jay-fitch

[jay-fitch]

Final Evaluation - 2D Platformer

What Went Well: Unreal - In this project I very much enjoyed the unreal part of this project, especially the coding part. I also enjoyed putting on the tile maps after making them in photoshop however I did have the issue where the tile maps didn't let me draw on them in the end. I think that most of my code did go well especially coding the throw into the game so when you go past a person you can throw a pizza at them but if you click it and not near enough you will lose a point instead of gaining a point. Another thing in this project that I think went well in unreal is when I made my main menu, win screen, game over screen and key binds screen. I enjoyed figuring out how to make this and I think it makes the game overall better. Photoshop - In this project I didn't enjoy doing the photoshop part as much as the unreal but I think my animation in the end were alright. What could have gone better? Unreal - At first I wanted to code it so when you press the key to throw it will throw a pizza behind you onto a building and give you a certain amount of points depending on where you hit the building. For example if you hit a glass window you get 10, if you hit a door you get 5. In the end I couldn't figure out how to do that so I changed my plan but I think it would have been better if I did do that. Photoshop - I think that my art in my photoshop could have been much better. I don't think I am very good at art in general but I think I could have improved some of it. What would you do differently next time? Next time I would make sure to do more research into stuff before I get into the art and coding side of the project. Conclusion: In conclusion I think that I did alright for this project. I am happy with some of the final aspects of my game such as my menu screens and my throw aspect of it.

[jay-fitch]

Unreal - Packaging Project

When I first start to package my project I go into project settings and make sure the map that the game starts on is the main menu. This is for my main menu hud which when you click play it brings you to the first level.

After making sure the project settings are right I then go on to file, then package project and choose windows (64-bit).

After doing that I choose the folder I want my game to be placed into.

Then after selecting folder it starts to package the project.

You can click on show output log to watch it packaging.

Once it is done it will say build successful.

In the folder that you chose to package it in there will be a platformer.exe

Launch it and then it launches the game.

[jay-fitch]

Research - Movies

I couldn't think of that many movies that could relate to my game in any similarities but one scene I thought that might be able to relate was the Spider-Man 2 pizza delivery scene. This is a scene where spider man is going through the streets of New York delivering pizzas. This semi relates to my game as in my game you go through the level dodging obstacles (spike traps) and delivering to players to reach the end and try and get the best score and time.

[jay-fitch]

Research - Game Cases & Box Art

Video games cases usually show the main character of the game that you will play in it. For example in the Hulk game it shows hulk, a well know character which may help the game to sell. It seems that in most games the title is featured at the top of the game cases with it sometimes being at the bottom. The console that the game features on is also shown at the top to allow the consumer buying it to know what console they are buying it for. Then the age rating is featured in the bottom right to help show what age the game is made for.

These two example of game cases show the main character of the game with a simple background for spiderman with it being a colour and for halo infinite it is a map for the background of the case. If I were to release my game physically I would want it to have the main guy on his bike with the background being streets. This would give a basic idea of what it might be like to consumers.

[jay-fitch]

Research - Soundtracks

Game soundtracks are very useful in games as a good soundtrack may keep the player more interested in the game and may lead to them keep playing. A games soundtrack usually relates to the games theme/genre. For example a horror game may have a spooky soundtrack to add to the horror/scare factor or a medieval game might have war-like songs on the soundtrack to relate to it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEuhTBnGsnA I was looking at the soundtrack for BIT.TRIP RUNNER and I do like the soundtrack for it I think it fits well for the game as you are always running in it and the songs on the soundtrack makes it feel like that is happening and also has up-beat songs that relate to the game. I think that something like that would fit into my game well as you are always riding in the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at1eCjl3O6M&list=PLhrK8zP7p2c6MVXtBvglpZatKcaTPPupQ The speedrunners soundtrack is a very intense, up beat, fast paced soundtrack. I like the idea of having a upbeat, fast paced soundtrack for a game like mine where I am always riding forwards.

[jay-fitch]

Research - State Machines Part 2

Inside the transition rule you change it to if the speed is not greater than 10 then it transitions back to the idle animation.

[jay-fitch]

Research - State Machines Part 1

A state machine allows you think of your animation blueprints in a more modular sense. For example if you follow a flow chart that looks like this, it would then look like the below example in a state machine.

Here is an example of states in a state machine:

This is a idle state

Double clicking on that state will open up a graph where you define an animation pose for that state.

However one of the characters started to move so it transitioned into a movement state.

Within the state it can contain movement direction and speed

States have no pins as they are intended to have a freeform layout, by dragging a wire from a its outer border you can connect states or create new states Once you define your states you need to control how your meshes are going to transition from one state to another. This is where transition rules come in. Transition rules are created automatically along wires that connect states.

Transition rules can perform any number of checks and tests against variable values with a purpose of outputting a True/False value. The result below determines if the animation can move through or not.

