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2D platformer evaluation

Original evaluation was lost due to Chrome being deleted on every machine.

What went well?

From the beginning to the end of the project my abilities to code and design have been tested in the 7-week duration of the project. To start with I had no prior experience with photoshop or Unreal engine and had quite low expectations for myself. Now we're at the end of the project I have massively exceeded my own expectations by producing a platformer that myself and 9 other playtesters have enjoyed playing. One thing that went well was the early production of the necessary blueprints that proved to be very useful later on in the development of my game. This allowed me to use these crucial pieces of code that were to be used in my game as soon as possible. The deathbox to me required little effort but gave the best reward, without the deathbox blueprint my game wouldn't be as punishing as it is, and the punishment is what engrosses the player as they know they can do better. Another piece of code I made that heavily inspired how my game now functions was the teleporter. The original teleporter code is not the same as my current one but it sparked the inspiration for the different levels loading with one-way teleporters. The early teleporter and late teleporter's codes can be found in my blog.

What could've gone better?

Not everything is perfect, there will always be something you wish could've gone better. For me, that was the amount of time I wasted trying to set up a second camera so that it would follow the character and stop when it reached a certain location. This piece of code was for a blueprint named CameraActor2 and another named CameraThreshold. The code for the CameraActor2 wasn't even fully completed before it was decided to be too difficult. This loss of time then prohibited me from adding in features that I wanted. There were supposed to be some kind of enemies in my game and the character was supposed to have a sword to slay these enemies, but I had to prioritise the more important tasks I needed to complete. Despite me not being able to fulfil the list of things I wanted to include, I was able to change some things after receiving feedback from playtesters. However, I do regret trying to set up the CameraActor2 as my game could have a couple more gameplay features. These features were not vital but more of a want than a need.

What would you have done differently next time?

If there was another time when I was to make another 2D platformer, I would first choose a different theme to the gloomy caves. I had nothing against my choice of tiles and character design, I thought that a different theme would expand my creative capability. What I mean by this is being able to make a game of any theme. Though I could probably do this just fine I would never know until I do it next time. Another thing I would do differently would be to make sure I don't try and set myself a task that is too difficult, an example of this being CameraActor2 so I could add more game mechanics such as wall running or enemies. The playtesters were happy with how the game currently was but they all said the same thing: add enemies. The last thing that I would do differently would be the scale of difficulty. My game consisted of a fairly hard aspect throughout the levels. The 9 people that played my game did not make it to the end of the game. Only I did. However, this means that from this project I can take away all of the pieces of feedback received and incorporate them into any future games I make, thus improving my ability as a Games Designer.

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Updated gameplay that includes start and end screen

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Play testing 2

The second playtesting session gave me different feedback due to different playing my game. One thing that didn't change was that 100% of the people who played liked the style of my game, another similar thing was that the testers enjoyed the double jump, though the sound effects and death animation were praised as they are fairly recent additions.

The useful feedback given suggested that I should add enemies (which was a question included in the previous questionnaire) and moving platforms. I would definitely add these features into the game if only I had more time.

However one recurring thing is that some people find the game at a medium or high difficulty, not easy. I have assessed the levels and played through it many times to come to the conclusion that the game itself isn't too hard you just need to get used to the controls. I appreciate the feedback about the speed etc but I want the movement to be unique to my game.

Overall the feedback I received for my game was pretty uplifting, seeing that people were enjoying my game.

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Start and End screen Unreal engine 5

The start screen is displayed at the beginning of gameplay

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Video footage of the 2D platformer I have been designing since the 6th September. The footage shows the current design as of the 19th October. Unfortunately this is most likely what the project will be left as, with no further development due to the project deadline being tomorrow (20th October.)

