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Hud Research

Chrono Trigger

The Hud for chrono trigger is simplistic yet very useful for the player playing this game. It is placed at the bottom of the screen and therefore provides a useful place for the player to be able to figure out what they are doing in terms of attack.combo.items and how much hp and mp each of their characters have. Each character also has a symbol of their faces next to them in order to ilustrate to the player which one they are using. This is clever because it makes them not need to have their names typed up each time.

Cuphead

Cuphead's design for hud and screens is very minimal with the health bar being on the bottom left showing you how much hp you have exactly and eventually giving you a ready? on ur main screen before a boss battle or something major which allows the player time to prepare slightly and giving them a hint of what is about to happen.

Paper Mario The thousand year curse

Paper Mario the thousand year curse has quite a lot to display on the main screen from how much health each character has, to how many star points you managed to get. Everything the player needs to know is displayed at the top of the screen and even though it takes up a lot of the screen display from the game it fits in well.

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Title + Win Screen + Lose Screen

I used a pixelated font in order to create these screens due to how my game is using a pixel art pattern. I struggled a bit with implementing them into my game but eventually figured out what I was doing wrong. If I tried to set my lose screen to load up the starting level it would give me a light error and so I decided to just have it reload back into the title screen where the player can just get back into the game from.

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Fixed Issues + Launch Pad + Crossbow + Level Design

While working on my projects I came upon an issue, Unreal Engine kept freezing everytime I tried to save my project or the project auto saved, I went through the output log and saw nothing that could be causing this issue and so decided to backtrack on my steps, by doing so I realised that it works fine in older version. This led to me narrowing down my search to things I have added and It allowed me to come to a conclusion. I made the tilemap four times the size of its original size to create one entire level instead of swapping between multiple levels, by doing so the tilemap kept crashing my game and so I separated it into two different levels.

Due to how my game kept crashing I lost a number of things such as my launch pad and so I had to redo it, luckily for me I remembered how to make it and so I was able to make one with ease but this time adding a paper sprite to it so it suits my game.

Due to how the launchpad kept pushing me lower and lower each time I jumped twice on it I decided to add a delay to it so my character doesn't constantly jump on it, by adding a delay it helps my character be able to jump on it once again and getting the full power of it.

With the crossbow I had to make two actor blueprints, one for the actual crossbow and one for the projectile, starting off with the Projectile event graph, I had to add projectile movement to it and turn the gravity to 0 so that it can actually move from side to side in the direction that I tell it to. I also changed its speed in the projectile movement to tell the actor how fast to move.

Once that was done with I went into its event graph.

In the event graph I made it so that the arrow can actually cause damage when coming into contact with the player character and then having it destroy itself once the character is over with. From other actor I had to drag in an equal node and set it to "get owner" so that I can have it come out the turret once the code nodes for that are done. If the projectile detects a turret it fires into the direction the turret is facing.

I also turned the actor to be editable in order to be able to change its fire interval from faster to slower depending on how I wished it to be.

With the Crossbow actor it was quite simple.

All I had to do was give it a fire projectile command as you can see above and a command to spawn the arrow wherever the turret is placed, by casting it spawn actor projectile to scene the projectile can figure out that the turret is it's "owner" and allows for the entire thing to function when put together.

I ended up running into a number of issues with the projectile not spawning because it kept colliding with the tilemap and so I had to go into the tilemap, give it a tag called Ignore, go into projectile to give it the same tag called Ignore and that seemed to fix the issue and so the projectile started firing.

Once this was over a new problem came into play, the projectile would go on until it hit something and so it ended up loading my levels because it would collide with them. Due to this issue I went and created a wall that the arrow can collide with but the player can still pass through which allowed for the issue to be fixed and once the arrow collides with it the actor destroys itself. As of right now I have 3 levels and I am aiming for 4 levels total with the forth being the end of the game, each level has a different aspect to it and includes a different mechanic in each as to keep it a little diverse.

