altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Final Gameplay Video

As you can see it is very buggy and very unfinished but this is as far I could get in the amount of time we had.

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Quick Movement Preview

As you can probably gather from the video the movement is far from perfect, there is quite a big bug in which the pawn returns back to the starting position, this is due to the spline points either not fully being deleted or something to do with the character controlling the pawn but I'm not 100% sure.

The pawn also does a 180 degree turn after it has travelled the spline, I know what is causing this however I am yet to come up with an idea of how to fix this.

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Time Constraints

Due to the lack of time on this project and taking on board way too much work for my skill level I have had to focus on making the main mechanic of the game, the movement, work and I haven't had time to work on the world or any assets.

This is quite disappointing for me as I really wanted to make a game that look good and had cool mechanics, either way the world is completely bare and the game is just the mechanic.

After talking to Chris he suggested using a maze, placing it into the world and making the objective to traverse the maze. He did also suggest randomly generated start and end points but I do not have time for that.

I took a look online at some mazes on SketchFab and here are the ones I found:

This is the first one I found, I like the complexity and size of the maze but I feel like due to how clunky my movement is it would be way too hard to finish so I didn't go with this one.

Here is the second one I found, I prefer it compared to the first one, it is much simpler and user-friendly which is vital because of my movement. But I feel like it doesn't suite the type of game I wanted to make and therefore I didn't choose it.

This is the third and final one I found. This maze is definitely my favourite, it is simple to navigate, looks easy to understand and move around and also feels like it would suit the game. This is the one I picked.

Here it is in the world:

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Changing Back To Pawn

So after the coding we did in the character and trying to use it, it wouldn't work for the game. What we need is for the character to stay in place while telling something to move, this is because if we moved the character the movement would need to run in real-time which was not working so a way to solve that is to go back to using a pawn and telling it what to do through the character.

What this blueprint does is sets the camera we posses to the pawn's camera, so that we can draw our path in the right perspective, and get's the player character controller. This means all of the coding we did within the character will effect the pawn in the same way but it will not need run in real-time. This works however is quite temperamental.

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Character Movement Still Not Working

Our new idea for the movement was to use the character to move, like normal. However what we tried to do was quite complex, to begin we create an array that records the coordinates of the mouse when left click is held down and stops recording when it is released.

Then the spline is added into the character with a spline component, which then leads into a hit location conversion from the line drawing into spline points to draw the spline (the spline can be seen by pressing Q) .

Then there is a custom event to follow the pawn which gets the current distance along the spline, updates the position and then moves onto the next point of data.

There is also code to stop the follow spline once the character reaches 100% along the spline.

Finally everything runs of tick and there is a gate to control the tick movement.

In theory this would all work but we obviously ran into problems again which needed to be addressed.

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Movement Problem With Pawn System

In my project proposal and idea generation I settled on making a game that uses a drawing tablet as the input to move a character along a grid-based environment, in which the player draws their desired path that the character will follow in the aforementioned grid world. However this has proven to be much more difficult to develop than it seemed and I have encountered some roadblocks along the way.

One of which was even starting the project, after some reflection I do realise I took on more than I could handle myself with the level I am at right now but that is something I can learn from and consider in my FMP, as I had no clue on how I would start making this movement system work. I tried to be independent at first and then I tried to use tutorials and blogs from other people online but I couldn't find anything that would work for me no matter where I looked.

To overcome this I asked Chris to help me out with starting the project otherwise I was going to get nowhere with this project.

He helped me by first of all telling me to temper my expectations as it may not work well at all and is a very technical thing to do which I understood. To begin we tried to use a pawn the the character moves as the movement system, however this came with a multitude of problems. First of all there was absolutely no movement from the pawn at all and also even if the pawn moved the camera would not follow. The camera problem was overcame by adding a camera to the pawn and possessing that camera however the main mechanic, the movement, didn't work.

Due to this not working we had to go back to the drawing board.

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Games Anglia Trip

On Thursday we travelled to attend Games Anglia to present our group project games and test out other games from developers and independent people alike. This was a chance for us to network with industry professionals, show off our work and experience other's work. I found the process of presenting our game quite daunting as it was not the right version due to my mistake and because of that mistake it was not in a very presentable state, still we presented it and some people came over to play and gave us some good pointers and criticisms. Some things I learnt in relation to refining the things I worked on in the game were lighting fixes due to the incorrect version as well as adding more original assets that I made myself to the game instead of taking them off of free assets stores.

I think the main thing I could've done to prepare better for the event was to make sure that the correct game build was uploaded and also prepare something to record the feedback we received on the game.