The above images is testing a character's speed. Once the value is greater than 10 then the transition is enabled. This means the character is allowed to move from and idle state to a movement state and then we used a completely separate rule to transition back to idle.

[jay-fitch]

Testing game. - The difficulty

This is me going through my game testing its difficulty. It has some jumps which made me counted as hard such as the middle ones and when you die you can get straight back into the game.

After the death animation plays after falling on a spike it shows a game over screen which you can choose to play again or quit the game if you would like to stop playing. Overall I would say the difficulty of my game is pretty low has this is just meant to be seen as like a demo level for what the game could be like.

[jay-fitch]

Different widgets for main menu, death, keybinds and win

I made 4 different widgets. I made it so when you start the game you get put on a screen which has 3 buttons; play, keybinds and quit. The play button start the games, the keybinds shows a different widget iwth the keybinds and the quit closes the game. The death widget says "game over " and has 2 buttons; play and quit. They do the same as the main menu. The keybinds widget just simply shows how to space and throw items with a back button that sends you to the main menu and the win screen says "you win!" and shows the time it took and the score, it also has the same two buttons play and quit. This is the code and what the widgets looked like:

[jay-fitch]

Research - Tile maps

A tile map is created from a tile set with paper2D. It provides a quick and easy way to layout your 2D map in unreal. You can select various tiles to paint on from your tile set on to your tile map and you can use multiple layers to give a different effect on your tile map. You can also choose how far away is layer is from another and can use this to overlap objects and make some look further away.

[jay-fitch]

Photoshop - Exporting as a PNG

Firstly go to image and change the image size, you do this for the 64 x 64 because other wise when you export it, it will look very small.

This is what it looks like at 64 x 64.

Change it to 256 x 256 or whatever makes it looks like a good size.

Hover over resample and change automatic to nearest neighbour to get the sharp pixel like edges.

This is what it looks like on nearest neighbour (it looks like how it did before changing the size).

Go file then export, then export as.

It should automatically have the file settings correct and as format as PNG but if not change it to how you would like and then click export. Then you have a PNG.

This is what the exported PNG looks like after changing the image size

This is what it looks like before changing the image size.

[jay-fitch]

Photoshop - Guides & Grids

Firstly to add a grid you go on to edit, then preferences and click guides, grid & slices.

Then on the menu change the grid to what you want it to be. For this I put it to 1 pixel for every 1 sub division.

Then after that make sure to go to view, show and then make sure grid is ticked and you can use ctrl + h to turn it off and on quickly.

This is an example of what the grid looks like when it is turned on and set up.

[jay-fitch]

Photoshop - Sprite Sheet

This is my sprite sheet for my death animation. It is 1024x1024 and each grid space is 256*256 for each of my frames that I used for my death animation. I have used 8 squares out of 16. I left extra incase I wanted to change it but in the end I just left it like that. These sprite sheets are then used in unreal to make the sprite turn into an animation.

[jay-fitch]

Photoshop - How to make a GIF?

To create a GIF firstly you start by making a timeline then you add another frame by clicking on the plus sign. After doing that you click on the second frame and you can change it by adding layers or hiding layers to look like an action has taking place. In the example below I have shown my jump animation and in the bottom image I have hidden the first layer and made a new one and hidden that on the first frame but shown it on the second one. This is the basics on making a gif and when you click playing it will move it up and down like it is jumping.

[jay-fitch]

Game Research - Castle Crashers

Castle Crashers is a 2D hack and slash style game developed by The Behemoth. It can be played on console and PC and it has a wide range of features that makes the game so good such as being able to unlock characters and weapons with different abilites, combo and magic systems, being able to level up your character to help the game fun to keep playing and keeping and replay value high and much more. The game has a unique cartoony art style to it and the main characters to the game all have a similar look with colours changed for it.

The hud for the game is pretty simple with the players names, icons, health, coins and mana at the top to help keep things simple. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmJEXOQ_BSQ The soundtrack for the game is very unique with a lot of the songs from the soundtrack having a very 'hype' up feeling to it and some of the songs have a very 'war-like' feel to it.

[jay-fitch]

Game Research - Super Meat Boy

Super Meat Boy is a 2D platformer where you go through levels dodging traps, enemies and bosses trying to reach his girlfriend.  

The art style of super meat boy is sort of cute, small, squishy characters mixed with a dark fiery game. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snaionoxjos (Trailer for super meat boy). The game also contains a level editor which allows you to make your own levels to increase the replay value of the game.

[jay-fitch]

Game Research - Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight is a 2D platformer where you go through caverns, while go through battles with creatures and befriending some bugs. The game has many features in it which makes it fun and enjoyable, such as; dashing, dodging and slashing, a wide range of enemies and bosses to fight. There is also a wide range of level design to help feel immersed in the world. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWZktANV-D8 The Hollow Knight soundtrack is great. The songs fit the levels perfectely with some songs having a ‘creepy’ sound and others have an ‘intense’ or ‘sad’ sound to it.