Cowzy Friday: Building System Updates & Future-Proofing!

Happy Cowzy Friday! 🐄🏡 This week, I spent time refactoring older functions, improving building mechanics, and setting up future-proof systems. Here’s what’s new!

Building System additions

• We can build! While it’s currently limited to houses, I’ve added a DataTable that will make new buildings easy to add!

  • Buildings also subtract resources as they're built!

  • I do plan on having buildings be buildable by the Townsfolk. Currently, they instant build.

• Building DataTable is simply so far, and only features 3 buildings, but it's a good start to scaling up!

• We can see the cost to build and which UI icon we use

Refactoring & Future-Proofing

I went back and refactored key systems like BP_Building, BP_TownManager, and the BP_Resource Blueprints to align with what I’ve learned so far.

• Buildings no longer have their costs stored in the class, but instead on a DataTable

• TownManager is taking a larger role in handling town resources, which now has a BP_TownResourcesComponent which centralizes town resources

• BP_Resources have a better defined ResourceType enum

The player controller handles the building input and sends out commands to other classes to handle the building!

What’s Next?

• A basic UI to select buildings before placing them.

• Buildings will soon be able to be built by the Townsfolk.

• Eventually, a Day/Night!

The Cowzy Game is building up! It's great to have the beginnings of a loop from gathering resources to making buildings started!

Get ready for more updates on The Cowzy Game! 🚜✨ Stay tuned!