I did play quite a few games while there and my favourite was Valerie from a solo developer called Jole, I found this game to be full of depth and also very impressive for a early access demo. The game is mainly about a girl named Valerie that uses her unusual powers to traverse the landscape and progress through the narrative, the player can play as a younger or older Valerie to gain different perspectives of the story throughout. I did speak to the developer and he seemed like a very keen and welcoming person with a passion for games and sharing his work with others.

I found the industry talks to be insightful and useful for a look into the world of games design and development and what us as students can expect the future to hold for us.

I ended up having quite a positive experience at Games Anglia however there were a few things that could've been tweaked to improve it even further, for example a more open and airy space for the game presenting area would've been better as the one they used felt quite small and claustrophobic with little room to move about. I think the industry talks were good and should be kept for future Games Anglia's.

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Week Summary

This week has not been great in terms of progress mainly due to the complexity of the movement systems and grid, this made the progression slower. This will be improved upon next week as I have the basis ready.

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Idea That I Settled On

I decided to go with idea 1 because it's the idea I feel most passionate about and the one I have the most ideas for. I think this will make the project better than if I did pick idea 2 or 3 as I am not as confident in those ideas which could negatively effect the project.

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Idea Generation 3

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Idea Generation 2

For my second idea I still want to use the drawing tablet however I wanted to change the way it was used. I did some research into drawing games as that is what I am immediately thinking of when thinking about using a drawing tablet for a game. Some of the games I chose to look at were Broken Picture Telephone and Doodle Road. I chose these games as they both have similar drawing mechanics but they use them for different things as I will explore below:

Broken Picture Telephone -

BPT is a collaborative multiplayer drawing and writing game, it consists of at least 11 rounds that players alternate between writing descriptions and creating drawings based on another player's description. Each player has a maximum of 10 minutes to submit their description or drawing, if they do not finish in time whatever they have done up to that point will be submitted.

The mechanic that sticks out to me and what I would like to take inspiration from is the main mechanic of drawing, I would want to implement this in such a way that whenever the player comes across an obstacle they are prompted with a notepad that they can draw on along with 3 choices of what to draw.

Doodle Road -

Doodle Road is a 2D platformer puzzle game in which the player needs to draw a path that will guide the car from the starting point to the finish line. There are many different levels and the further through you get new challenges and more obstacles get introduced to challenge the player's creative and strategic thinking.

I want to try to implement some similar movement to my game, for example I want the character to move without input from the player and then stop when it gets to an obstacle. I want this so that the player can be given the drawing prompt I mentioned previously, draw what's required, accept what they have drawn and then the character moves on further through the level. I believe this would be a really interesting way to play a 2D platformer type game with the drawing notepad.

I think the name for this idea would be: Draw Your Own Path.

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Idea Generation 1

For my first idea I spoke with Ollie about trying to utilise a drawing tablet to use as the input to move in my game, and the first idea that came to mind was to use this tablet to move around in a grid based game in which you draw your own path around the environment.

In our talk Ollie mentioned a really good idea of being able to draw the path but not making the character immediately follow it, instead allow the player to have a look at the path and consider the strategical implications and if it was the right choice before they confirm that they want to move along that path.

Some games that were mentioned for me to take a look at were Hitman GO, Lara Croft GO and The Plucky Squire. All of these games have things in common, for a start all of them contain at least one level that is turn-based and requires the player to move the character along a grid.

Hitman GO:

Hitman GO is a turn-based puzzle game in which the player guides agent 47 through multiple grid-based levels. These levels are made up of nodes and lines that the character follows and is presented like a board game with characters that are modelled like miniature figures. Enemy characters can be defeated by moving onto a node they occupy, similarly to chess, whilst being undetected because if they see you within 1 move from them they will move to your node and defeat you. More and more enemy types and mechanics are introduced along side more complex puzzles the further into the game you get, this makes the game more engaging for longer and keeps people playing for longer by adding more content.

I think something I can take away from Hitman GO is the enemy behaviors, for example, the way that if you are in the enemies line of sight and within 1 node they will attack you, I think this turns the game from an easy combat game into a strategic game that makes you think about your moves and plan ahead to avoid the enemies praying eyes.

Lara Croft GO:

Similarly to Hitman GO, Lara Croft GO is a grid based puzzle game where you move Lara Croft through a board game whilst avoiding obstacles and manipulating the environment. However a large difference compared to Hitman GO is that the game is based on the player and environment taking turns, one after the other. To further expand on this, when the player moves they are able to move one unit between connected nodes in the given direction and when the environment goes the enemies and obstacles on the board move one unit. Another new addition compared to Hitman GO is the added verticality to the game with steps, cliff faces and climbable terrain, this adds a new dynamic to the gameplay and allows for more varieties of gameplay and mechanics. Throughout the game the puzzles become more complex whilst introducing more mechanics and enemy types.

