FREE PLACEMENT
Building without grid snapping — structures positioned and rotated at any coordinate and angle, limited only by collision and support rules.
- SOLO-DEV COST MEDIUM
- TIMING REAL-TIME / TURN
- COMMON IN LIFE-SIM · CITY-BUILDER · SANDBOX · BASE-BUILDING
The Sims popularized the toggle (grid by default, free placement as the expert option), Valheim allows fine placement within its snap system, and games like Planet Coaster and Dwarf-likes with free furniture rotation serve players for whom exact alignment is the play. Designers offer free placement because grids homogenize: every player's tavern looks the same on a one-meter grid, while free placement enables the crooked fishing hut, the diagonal fence line, the cluttered wizard desk — expressiveness is the entire point. The engineering cost is real: snapping resolves adjacency, structural support, and pathfinding for free, and free placement must answer all three explicitly (does a slightly-overlapping wall count as sealed? can NPCs path around a diagonal table?). Key decisions: free placement as default or as a modifier-key escape hatch, rotation increments (full analog versus 15° steps, which preserve most expressiveness while keeping alignment feasible), and how functional adjacency is detected without grid cells. Pitfall: free placement that breaks the game's own systems — roofs that don't quite seal against weather, stations NPCs can't reach — teaches players the beautiful build and the working build are different builds, and that's a lesson they resent.
SEEN IN
- THE SIMS 4
- PLANET COASTER
- VALHEIM