davidt2d - Tumblr blog

[davidt2d]

Game over/Win font

I've got a font for what will most likely be used in my ending screens of you die or finish a level I think it complements the sci-fi style of the game quite well!

I simply added a gradient to the original text, making it look a bit nicer.

after that I added an outside stroke to compliment the pixel style I'm going for.

then I finally added a copy of the text to make an almost 3D effect and added a thin white stroke to make the original black stroke more noticeable in darker areas!

[davidt2d]

Enemy

added an enemy to my game, doesn't do anything other than walk around at the moment but ill add that later.

I simply recolored my main character sprite sheet but i will probably try and make a unique enemy in the future.

I added a new blueprint class character that i used as my enemy, i then went and added a flip book as i did for my main character and added some variables for a simple patrol route.

I then added a regular blueprint actor to serve as the patrol trigger, which would tell the enemy to change directions when it came in contact with it.

from there I added code to the enemy so that when i started the game it would default to moving one direction.

then I added some more code that forced the rotation and movement of the enemy in the opposite direction when it came in contact with the trigger.

and now i have an enemy that walks from a to b over and over again :)

[davidt2d]

My HUD

Ive now got a basic hud in my game! currently i dont have any dedicated hud images so i just used my character as a placeholder.

I added a widget blueprint and then i dragged over my simple hud elements, images, text, and a canvas panel

with that done i went over to the text tab in details and i added a binding to link the text and health

from there i added this code to correlate the text to my health stat.

after i finished that, the text on my hud will now change depending on what value my health is at.

after that i went over to my character and added a widget and viewport so that the hud was visible in the game

and voila! ive now got a basic HUD in my game

[davidt2d]

Other Styles of HUDs

while most games use things like health bars and hearts, some games take their own twist on the mechanic and use it in a way that is unique to their game.

Dead space uses the players 'space suit' to hide the health bar in plain sight, which makes the game a while lot more cinematic when you on have a massive stick of health at the top of your screen, this way of integrating the health bar into a game is really interesting and makes games a whole lot nicer to play in my opinion since you aren't necessarily focusing on the health and more on what's going on around you.

Moving onto another game which uses another style of HUD is persona 5, with the quite simple but aesthetic appearance of the health bar, but a lot more complicated HUD for attacking and various other actions.

the health appears to look similar to your classic style of health bar, HP marked on top and the experience, or energy points below it, this style is used in a large amount of games that are usually some form of RPG style of game.

Though the HUD for player actions is a whole lot more complicated as it uses the player as an anchor for the menu.

the style of this looks somewhat like a QTE in my opinion and that makes the game seem a lot more time sensitive, but I wouldn't know that much because I've not played persona 5 myself.

Moving onto a very different game, is mirrors edge with its very minimalistic HUD that barely shows anything, just the area and time.

this style of HUD I think is good in types of games that don't necessarily revolve around the player taking damage, it might make the game seem a lot more cinematic by not having any form of health to visibly see, and it makes the player think about how many times they might've been hit and how many more they think they can take.

The game Cris Tales takes another quite simple approach with stacked bar health.

the way that this HUD portion is laid out is very simple and it matches the games art style quite well in my opinion, I don't have a lot more to say that I haven't said already.

As a finishing style I've got dead cells which uses a very arcade-themed health bar, which is seen in a lot of 2D game similar to it.

it is a simple green bar with a number on it indicating how much health you have, it goes down and shows a lower number with every hit you take.

Boss health on the other have is slightly different.

for the bosses of dead cell their health bar is similar to the players as it is a simple bar but red, indicating that it is indeed an enemy, but it doesn't show the numerical value of the health as to hide how much head the boss has.

[davidt2d]

Some HUD Research

The HUD, meaning Heads Up Display, is what shows the player their various stats, like health, ammo, experience, and inventory (for the games who have those). Focusing on the health side of the player HUD there are a lot of different types of health mechanics all with their upsides and downsides which can change the gameplay of whatever game your playing.

When it comes to full health bars, they offer a game a lot more relaxed gameplay, of course that might not be how the game is mean to to be played but I feel that games that health bars give you a decent sized room fort error, as oppose to games with a heart system or a 1-hit mechanic. but then I think when it comes to games with health bars you feel like you are able to tank an ungodly amount of damage without much punishment, but that could change with difficulty and other factors but I think that health bars make the player feel unnecessarily tanky.

