altcontrolgamela

[altcontrolgamela]

Project Outcome

Overall I am quite happy with this project, focusing far less on the art and far more on the code, which helped me get the practice I was after. While it was far from finished, I believe I added enough complex and large parts that it was clear what it was supposed to be. I was happy with the models I made, though I let myself down a bit not having enough time to implement them all, though if I'd focused on it I doubt my project would've gone very far.

I feel as though the project would've been better if I had time to at least give them max attack range, and even 1 character with an ability. Instead it ended up more as a prototype that has tons to expand on, but a successful one. There is lots of features I've added, and most are big or complicated, making for a very rewarding outcome (for me at least).

[altcontrolgamela]

Max Player Movement

I added some code to make sure the characters cannot move once moved until their next turn. To do this I made a boolean in the parent called has moved. Next in the player cam pawn's movement section, after detecting if the player is valid, it'll use this code.

After the player has moved, it'll set has moved to true. Then, in the change turn event, after the last hit update, I added this code to refresh the movement on all characters after the change turn vent took place.

Here is what the outcome looks like in action.

[altcontrolgamela]

Adding sprites to game

I decided as a small feature to add to the end of the project to make it look nicer and actually make use of my character models, I'd add the first 4 to my project. This was easy, as due to the time left I just used a still image. I chose the image I thought was best for the idle pose, and quick exported it as PNG from photoshop, for example with the worm:

I then imported it into Unreal and applied 2D paper settings, and exported it into a sprite using grid, as automatic can be dodgy. The worm was different to the rest, as his gun was a separate file due to the size of it.

Then, I made a child of the parent actor named after the worm (gogut), and added a sprite to it, changing it to his sprite. Then, I played with the scale, location and rotation so that it fit the tile better and faced the right way. The worm was slightly harder as I also needed to line up the gun and the body, with the hands on the gun basically being guides to line it up perfectly, which I achieved.

Then, I added the model into the world, making sure its locations are rounded to the nearest 100 for the grid. I also used the player number variable at the sidebar to choose which player controls him.

I repeated this for the other 3 characters, with this being the outcome:

As you can see with the worm, due to the top down character you can't tell the gun is a separate sprite that was raised.

[altcontrolgamela]

More Characters

Knowing I won't be able to implement much of these characters, I decided I'd still post the designs as proof they exist.

This character was meant to be the same race as the blue character in my first project and Game Loops project. This is because I liked the design, and felt it could've been used more due to how others liked it too, and how I could take from the design to expand on. His ability was going to be something to do with the lens on his eye either granting him enhanced range or damage depending on the mode you can toggle.

This character is an alien with n exoskeleton and a very hot body, making them a walking radiator basically. He's very slow and tanky, and his ability was going to be he can blow up, taking a bit of damage but highly damaging anything unfortunate enough to be close. He was sort of inspired off of Gorons from legend of Zelda, hence the build and fire theme.

This character was highly inspired off of a mind flayer, his larger, darker hand being able to hypnotise, similar to mind flayers abilities. I saw this character as sort of a space equivalent of a seafood butcher, hence the clothing choice. The other side of his larger hand was going to have a glowing pixel that represented the channel of his ability, but I didn't model this due to the fact he most likely wasn't going to be used. It was also inspired off an octopus, due to the rumours and research they have alien DNA, meaning octopus looking aliens aren't a reach of an idea.

Does Octopus DNA Come from Space? | Snopes.com

This character I decided to make taller than the others, and went for a more amphibious appearance with sharp claws, showing a more natural appearance. I modelled the eyes to be larger to hint these aliens are hunters. His ability was intended to show his large mouth, which is far bigger than it looks, maybe reeling his enemies in with a long tongue, or spitting something at them. Whatever his ability was, I aimed to make sure it highlighted his predatory nature. He was inspired off a mantis, turned aquatic. This is due to the fact that mantis are excellent examples of hunters, and very good at it, much like envisioned him being.

This character was designed to be more reptilian, whilst also showing more signs of technology, due to the common theory that if there were aliens, there's a high chance their technology will be greater than ours. This character's reptilian appearance also was strongly influenced off of a velociraptor. His ability hadn't been decided, but was debated between a shield, a turret or being given a big heavy gun that could toggle between 2 modes.

