Grime Time

Inspiration

The inspiration for the gameplay in Grime Time comes from my passion for simple, calming, and satisfying game mechanics. The simple nature of games like Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, PC Building Simulator, and Katamari Damacy definitely influenced the concepts and creative direction of Grime Time. These games create a relaxing yet engaging experience, blending peaceful pacing with a sense of accomplishment. I wanted to capture that same magic of turning mundane tasks into something satisfying and joyful, while crafting a game that lets players unwind and immerse themselves in a soothing, stress-free world.

How I built it

The codebase of Grime Time primarily utilizes Code Blocks, with a small amount of TypeScript to handle specific desktop/mobile interactions. The game’s 3D models and licenses were obtained from Fab, CGTrader, and Free3D, with a majority of models licensed from Quixel Megascans for their photorealistic detail and versatility.

Challenges

The biggest challenge for me, being new to MHCP, was learning the specs, runtime budgets, and guidelines for importing and utilizing custom models and textures in Horizon Worlds, and applying that knowledge during development. Learning the Horizon Worlds Desktop Editor was also a challenge that I gladly tackled head on, as doing so made iterative testing for mobile and desktop devices much more palatable. Being new to the Desktop Editor and this being my first custom model import World, taking a few days with the documentation and experimenting helped me overcome all of the challenges I was facing.

Accomplishments

I'm most proud of how the World turned out visually, I feel like the build really compliments the relaxing and satisfying nature of the gameplay mechanics and loops. I'm also very proud of going from knowing very little about the 3D model workflow for Horizon Worlds to being comfortable enough to build entire Worlds and assets with ease utilizing custom models.

What I learned

I learned about the specs, runtime budgets, and guidelines for custom models and textures in Horizon Worlds. I also learned how to better optimize a World for desktop and mobile.

What's next for Grime Time

If I had a bit more time I would have liked to add a closet to make browsing and equipping cosmetics a tad more user friendly, however I plan to implement this as an update down the line with Custom UI. I plan to do seasonal refreshes of the cosmetics, add special skins for the pressure washer in the shop, and add more boat variations to the marina.

Built With

• blender
• codeblocks
• horizon
• photoshop