With hearts, the game does give a level of punishment as you usually only have a couple hearts, so it doesn't really allow for many mistakes, but the hearts make you think about a specific part of a level in a number of ways, like what way would be the easiest or what would have the most items, and how many enemies there are to contend with. most games with hearts have give a couple second invulnerability when being hit by something, which allows you to quickly escape in a tight situation.

with single hit health mechanics, it offers a challenge to players and makes them be are of the dangers that could kill them, this makes for a bit more strategic play as you don't want to reset the level that you were so close to finishing. though some things I don't like in my opinion is that sometimes the single health system can be quite frustrating, like during a boss fight for example, you've been dodging and weaving for about 5 minutes, the boss is about 1 or 2 hits away from dying, and you get hit by a stray attack that you weren't expecting to come your way, now you've wound up at the start of the level again and you'll have to fight that boss from the start all over again. That might be the type of difficulty the game is going for but for me I feel like they can get quite repetitive if you don't know how to beat the different types of enemies of whatever it is that your playing

single hit game also have a lives system, so when you get hit you lose a life, and then when you lose all of those lives you eventually restart the game right from the start which can be annoying at times when a game gets difficult.

[davidt2d]

Main Level concept

Here is an early preview of my main map for the game. Might split it up unto different levels but that will come when I finish the map itself.

[davidt2d]

A Quick Catchup

haven't posted a lot recently but I've made a good bit of progress with the sidescroller.

I've added my sprite sheet to the game and I've now got a moving character to the game, with all of the separate sprites working as intended.

I have also started on my tile map and that is going to be what I spend most of my time on now.

I'm going to be doing a lot of fine-tuning to the tiles and sprites to make them look as good as possible while retaining a similar style.

[davidt2d]

Tile Map concept examples

below are 3 simple tile map levels made by me that each follow a specific rule, the dead tree indicates where the player spawns in each of the 3 levels.

This first level is small but it shows what you can do if you move where the player initially spawns, showing some items that would normally be hidden if the player decides against exploration.

This next level's rule was to have it comprised mostly of water, so I decided to use the brick blocks as a sort of buoyant block in the water, despite the fact that isn't true to real life.

This final level's rule was a simple list of requirements: 2 Hills, 4 holes, a bridge and at least 2 saws. the hills and holes was simple, in this level I used to water to fill up the holes as I didn't think it looked incredibly good with just empty space, I could've added some floating platforms and things similar to that but that's just something that I overlooked. Either way I think all 3 levels turned out quite okay.

[davidt2d]

Mega Man Tile Map

Tile maps are the 'Blueprint' of any 2D sidescroller game, they are used to make the various different maps of whatever game they are being used for and usually accompany a style similar to the rest of the games assets.

Looking at the tile map for Mega Man, each of the different areas have their own unique set of tiles, and from what I can see none of the different tiles have been reused in other tile groups for other areas.

[davidt2d]

Sprite Sheet

After a good bit I've finally got a relatively complete sprite sheet for my game's protagonist, took me a while to complete and clean up all the different frames but I think it paid off!

I might change some bits about the sprites in the future but they are pretty good at the moment.

[davidt2d]

Sprite

I have added a sprite pickup to my game to act as a temporary collectable. I did this by importing the png into my content drawer and applying a paper 2d texture setting and then recreate it as a sprite.

the png was originally meant to by for a health pickup but since I do not have any sort of collectable design it will be the placeholder for now.

I'm planning of having a lot more pickup items for things like ammo and health, possibly even some form of powerups but that will be worked on in the future.

[davidt2d]

Game Instance

I added a game instance by going to my project settings and creating a new game instance named 'MyGameInstance'

A game instance is e blueprint that retains information throughout the game, even when restarted, and only resets when the game is closed.

after adding the game instance I went back to my score variable blueprint and I edited that to include the game instance, so the score can save when the level restarts.

[davidt2d]

Health system

The new variable I've added counts the amount of lives the player has, and once that reaches 0, then you die and the level restarts

To add to this I also have a new actor that acts as said damager, similar to the score variable, but it subtracts one rather than adding, it then checks if the players health variable is below or equal to 0, and if it is, then it restarts the level.

[davidt2d]

Variable Improvement

Rather than using an increment you can use an addition instead, which allows for custom score additions rather than just 1 every time, though you need to set the score yourself.

[davidt2d]

A Score Variable

A variable in unreal engine is a form of' storage device and it can be used to store different things depending on what the variable type is set to.

using this i can make a quick and easy score system,

It is very simple and doesn't work amazingly but it does work for the moment.

[davidt2d]

A quick test

I tried to downsize an image of my character that was a lot more detailed that I already had, using the image size setting in photoshop.

and after a but of fine tuning and editing I think it looks pretty good, a lot better that the one I made myself :p

If I do decide to use it then it will be a challenge to try and animate but I think its something I could pull off if I decide to do it.

The original image was not made by me but I did purchase and use it to make said original image

[davidt2d]

Some Sprite Animations

Some simple sprite animations for the character I made a bit ago, not completely finished as I think I can do a lot more to improve on it but I will be working on that in the future.

I've also made a death animation that is quite bare bones at the moment.