This alien was designed far bigger than the others, including the aquatic blue one. This is due to the fact he was designed to be more beastly, and wouldn't hold any weapons or armour. He has long muscular arms and glowing veins. He was inspired off of a gorilla's powerful frame, with his back legs being basically sticks due to the fact they're only really there for support.

His ability was meant to be his skin turns the same green as his veins, and his veins go darker as he basically enters a rage, increasing movement and damage even more. The character was meant to basically be a melee that was highly capable of killing other melees, range being his obvious weakness.

[altcontrolgamela]

Games Anglia

I found the Games Anglia trip to be very enjoyable, especially with being able to playtest these upcoming games and get information about it from the developers. It is a great way to get your work known as an indie developer or small team. I spoke to quite a few developers, finding out how long these kind of things take to make, and what it would be releasing on etc. With one game that was arguable my favourite, I wrote down my email so the developer can send me the alpha for it, as well as wish listing it on steam. One major reason that game, called Nine Rounds Rapid, caught my eye, was due to the fact the art was entirely drawn. This really stood out to me due to how well done the art was in the game. I thoroughly enjoyed other games, my runner ups being Websling and Task Time. Websling was a roguelike with some really unique movement mechanics, due to the slinging and jumping the player uses. The replayability and variety of upgrades allows the player to have almost infinite gameplay. Task time was a great party game against friends with random game modes and features in each game to allow even more random variety in each party game. Some include hitting most with paintguns, dodging lasers or throwing an object the farthest.

When it came to showcasing my game we only had one person play it. They understood clearly the goal or outcome of the puzzle, and caught on to the controls fairly quickly, but struggled to reach the outcome without any hints for the second level. While this is great due to it being a puzzle game, it was too much struggle and I was worried it would bring down the joy of playing it. They seemed to like when they used the lift and saw that the room they were in was inside a much larger bedroom, with the spires. The judges also played everyone's game, though we didn't see it. This came as a massive surprise when we got one of the two honorable mentions for the awards, which was quite motivational, especially considering we were a duo in a 3 man project.

Overall the trip was very enjoyable, being able to meet the developers and talk to them was a first, and a lot easier than I thought, and being honorable mention was a great lift in motivation for me. I chose to Wishlist the games which I genuinely felt like I would want to play, and wasn't afraid to compliment their work where I liked it.

[altcontrolgamela]

Turn based outcome

Here I what the turn based system currently looks like.

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VR games

As someone owning a VR, I have had enough personal experience with it and its games. I find my Meta Quest 3s very accessible to players, though the games can change the accessibility. Some of the features it has that make it so accessible is the glasses part it came with, where you would remove the cushion, put it in its place then add the cushion over it to push the headset further from the face so it'll sit over the glasses. Another feature they have is the ability to play with your actual hands, if the controllers are too difficult for the player to use. In my opinion a really great feature, mainly due to its diversity, is the seated play feature. This is not only great for the disabilities that impair standing, but also people who struggle to move around lots in the games where that is required, but it also allows other people without those disabilities to also play this way if they wish to relax or their legs ache. A game which I thoroughly enjoy playing is Blade and sorcery, which can prove to be a game not too great with the whole accessibility options in my opinion. The game does however have a jump and crouch button, like quite a few VR games, to allow the player to do that without actually moving, as well as the ability to turn using the controllers, so the player doesn't have to spin. It also allows options to lower gore and blood for sensitive players, which is great. However, these are all either fairly or very common features to many games, and the physical demand from the game can prove to remove the quality of these features, such as climbing or swinging a blade around for a decent amount of time, or quick movements to deflect attacks.

[altcontrolgamela]

Turn Based Movement

One of the main gameplay features my game needs is the turn based mechanic, which I have now implemented.

In the player cam pawn I added this code to make it so when the event happens, it changes to the next players turn.

In the UI_Action widget I added the invisible text box, end turn button and text box at the top.

This code was used for the text box at the top for showing the current player with it.

In the event graph I added this code to make it so pressing the button activates the next turn event, changing the player.

I then added a float variable in the unit_parent and called it owning player. To make sure this variable relates to the player current variable, I added this code.

This code lets you only select the character if it's on the right team, if it's not, it'll play this animation using the invisible text box mentioned earlier.

