Devlog #6: minimap, clean ui, and the branding crime

this update was supposed to be simple.

i wanted to make GraSim easier to look at.

not more realistic. not more explosive. not “what if black holes had opinions.” just cleaner ui.

because after the last update, the sim was getting pretty good at making cool moments, but the interface was still kind of yelling at you. the old hud was a giant instruction rectangle in the corner, which was useful, but it also made every screenshot look like a debug build trying to explain itself.

so this update is basically:

• less wall of text.
• more tiny space instrument.
• the first big thing is ui modes.
• press u now cycles between:
  – full ui
  – compact ui
  – hidden ui

full ui still gives you the important controls and stats. compact ui shrinks everything down into a small stats bar. hidden ui removes the overlay entirely so you can actually take screenshots without a massive instruction box photobombing the supernova.

this was one of those features that immediately made the project feel more finished. not because it changes the simulation, but because it stops the ui from fighting the simulation.

then i added the help overlay.

press / and you get the controls. press it again and it goes away.

that means the controls are still there when you need them, but they do not need to live permanently on top of the universe like a sticky note from mission control.

then came the minimap.

press tab to toggle it.

it sits in the top-right corner and shows the whole system as tiny dots. planets, stars, black holes, neutron stars, all compressed into this little overview panel. it also draws a rectangle for your current camera view, which is weirdly useful because GraSim scenes can spread out fast. you zoom in to watch one neutron star doing crimes, and suddenly half the system has wandered off somewhere else.

the minimap makes the sim feel less like “where did everything go?” and more like “oh, the disaster is simply over there now.”

it also makes the project feel more like an actual tool. still chaotic, still tiny, still not a full game thingy, but now it has a little observatory energy.

i also updated the README.

it has shield.io badges now, longer feature descriptions, controls, physics notes, build instructions, and a better explanation of what the project actually is. basically less “here is a gravity thing” and more “here is my cosmic disaster sandbox, please enjoy responsibly.”

and then there was the branding incident.for some reason, in the new hud, i wrote the name as grAsim.

i do not know why.

nobody asked for that.

GraSim looked at me from the corner of the screen wearing the worst capitalization possible. this was immediately corrected. the hud now says GraSim, the browser title says GraSim, and the abomination has been removed from the repo.

important work.

under the hood, this update also added a few small testable ui helpers. nothing huge, but enough to make sure the ui mode cycle behaves properly:

• full goes to compact
• compact goes to hidden
• hidden goes back to full
• hidden mode does not draw panels
• help does not show while ui is hidden
• minimap scale math behaves predictably

the web build was rebuilt too, so the browser version has all of this.

the sim itself did not get new cosmic physics this time, but honestly this update matters a lot. GraSim is becoming the kind of thing where the visuals deserve room to breathe. if a neutron star is ripping a planet apart, i do not need six lines of controls sitting on top of it forever.

now the screen can be messy because the universe is messy, not because the ui is.

next i still want follow-cam. probably presets too. maybe a proper screenshot key eventually. because the main problem has become that GraSim keeps making cool moments and i keep noticing half a second too late.

thanks for reading :)