There were a few things I would've liked to include, such as: Clouds beneath feet when walking and jumping, more levels, better walking animation, background that I created myself in photoshop, and other things that were included on my to do lists in separate blogs

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Reviewing 5 HUD's from different games

Dead space

Dead Space appears to have no hud. In reality, Dead Space has a diegetic hud, meaning it is part of the game world as a projection in front of your character which only appears when accessing your inventory

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Limbo, Celeste, Badland, Inside research

In latin Limbo means edge or boundary referring to the edge of hell. Limbo is a puzzle platform video game developed by independent studio Playdead and originally published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360. The game was released in July 2010 on Xbox Live Arcade, and has since been ported by Playdead to several other systems, including the PlayStation 3, Linux and Microsoft Windows. Limbo is a 2D side-scroller, incorporating a physics system that governs environmental objects and the player character. The player guides an unnamed boy through dangerous environments and traps as he searches for his sister. The developer built the game's puzzles expecting the player to fail before finding the correct solution. Playdead called the style of play trial and death

Limbo is presented through dark, greyscale graphics and with minimalist ambient sounds, creating an eerie, haunting environment. The dark visuals also serve to conceal numerous lethal surprises, including such environmental and physical hazards as deadly bear traps on the forest floor, or lethal monsters hiding in the shadows

The primary character in Limbo is a nameless boy, who awakens in the middle of a forest on the edge of hell where he encounters a giant spider who tries to kill him. After using a trap to cut off the sharp points on half of the spider's legs, it retreats further into the forest, and the boy is allowed to pass. 

Playdead chose to ignore outside advice from investors and critics during development, such as to add multiplayer play and adjustable difficulty levels, and to extend the game's length. According to Patti, Playdead felt these changes would break the integrity of Jensen's original vision.

Celeste

Celeste is a 2018 platform game designed, directed and written by Maddy Thorson and programmed by Thorson and Noel Berry. It is a fully-fledged version of the PICO-8 prototype made by Thorson and Berry during a game jam in 2016. Set on a fictional version of Mount Celeste, it follows a young woman named Madeline who attempts to climb the mountain, and must face her inner demons in her quest to reach the summit.

The gameplay is based on a series of two-dimensional screens presenting obstacles that require strategy, precision and a quick reaction time from the player in order to be overcome. Considered challenging and often compared to games like Super Meat Boy, Celeste includes settings to granularly adjust its difficulty.

Celeste received critical acclaim upon release, being praised for its story, gameplay, and soundtrack. It won several awards, including the Best Independent Game and Games for Impact awards at The Game Awards 2018, where it was also nominated for Game of the Year. Celeste was also a financial success, selling over a million copies by the end of 2019.

Badland

Badland is a mobile video game developed by Finland-based Frogmind Games and first released on the iOS and Android platforms in 2013. It was released on Windows in June 2014. There is also a Game of the Year Edition that was released in May 2015 for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Wii U and Steam for Linux, Microsoft Windows and OS and in August 2021 for Nintendo Switch. In December 2015, its sequel Badland 2 was released on iOS and Android

The player flies around a little black creature called a Clone through the woods of the game. Beginning in Day I, the game progresses through four stages which consist of Dawn, Noon, Dusk, and Night, each with a separate color scheme and new theme of traps. As the player goes through Day I, egg-shaped machines begin to come out of the water of the background. Heading into the night, the machines begin to turn on and the game becomes harder as the machines become part of the dangers of the forest. Eventually, the character succeeds in disabling the machines and the machines become dormant once again until Day II begins it all over. Most of Day II is similar in plot structure, but smaller octopus-like machines begin to make themselves known and the animals in the forest begin to disappear. The last level includes saving a rabbit that was hanging by its foot and eventually coming to fly in front of a giant eye of one of the machines, leaving a cliffhanger into possible future updates

Inside

Inside is a puzzle-platform game developed and published by Playdead in 2016 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows. The game was released for iOS in December 2017 and Nintendo Switch in June 2018. A macOS version was released in June 2020. The player controls a boy in a dystopic world, solving environmental puzzles and avoiding death. It is the successor to Playdead's 2010 Limbo, with similar 2.5D gameplay.

