Box Directive: Programming #02 – Locking The Design

Locking the scope

Jamie here, and this week was probably one of the most important early development weeks for Box Directive so far, even if not much of it is immediately visible in game. The big job was locking down the design scope for both the full game and the demo.

We’d reached the point where continuing to tweak ideas was just going to make it harder to actually finish anything. After 12 drafts and plenty of back and forth, we got there. The plan from this point is no major feature changes until we’ve built the demo and got it in players’ hands. Then we’ll learn from actual feedback, not just our own heads.

A big outcome of that is a more rounded gameplay loop. It’s no longer just process boxes, upgrade, prestige, repeat. We’ve now got the robot, consumables, contracts and overflow, which gives the player a bit more to juggle as automation ramps up. Tie this together with a story and setting and I hope we have a really fun game on our hands!

A Necessary Refactor

Because the design shifted, some of the work I’d already done wasn’t really right anymore. So I stripped things back, cleared out old debug remnants, reorganised scripts and scenes, and generally tidied the whole project.

It did feel like a step backwards at the time, but yesterday, when it was done, it felt very worth it. The refactor leaves the project in a much cleaner place to build from, rather than continuing to stack new systems on top of old assumptions that no longer match the game we’re making.

Back to building

Towards the end of the week felt like a proper forward step again. I replaced the temporary confirmation dialogue boxes we’d had sitting around for far too long and took the first steps on the new consumables system.

Right now, it’s literally just getting basic objects into the game with blockout graphics and making them interactable, but it’s the start of a much bigger system. From there, it’ll get a lot more interesting: working out how they’re purchased through the catalogue, where they appear in the workstation, and how they’re actually used with each station.

It’s a completely new system that wasn’t part of the game until relatively recently, but it’s really starting to feel like a natural part of the loop.

Looking ahead

Next week, consumables are going to be my immediate focus as I move beyond just getting them into the scene and start connecting them properly to the catalogue and workstation. I will also continue to expand out the stations upgrade system to match the new design.

More broadly, it’s about working against that now fixed target. There’s still plenty of systems and placeholders to work through, but the foundations are solid now. We know what we’re making, and after a week of stepping back to decide that, it feels good to just crack on.