This game is quite similar to Hitman GO, primarily due to it being produced by the same studio however it does have more interesting mechanics improving upon Hitman GO. One of the main things that stick out to me and things that I could be able to take some inspiration from is the dynamics of the environment, mainly how the enemies and obstacles are able to move around the environment making the game more strategic and forcing the player to take their time to plan a way around the level.

The Plucky Squire:

The Plucky Squire is an action-adventure platform game that follows the adventures of storybook characters that discover a 3D world outside of the pages of their book. The games objective is to restore the book's ending and whilst doing this the player discovers the mechanics of the game such as jumping between the 2D and 3D worlds and also has to complete puzzles and challenges like boxing badgers and jet pack flying. The mini-game I am focusing on is the Rodent Data Centre, this is a 2D turn-based level in which the character can move along a grid whilst avoiding being seen by the guards. More and more mechanics are introduced the further into the mini-game you get, for example levers that need to be pulled to open doors are introduced as well as pressure plates that the guards will step on and open doors. The entire mini-game is based on timing and rhythm which I think is a pretty cool premise.

One thing I could take inspiration from would probably be the introduction of the levers and pressure plates as it adds more difficulty to the game and adds a strategic element to the game because the player will need to factor in the enemies and now the added objects they will need to interact with.

I think the name for this project would be: Line Tracer.

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Rumble Research

Zelda Ocarina of Time

There is a rumble when near hidden elements in the game.

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Rumble Workshop

In the Content Browser click add and choose Input and then Force Feedback Effect. Now open it up.

By default the asset has one channel but you can add more. For each channel, select the combination of the four outputs that you want the channel to affect.

Now hold shift and left click wherever you want on the curve to add keys.

You can test out the force feedback in the editor by hovering over it and pressing the play button.

Get a reference to the player controller with a get player controller node.

Drag from the output pin and type play force feedback into the menu, and select client play force feedback.

Then specify the force feedback effect to use directly on the node or with a connected variable.

Check looping if you want it to play continuously.

If you want to you can set a unique name for the effect in the tag field, this makes it possible to stop the effect. If an effect with the same name is playing it will stop the current effect and the new one will play.

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Pause Menu

First off create a new widget and name it WB_PauseMenu. Now design it to your tastes, I added a canvas panel, a black image and a text box that says "Pause".

Now open up the player controller blueprint and add a new input, I made mine tab. Select the new input node and change the option to allow the button to be pressed during pause.

From the input add a flip flop node, this will alternate between on and off.

Now create the pause widget and make a reference to the widget and follow that up with an add to viewport node.

Finally, add the pause by right clicking on the event graph and typing "set game pause".

Make sure to tick the pause option on the node.

Now get the pause widget reference variable and add a remove from parent node by dragging from reference output.

Now add another set game paused node and make sure the paused option is unticked.

It should look like this in the end:

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Enhanced Input in UE5

First of all create a new Input Action called "IA_Reset" and open up and check the value type is set to: Digital (Bool).

now open up the IMC_Default and add the new action mapping that was just created.

Then set the key value as P, then add additional key values for gamepad inputs.

Now in the event graph for the play character search for the input action that we just made and connect it to an open level by name node and test it out.

[altctrlaltctrlaltctrlaltctrl]

Hex Based Grid Games Research

Sid Meier's Civilization -

In this game the player makes an army that moves on an hexagonal grid based map containing different types of land such as farms that you can move your army to and harvest or take farm animals. The closer your army gets to somewhere the more of the area can be seen, however this can be dangerous as you could run into enemies out of nowhere as you can not see them.

Teamfight Tactics -

Teamfight Tactics is set in a hex style grid, where the player has a limited area to create a team to defeat their opponents. After the player places down all of their characters, they will no longer have control over them and they will attack each other until one of the teams are fully defeated. Each character comes with their own unique powers and weaknesses. The hexagonal grid view seems to be used to provide a better view of the game and allow for the player to plan more strategically.

Panzer Corps 2 -

Panzer Corps 2 is a WW2 turn-based strategy wargame played on a hex grid. The hexagonal grid provides more movement options than a square based grid which is vital for a wargame, it brings a more strategic element to the game due to the increase in possible moves and ways you can play. It uses the grid system similarly to Civilisation in the way that you move the army to different hex's on the grid to reach different things.