Playdead began work on Inside shortly after the release of Limbo, using Limbo's custom game engine. The team switched to Unity to simplify development, adding their own rendering routines, later released as open source, to create a signature look. The game was partially funded by a grant from the Danish Film Institute. Inside premiered at Microsoft's E3 2014 conference, with a planned release in 2015, but was delayed to 2016.

Inside was released to critical acclaim. Critics noted it as an improvement over Limbo, praising its art direction, atmosphere and gameplay. The game was nominated for numerous accolades, including game of the year, and won several independent and technical achievements

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Hyper Light drifter, Guacamelee, Castle Crashers, Super Meat Boy

Hyper light drifter

Hyper Light Drifter is a 2D action role-playing game developed by Heart Machine. The game pays homage to 8-bit and 16-bit games, and is considered by its lead developer Alx Preston as a combination of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Diablo. Preston originally launched Kickstarter funding for the title for approximately US$27,000 to develop the title for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux computers, but ended up with more than US$600,000, allowing him to hire more programmers and artists, and expanding the title for console and portable platforms through stretch goals. Though originally scoped for release in 2014, various improvements in the game and issues with Preston's health set the release back. The Microsoft Windows, Linux and OS X versions were released in March 2016.

The Drifter is equipped with an energy sword but can gain access to other modules that expand their weapon and ability arsenal. These often require power from rare batteries scattered around the world. Weaponry includes traditional console role-playing game archetypes, including long-range guns and area attacks. Rather than scavenging ammunition from the game world to load the player's guns, the player's ammunition instead charges when hitting enemies and objects with the energy sword. The player faces increasingly difficult monsters, both in number and ability, requiring the player to hone their tactics to succeed in the game. Preston's goal was to replicate the experience of playing on the SNES, noting that the unit had "amazing, almost perfect games designed for limited environments"

Hyper Light Drifter is primarily based on the vision of its key developer, Alx Preston. Preston had been born with congenital heart disease, and throughout his life has been hospitalised with digestive and immune-system issues relating to this condition. While in college, Preston had used the mediums of painting and film to illustrate his experiences with frail health and near-death conditions.

Guacamelee

Guacamelee! is a Metroidvania action platforming video game developed and published by DrinkBox Studios, initially launched in April 2013 for platforms PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita and was later ported to Microsoft Windows in August and to OS X and Linux in February 2014. Guacamelee! is a hybrid 2D Metroidvania style action platform and brawler. Players control the luchador Juan and explore an open, non-linear world to complete the central story objectives while collecting necessary character upgrades and battling enemies. Coins collected from defeated enemies are used to buy new skills at shops, which also double as checkpoints. The game features drop in co op play.

Juan gains power to confront and defeat the rest of Calaca's forces. Juan pursues Calaca to the altar where the ceremony is being held and defeats him, but does not arrive in time to save Lupita. In the normal ending, Juan returns to his village and lives his life in peace until reuniting with Lupita in the afterlife and the mask disappears. In the true ending, attained if the player clears all the hidden trials, Lupita is revived by the power of Juan's mask which breaks apart, and the two return together to the village where they get married.

Castle Crashers

Castle Crashers is a 2D side scrolling hack and slash video game developed by The Behemoth. It features music created by members of Newgrounds. The Xbox 360 version was released on August 27, 2008, via Xbox Live Arcade as part of the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade. The PlayStation 3 version was released in North America on August 31, 2010, and November 3 2010, in Europe via the PlayStation Network. A Microsoft Windows version, exclusive to Steam, was announced on August 16 2012. The game is set in a fictional medieval universe in which a dark wizard steals a mystical crystal and captures four princesses. Four knights are charged by the king to rescue the princesses, recover the crystal, and bring the wizard to justice.