The big white blocks in the levels are to keep the player from going a certain direction, I figured the game would look better if the player could see stuff to their left even though it is not accessible. The first level is simple with there only being normal spikes.

The second level is slightly bigger and a bit more complex, in this level I implemented some retractable spikes at the ending right before the player gets to level 3. This level also introduces the launch pad to the player with them needing to use it to go upwards, from there they have a couple of options, go left/right/up to collect more points or go right and down to the ending where once they get past the spikes level 3 loads up.

The image of Level 3 is slightly tinnier due to when I get close to it, it becomes insanely bright since I used black colours in it. This level is where I actually introduced the turret mechanics, added a launch pad that launches the player to the right onto a platform which leads to another launch pad going upwards towards some retractable spikes, this level makes the player need to go right and then backtrack to the left to reach the final level which is in progress as of right now.

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Retractable Spike Trap

When researching game mechanics I came across retractable spikes, this mechanic intrigued me because it allows me to create more various level designs with it where players have to time each step to get past it.

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Win + Loose Screen

Win and Lose screens. I added the character in there for aesthetic design and I enjoy the way it turned out.

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Fonts + Loose Screen Process

To start off I went and researched 5 potential fonts that I could use for my loose screen. I decided on a horror font called "help me". I manually selected the font in photoshop by searching it up in the font bar, curved the writing slightly in order for it to be a little different and started adding effects in order to give the title a little more 3d look to it and more detailed aspect to it basically changing it's entire look into something better that can be used for an actual loose screen rather than just having a bland simple color. I then added another layer on top and moved it upwards slightly to give it a little more of an outline before adding a final stroke to finalize the 3d look aspect that I aimed for.

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Ogre Sprite Sheet

The spritesheet of my new character.

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Ogre Death Animation

By making this death animation I have now completed my main character for the game and I can start to work on the enemies and other mechanics for my game that I wish to implement. When making this death animation I considered a number of things. At first I wanted to make the Ogre sit down and cry but it just didn't appeal to me, I experimented a bunch more and went through some options such as: Ogre becoming smoke, Ogre exploding, Ogre becoming a statue, Ogre sitting down and eating meat. From all of these options I decided to remain to my original idea of the Ogre sitting down and crying but I also liked the statue effect and so by combining these two I got an animation where the Ogre sits down, cries and fades out becoming darker and darker. I am really happy with how this turned out.

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Ogre Run Animation

Small running animation for my Ogre character. Since I am changing the character that I will be using for my game I had to create an animation for Idle, Walk, Jump and Death for this one. Now all I have to do before implementing this into my game is create it's death animation.

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Enemy

In order for me to create an enemy I had to create a new blueprint class. From the blueprint class I selected the character and named it Enemy so it is easier to find.

I repeated some steps that I have done before and added a Paper Flipbook to get the character animation in place for the enemy and after that all I had to do was resize it slightly so it fits with my Level.

I then added two new variables for the character moving right and the character movement speed in case I wish to change the speed of the character later in different sections.

I then created another Actor called ControlPoint in order to tell the character where to go up to. From that all I had to do was go into the Enemy event graph and "cast to controlpoint" and give it some options such as "if true " "if false". All these nodes connected allows for the Enemy to smoothly move throughout the level up to its control points instead of wandering around endlessly to nowhere.

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Progress Bar

Before starting the Progress bar I went to health and changed it from Integer to Float. This led to a number of errors due to everything that used the health integer breaking. Luckily Unreal Engine shows everything that broke from changing that therefore making everything easy to find. After going around and changing every health variable to the right one, everything works as it should and the progress bar functions properly.

In order to create a progress bar I had to go back into the options and select "Progress Bar". After I selected it I changed its anchor to be middle top like the rest of things I have selected and went down to details- progress and created a new binding.

These are all the nodes I had to do in order to make the progress bar work.

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HUD Widget

To create a HUD for the game I first had to create a widget blueprint.

I had to go into the content drawer, down to User Interface and select Widget Blueprint/

From there I selected User Widget which led me to an empty space.

In order for me to get something on the actual screen I had to get a canvas panel.

