Build a Virtual House Simulation Game

Making a virtual house simulation game can be lots of fun, but it can also be frustrating and challenging. You need to decide if you're going to try to imitate another successful virtual house simulation game, or if you will try to make a completely original game. No matter which way you decide to go, be sure to completely plan out how your game will work before you begin writing.

Things You'll Need

• Programming experience Access to a programming language for the game

Instructions

1. Design the house. You need to clearly decide how the house is going to look to the player of your game, and how the game will process that information. You must figure out what sorts of things will appear in the house, how they'll get there, what sort of options the players will have regarding those things, and whether things can be placed inside other things. Be careful with that, because making containers can make your game a lot more complex.

2. Design the user interface. This might be a stand-alone application that you write in Visual Basic, or it might be a web application that uses a pre-processor language. Based on your decisions in Step 1, design the screen so that the user has all the options you imagined in Step 1. Make sure the users can see items, move items, and have a way to earn or buy more items for the house. Also be sure there is room for other players of the game to visit the house, or your game will not last long.

3. Create the database. Your house game will have a lot of information to store about a lot of players, houses, and stuff in the houses. Your database is where all that information will be stored. Set your database up so that it can keep track of all the information and items, including where in the house and where in each room each item can be found. Plan this carefully, as it will be difficult to change the database when you think of other things later on. You will also need room in the database to store information about the players and their houses.

4. Connect the database and the user interface. You need to make the interface interact with the database. Players need to use the interface to log into the game, and they need the interface to correctly obtain information about their house from the database. The interface will draw the objects on the screen for the player, but the database will tell the interface which item to draw and where.

5. Write an update program. Using a pre-processor language if your game is web-based, or another low-level language (like C++), you can write a program that will process daily events. Perhaps the players earn money based on their job so they can buy more things for their house. One or more times a day, this program will run and update the database to reflect changes in the player's house and bank account. If your site is a pay site, this program will also track how long paying players have on their contract.

6. Write an interaction engine. If your game is a multi-player game, there will need to be a way for players from one house to visit another house. Your interaction engine will work with the user interface to display how, where, and when players from other houses will appear in your house. You need to account for overload, too, so be sure you put in an option that keeps houses from having too many people!

7. Test your game. With a game like this, you need to thoroughly test every option. If possible, you need to load-test it, too, to see how your game will respond and react when there are a large number of people using the game. But once you have completely tested your game and you know every aspect of it works, you can release it and get people playing.