In the widget I added an animation with the text box, and added 3 keyframes. On the first and the 3rd keyframe I set the render opacity in the settings to 0.

By setting the owning player variable to public when I place a unit_parent or child, meaning if I wanted the placed character to be of a different team, I'd change the value to 2.

This code successfully made the turn based system, however I came across an error where if you swapped turn, you could still control the last player's selected character due to it not deselecting it. To fix this i added a variable called SelectedUnitDefault as a duplicate of the selected unit variable.

Then by setting the selected unit as the default, it will unselect the current player. An issue still occurred that until the mouse moved, the spline path would still be shown, so I cleared the path points and set the hit update to nothing so it will vanish. This code made sure when the turn changed the player would be deselected.

[altcontrolgamela]

Week outcome 31/01

This week was overall successful, having added grid based movement with splines and tracking, as well as attacking mechanics using buttons. The one thing I failed to achieve this week was making the movement and attacks have a certain range, which is fine as they aren't mandatory as much as the other features added.

[altcontrolgamela]

Adding Health and Attacks

Here is the simple code I added in the unit parent to deal damage

I also added a variable for the health and set the value for one, which will be used in code for taking damage, as well as one called damage with the value of .5.

I then added a UI and a button for attacking and added this code to make it refer to the player cam pawn (the controller), and to change colour once armed as I also aim to change it to say cancel when the attack button is pressed.

I then added another function to the ui called get text. This had this code to make it so when the attack is armed it will say cancel instead, and attack if not.

I also added 2 other functions to make it so if the selected unit's name shows when selected, and the other to say to go invisible if the selected unit isn't selected.

I also added a text box above the button and promoted it to a variable.

The above image makes it so the information only shows if the correct unit is selected.

The arm attack function used in the UI actions was made in the player cam pawn, with this code to toggle it on or off.

With the function on the very top image I used it in the player cam pawn again. from the set destination click node I added a branch with the condition being the attack armed variable. If the condition is true, it'll head to this code:

This code makes it so the targeted player takes damage and the attack is then toggled off.

Finally I made another UI with a progress bar and a text block and added 2 functions. the first was called get text and had this code to display the name under each character.

The next was used for the progress bar to track the percent of each character.

Also on the event begin play I added the create widget node, allocated it to the UI actions and added it to viewport.

[altcontrolgamela]

Predicting Movement

I felt like in order to make the movement feel more fluid, I need to make some kind of way for the player to see where they are going to move to before they do. This could be useful in case they step on a trap and so the player is aware if they take a different route to what they wanted. While the pathfinding is still clunky and mildly unpredictable when there is lots of obstacles in one place, it should hopefully work as planned.

In the player cam pawn, from the event tick I added a sequence. and on 'then 2' added the following:

This code at the bottom follows the for loop node that goes downward on the left node.

This is what the outcome looked like, but I felt my game could have a better trace, such as adding a highlight to each grid you would cross over, even if just the corners from diagonal movement.

I began to work on another mechanic to strengthen the movement, which would include adding a red grid that highlights which tile you're going to step on more clearly. This could mean the spline becomes useless, but it might result in a better overall output.

I made 2 new actors, called GridSpawner and CubeGridActor. I added the above code in the grid spawner after placing the cube grid actor inside the level. This code meant that they would spawn all across the level, making an X, XY and final to make it spawn cubes on the z axis too, for the ledges and heights.

Adding the unique node made sure it wouldn't place extra cubes in the same tile.

In the code for the cube grid actor I added this code to make it only visible when the spline is over it, highlighting the path, and made sure to turn its visibility off in the object settings, and promoting the cube to a variable.

[altcontrolgamela]

Making grid based movement

For my style of game the characters had to be actors controlled by a camera pawn. This allowed me to commands them to be moved through simply looking out of the camera. The code to do this was easy enough, being:

What this does is it checks what character is selected, and moves it to the pressed location, allowing easy use of multiple controllable characters.

This macro allowed easy use of grid movement, simply rounding each click to the nearest grid, the scale being 100 for each one.

This code in the parent updates the target location then tells it to move there.

In an attempt to make it so that the parent cube highlights and traces a path, we made this code to make it so a "breadcrumb" object moves on the q key and shows the path the cube would follow.

