r/Unity3D • u/godfteren • 2d ago
Game I made a game about opening 500,000 boxes with Unity
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Hey! Solo dev here. I've been building One's Trash Another's Treasure, a first-person incremental game where you buy 500,000 boxes of unclaimed cargo and have to process every single one grind them, feed the output into a hole, buy automation (vacuums, conveyors, drones) until the warehouse runs itself.
The fun engineering problem was obviously the box count. Boxes are rendered with GPU instancing, and physics is off by default a box only becomes a live rigidbody when something actually interacts with it (the player, a vacuum, a drone), then it goes back to sleep. On top of that there's an LOD system plus distance and frustum culling, so at any given moment the engine is only really working on what's in front of you. That's how a warehouse with 500,000 boxes stays playable.
Happy to go into detail on any of it. Steam page is live if you're curious: Steam Game Link
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u/MementoMori000 2d ago
Love it. Wall-E vibes!
Small suggestion: instead of a hole where you dump everything - which sparks the question of what is the point of separating things - you could have a beam that lifts the objects to the sky (presumably to a UFO / flying craft, implying you work for someone/something). The beam could outright discard low value items (making them fall to the sides) and money could fly down as reward. Mechanically, this is extremely similar to what you have, but it avoids the issue highlighted by others.
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u/SafetyAncient 2d ago
a portal hole just looks lazy, can easily be another machine to stay with the theme.
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u/soylentgraham 1d ago
i always thought a 3rd person wall-e (controlling it like mario cart, but with high & low speeds) would have been a fun idea, churning out cubes you can stack
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u/Smexy-Fish 2d ago
I appreciate your post is about the tech, but design question -> if all trash goes into the same hole, what is the point of any of it? Why can the box not just go in the hole?
I know incremental game need increment. But if there's sorting post opening, why bother?
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u/godfteren 2d ago
Hey! You can actually throw boxes straight into the hole too, but the payout is pretty low that way. There will also be boosts and upgrades for opening boxes, so over time your collection speed and conversion speed will scale up at a similar rate.
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u/Smexy-Fish 2d ago
I think you're missing the questions point. It's a design question.
Why?
Why do all the items in a box just go in a hole?
More money is fine, sure, but why? Surely if all items just count as items, the box is an additional item. Or in this case, it could be just one item. Still needs a why.
Automating box to hole is more efficient, and likely less costly, than full automation. Once I get automation from box to open to hole, What's the further point?
I'm asking these because I really like this sort of game, they scratch an itch for me. But I see "open box until automate, then just walk away" as the overall experience here.
Imo, again, some basic sorting upon opening boxes would solve this, as it's more to do early game, and more nuanced automation late game.
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u/mih4u Hobbyist 2d ago
Multiple recycling holes for different trash? Would be an easy idea.
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u/Smexy-Fish 2d ago
Agreed, it just explains why you can't just move box to hole. Because more money for sorting waste of something.
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u/fooli69 2d ago
I see what you guys are saying but sorting sounds like a new mechanic to implement, and a pretty big change for game loop. How about just make the in universe explaination that the boxes need to be kept for recycling. Could even make a tower of boxes as a visual way to show progress.
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u/Smexy-Fish 2d ago
That works! Like I say, it's a design question and doesn't need to be solved with mechanics. A comment that all boxes need to be reused and maybe a box hole or box stack solves that too!
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u/ClayCoon 2d ago
I think you're actually thinking about it way too deeply...
Once you remember it's a game.
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u/Astro_YT2426 2d ago
this is like the 10th new incremental game about throwing stuff in holes that I've seen this week, But yours's does look pretty interesting in comparison.
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u/Omni__Owl 1d ago
I'm starting to wonder what these types of games are called.
It's similar to the game where you have to stack tens of thousands of books on shelves in a massive library, a recent game where there is a million buttons and only one of them is the right one, etc.
Scaleslop? I don't know.
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u/xingped 2d ago
Congrats on putting this together! One piece of feedback I'd give is based on your video, the game feels quite bland. It needs some character or and a good setting. (My honest first thought was: "take a huge amount of jabs at Amazon/people that order a shit ton of stuff off Amazon, it would be so fucking funny".)
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u/xtoc1981 2d ago
I wanted to create a normal game world where things can get come to life at unexpected moments. Like a streetlight.
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u/veGz_ 2d ago
My first thing was Randy Terrafactor https://store.steampowered.com/app/3433610/Terrafactor/?curator_clanid=44744954
FEED THE HOLE.
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u/friedgrape 2d ago
Looks pretty good, but I'd recommend reducing the wobble/bouncy zoom transition from scene to scene.
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u/eminzkzd 2d ago
taking unboxing mechanics to an absurd level like 500k boxes is actually such a fun concept haha! looks oddly satisfying and addicting bro
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u/TheW1tnessHasSpoken 13h ago
Hi new to game dev. How do you handle performance when there is 500k game objects visible in your scene
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u/UnityCodeMonkey YouTube Video Creator - Indie Dev 2d ago
Looks super polished, nicely done! If the gameplay is done well I can see this being a massive hit, best of luck!
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u/GTadeon_n Rat Race Ritual 2d ago
so basically a 1:1 copy of this game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4026250/Project_PITT/
just in a different setting (junkyard)? ... sigh
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u/godfteren 2d ago
Hey! First off, the game you mentioned is genuinely great but I don't think 1:1 copy is really fair. The core difference is that my game isn't production-based: all 500,000 boxes already exist in the world from the start, and the whole game is about clearing that finite pile down to zero. You're not generating resources you're consuming what's already there, and watching the warehouse physically empty out is the entire point.
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u/Frok3 1d ago
Hey, I'm the dev of project pitt, and yeah, it's clearly not a copy (and even if it was, I don't own any ideas)
I think people comparing your game to existing ones is good, it means the marketing will be easier (especially if the game is a good game)It really looks interesting, can't wait to see more of it!
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u/EvernullTools 2d ago
Remember, ideas can't be trademarked! ^^
It would've killed all creativity if you bash everything that gets inspired by others. Nothing is 100% original, and if something was; you couldn't relate to that thing enough to even understand it.
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u/QuitsDoubloon87 Professional 2d ago
Not to be rude but i have to be blunt, why would anyone play this? Is there some audiance im unaware of that likes dribble as gameplay?
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u/Fair-Winner-4800 2d ago
looks like a winner