Main Menu and Difficulty Functionality

Creating a Main Menu with Play, Quit, and Difficulty Options

Before players can interact with your game, a main menu gives them control over starting, quitting, and choosing difficulty.

Buttons: Play and Quit

• create a MainMenu scene and add a Canvas;
• add Button - TextMeshPro for each option (e.g. Play, Quit);
• create a UIControls script (attached to the Canvas or another GameObject).

In the script:

using UnityEngine.SceneManagement;

public void PlayButton()
{
   SceneManager.LoadScene("Level"); // load main game scene
}

public void QuitButton()
{
   Application.Quit(); // quit application
}

Assign these public functions to the buttons in the Inspector:

• Play button -> PlayButton();
• Quit button -> QuitButton().

Result: clicking buttons performs the expected actions.

Adding Difficulty Options

• add a Dropdown - TextMeshPro to the menu;
• rename options (e.g. Easy, Hard, Improbable).

In the UIControls script, include:

using TMPro;

public TMP_Dropdown difficultyDropdown;

public void DifficultyDropdownChanged()
{
   PlayerPrefs.SetInt("Difficulty", difficultyDropdown.value);
}

• assign the dropdown in the Inspector;
• configure the dropdown to call DifficultyDropdownChanged() when its value changes.

Persisting Difficulty

To remember the difficulty between scene loads:

void Start()
{
   difficultyDropdown.value = PlayerPrefs.GetInt("Difficulty");
}

This ensures the dropdown reflects the currently saved difficulty.

Applying Difficulty in the Game

In the Level scene, adjust gameplay based on the saved difficulty:

int difficulty = PlayerPrefs.GetInt("Difficulty");

if(difficulty == 0) Time.timeScale = 1f; // Easy
else if(difficulty == 1) Time.timeScale = 1.5f; // Hard
else if(difficulty == 2) Time.timeScale = 2f; // Improbable

Time.timeScale affects the speed of all game physics and actions.

Optionally, you could also multiply score values or other mechanics to further differentiate difficulty.