not be a priority.
This is the first draft of the main menu.
This is the final product of the main menu.
This is the final product of the screen that would display when you finished the game.
This is the first draft of the main menu.