The Challenge
Interactive worlds demand seamless coordination between terrain, objects, and behaviors—all while maintaining performance at scale. As a solo developer, I needed tools that could manage world interactions without tight coupling between systems.
This led to a property-driven architecture where terrain state drives visual output, tools update simulation logic, and new content can be created without relying on extensive artwork.
Key Systems
Dual-Grid Autotiling
Efficient tile system that achieves perfect corner transitions across all terrain combinations with minimal asset requirements. For animated terrain types, this approach scales exponentially—turning hundreds of required animation frames into dozens.
Multi-System Tool Framework
Single tool action cascades through multiple managers - updating tile properties, triggering visual autotiling, managing energy costs, spawning particles, and syncing with persistence systems automatically.
Logic and behavior via PropertyTileMap, visuals via DualTileMapLayer.
Tool-driven terrain system with seamless transitions and integrated crop simulation.
Results
Before
Static terrain with manual tile placement and brittle corner handling. Each new terrain type meant extensive artwork and complex edge-case debugging.
After
Dynamic world simulation with real-time state tracking and computed visuals. New terrain types deploy with minimal assets and automatically blend into surrounding terrain.