Pie in the Sky

Inspiration

This project was inspired by my nieces and nephew love for restaurant tycoon games. When I play with them they all rush to give me the most VIP treatment with the most outlandash restaraunt layouts they can think of. I can't wait to flip the script and give them the VIP treatment with a game dedicated to them.

What it does

This world lets users customize the layout of their restaurant with a TON of unique options and combinations. After players make their dream space, they're visted by eager NPC customers ready to order from the player's pie menu. The world offers opportunities to unlock more menu options and meet other players builds!

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How we built it

The game was built with Horizon Worlds Desktop Editor. We were excited to utilize a handful of public assets and several of our own with additional help filling in gaps from the editor Generative AI tool!

Challenges we ran into

We learn a lot about the limitations of the desktop editor. Optimizing runtime operations, spawning in saved player plots. Offsetting player plots on load. Generative NPC AI conversation was very verbose while taking order which led to some cuts. Gen AI Avatars often generated with mesh distortion that pulled attention away from the aesthetic we were trying to create. Generated models were often reskinned to fit our aesthetic. Asset editing and iteration was incredibly challenging. Finally, the extensive use of CUI was an exciting development that showcases a years worth of learning how to make dynamic, engaging, custom UI layouts.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're incredibly proud of this world. It's very ambitious and we despite cutting large portions of our world, we were able to execute our core vision to a level of polish that brings this world to life.

What we learned

Player driven model manipulation, npc navigation, generative tooling, asset tooling, multiuser editing

What's next for Pie in the Sky

More, more, more! Our fishing realm is just getting started. We want to expand into fish variations. We want plant farming and animal pets. We want to add resource gathering to expand player buildings. Add cooking animations. NPC worked. Invite co-managers. Upgradable rocket wearables and gardens!