On June 15, 2015, The Behemoth announced Castle Crashers Remastered, a remastered version of the game for Xbox One, while the Steam version received it in the form of a free update. The remastered version features higher quality textures, uncapped frame-rate, performance improvements.

Castle Crashers supports cooperative gameplay for up to four players, either locally or online. The game progression in terms of what stages are unlocked is defined by the player who is furthest along, although some levels require all players to have unlocked them before proceeding to them; however, each player character will gain experience points and acquire wealth, weapons, and animal orbs independently as they progress with the rest of the party. Experience is collected by killing enemies.

Super meat boy

Super Meat Boy is a 2010 platform game designed by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes under the collective name of "Team Meat". It was self published as the successor to Meat Boy, a 2008 flash game designed by McMillen and Jonathan McEntee. In the game, the player controls Meat Boy, a red, cube-shaped character, as he attempts to rescue his girlfriend, Bandage Girl, from the game's antagonist Dr. Fetus. The gameplay is characterised by fine control and split-second timing, as the player runs and jumps through over 300 hazardous levels while avoiding obstacles. The game also supports the creation of player created levels. Super Meat Boy was first released on the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade in October 2010, and was later ported to Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Wii U, and the Nintendo Switch.

Development of the game began in early 2009. McMillen worked on level design and artwork, while Refenes coded it. The game's soundtrack was written by Danny Baranowsky, who had also worked on the original Meat Boy. Super Meat Boy won several awards, and has been cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. Critics lauded the game's controls, art, soundtrack, and challenging gameplay. The game was also a commercial success, selling over a million copies by January 2012. A sequel, Super Meat Boy Forever, was released on December 23 2020.

Levels in each chapter can be played in any order, but a certain number of levels need to be completed to access the boss stage, which unlocks the next chapter if cleared. The player has an unlimited number of attempts to complete each level. If Meat Boy is killed, he immediately restarts the level, though the ornamental red meat juice left behind on surfaces that the player has touched remains. A replay function, which may be accessed after a level is completed, which shows all the player's attempts to complete the level.

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What is a HUD?

A head-up display, or heads-up display, also known as a HUD, is any transparent display that presents data without requiring users to look away from their usual viewpoints. The origin of the name stems from a pilot being able to view information with the head positioned up and looking forward, instead of angled down looking at lower instruments. A HUD also has the advantage that the pilot's eyes do not need to refocus to view the outside after looking at the optically nearer instruments.

We can apply this to the video game industry of a visual guide that can help the player in some way without them having to look away from their viewpoint.

In games however, the HUD is the method by which information is visually relayed to the player as part of a game's user interface. It takes its name from the head up displays used in modern aircraft which is explained above.

HUD's in video games typically include: Health, time, weapons, ammunition, menu, progression, mini map and a cursor/cross hair.

In this Gif we have the health, progression, and stamina being displayed. These will be a piece of the code of a game so it is displayed.

This is a games menu, it shares the same aspects of a HUD minus it being in the game as the player progresses. Only visible upon start of game or restart.

This gif displays some form of cross hair that is included in the HUD. The cross-hair never moves unless it is binded to the mouse otherwise it typically stays in the middle of the screen.

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Audio files in Unreal engine 5

To add sfx to my game I needed to download sound files. The websites I used were freesound.org and opengameart.org.

I made a file on my usb containing the sounds I would want to use.

Here is how the jump sound is linked.

These two pieces of code where existing ones with the play sound strapped onto the end.

This additional source of code consisted of many branches deciding whether the wanted path was true or false. This allowed the walking animation to stop playing over itself and stop when there was no movement input.

This set of code made it so if the jump counter was greater than 2, then the audio sound did not receive the command to play due to the booleans.

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Animations Unreal engine 5

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TileSet Unreal engine 5

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Tilemaps Unreal engine 5

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Teleporter Unreal engine 5

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HUD widget Unreal engine 5

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Moving Platform unreal engine 5

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Harm player Unreal engine 5