This, while it worked, wasn't what we were going for, and ended up finding a different alternative through reddit.

This code meant that it would use path points and a box trace to highlight to the player what route it would take, and check if it could go that way, making sure it finds the quickest route. While it doesn't follow the a grid path, it will still function in a sense where if a trap is laid on the floor, crossing the grid even diagonally or slightly will trigger it regardless.

[altcontrolgamela]

Character 4

For this character I was mainly focused on the idea of using orbs as little grenades, and found it would be a unique idea to pull them out of their gut. This is why when modelling this character, I had to show the orb residing in their gut as well as make sure it still looks like an organism, hence the little tentacle things at the corners of the holes. I based this model off of something like a goblin, but wanted it to look harmonious, hence the oracle like clothes he wears. I very much thought of the kind of clothes they'd wear form Aladdin for this model.

For his weapon I decided to give him a whip as I felt it fit his theme better. I also chose this as even though it's a melee, it'll offer more range than something like a blade or hammer. His whip isn't easy to notice as a whip from the front, but from the side will be far more visible.

[altcontrolgamela]

Character 3

For this character I wanted to extend my creativity and make something different to the humanoid aliens before. For this one I took a lot of inspiration off of a beholder from DnD, as well as a cacodemon, whilst ensuring a way to hold his gun (being his one tentacle). I hope to male this character unique in the sense he ill be able to fly over obstacles and enemies and allies, as well as launch psionic beams.

Even though I envision this character as a psionic fighter, shown with the red glow around him, I decided he still needed a weapon to defend himself, even if it's not strong in comparison to his abilities.

Due to the fact he flies, I don't think I'll need to give him an animation, as a ball from front view flying won't really visibly change. To make sure he isn't stiff, I will still make him bob when he moves.

I added a float sprite sheet to the model to make it so the character bobs instead of walks, and also added his other directions for when he moves said direction.

I also added the scar on his back that is shown on his front and right angle that I forgot to initially add to the back model.

[altcontrolgamela]

Character 2

My next character was inspired off of those alien worms with whirring teeth in the middle, like the ones in dune, and even more so inspired from the Psurlon from dnd.

I decided to give him a starry robe to represent this kind of astronomical appeal to him, like the character is connected to space in some way. I want to make this characters ability be able to spit acid from his mouth, which lasts on that tile or target for a turn for that acid effect. I chose to make his weapon the shotgun from my Game Loops project, due to the fact there I felt there is a lot of characters to make weapons for and it would be quite easy and the weapon was enjoyable to use in that project, with a nice design.

I have recoloured the hands to match that of the worm character, to ensure it isn't still the blue alien that uses it. I also hope to use the marksman gun from that project that never got to be added.

I then began making an animation for when the gun is fired, starting with the worm character. For his shotgun I decided to give it some recoil, though not too great due to the type of weapon he is using, with it not being exactly a heavy shotgun. I wanted it to look like the worm is quite experienced with using this shotgun, and decided to settle on raising the gun due to the natural recoil, but the worm staying almost completely unphased as if he's done it many times before.

Changed the frame where the gun lifts slightly to make it have more recoil.

[altcontrolgamela]

Grid Based Movement

To start trying to add a grid based movement system for my top down game, I made it so where the player clicks on it will rounds it to the nearest grid, using this code.

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Alien Character 1

I modelled this as my first character for my game, hoping for him to be first of many. I designed this character initially off of the surreal art drawings where they twist the human body to look human but also inhuman. I chose to base him off this whilst ensuring he remains very much alien, deciding to give him a mouth on his body and making his head a stump with one central eye floating above.

I hope to give this character a sniper like weapon, making him more of a glass cannon, despite his armour shown on his body. His main and currently only ability I thought of will be that he can detach his eye and use it as a drone where the aliens range is increased to include the eyes area of vision, making him very good at range combat.

The drone from Rainbow Six Siege is a good example, though still very different. This is because it is deployed from the player and can be used to spot enemies to use to your advantage when shooting. While its quite different to my idea, it follows the same principle.

I've now given my character his weapon, a slick alien sniper. I based his sniper off of modern snipers from todays age, but simply gave it one solid color that we wouldn't normally see on our snipers to give it that alien look.