In order for the widget HUD to actually work I had to cast to BP ThirdPerson then go back into my character blueprint to the "Add input mapping" section and Create UI HUD Widget then add to viewport.

This all led to getting the HUD to show up in the game level.

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Tile Map Changes

Since considering the new ogre character that I will be using as my main one I considered that a desert wouldn't fit the playstyle that I am going for and so decided on a more natural medieval sort of style in order to achieve the sort of game I am going for. I revamped my entire tile map and will now have to see how it should look when put together.

Updated level design with current Tile Map

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Pixel art

Sonic Mania

The color pallet that is used throughout Sonic Mania varies drastically from bright colored to a lower brightness in some levels. I love the mechanics where Sonic rolls into a ball and has to go down and upwards on the curved tiles and I am thinking of implementing that into my own game along with the launch pads in order to get a similar aesthetic to it.

Dead Cells is a game I particularly love. Some aspects of the game that I could look forwards into implementing towards my own game are how the character has access to swap between weapons. The character can use 2 weapons at the same time with one being close ranged and one being long ranged or vice versa with one being defense and so on. This is a mechanic that I love about this pixel art game and will be looking to see if I can have it as an addition into my own game through my own ways and views on it.

Undertale's color pallet is one that I adore due to how simplistic it is and how it allows the game to be based around it. I will look forwards to getting some inspiration for things that I create and put into my game based on types of color pallets like Undertales.

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Level Design

Celeste is an excellent game to get ideas from. Celeste uses it's dash mechanic in order to make the levels a little more challenging by basing it around them. This is a mechanic that I wish to implement into my own game because i love the idea of how it can be used and experienced with throughout the game from making levels harder and harder.

Megaman is also an excellent game to get ideas from as it uses various different mechanics in its game from moving platforms to rotating platforms to things that need to be broken in order for him to pass through and much more. These mechanics and level design ideas are some that I am planning on implementing into my own game.

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World Design

Terraria is a game from 2011. This game is classified as a sandbox game which means it allows for it to be basically everything and gives the player control freedom over what they do. I typically love Terraria due to how much difference there is. Terraria has multiple biomes in its game from jungle to desert to corrupted terrain which slowly expands over time. This game is one of my favorite sandbox games due to how simplistic the world design is but to how much freedom the player gets to play around with it. Each terrain is unique in its ways with each biome having different types of enemies and different types of loot that the player can obtain. This forces the player to somewhat explore their surroundings if they want to advance and get overpowered items that will make their time surviving easier.

Dave the diver is a very unique game in which the player spends their time underwater diving through different terrains and underwater biomes while eventually being forced to come up to the surface in order to upgrade their equipment or work in order to get some money. While underwater you have the option to fight and capture fish with the occasional small boss battles with squids and various other things. The deeper Dave goes the more dangerous the world becomes with the player having to do puzzles to get through different sections or meeting new enemies that he has to take out which they all have to be done while being careful of their oxygen levels remaining at a stable level. The world design in this game is amazing due to how unique it is.

The Eternal Castle has a world design so simple yet so complex that it amazes me. This game has a restricted color pallet and so the level designs were made using black colors. This allows for the levels to vary without having to change its colors every time for a unique experience and it is so simplistic yet so clever that it amazes me and this game is a good idea of things I could do with a limited color pallet if I were to use one.

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HUD

HUD stands for heads-up displays and it is the game's way of conveying information to the player.

In the game Owlboy it uses its HUD system by placing a health bar in the top left corner. This allows for the player to easily see how much health they have remaining and how much risk they are at of having to restart the level. By constantly allowing the player to see how much health they are at will determine the playstyle they take. If a player tends to have a full health bar they will not be as careful and move faster throughout the level while if their health bar is at the point where they are near death then the player will start to move more carefully throughout the level in order to avoid dying.

The same thing can be seen with Hollow Knights but just in a different design perspective. With Hollow Knight, instead of using a bar it uses the same icon repeated over and over representing the amount of hearts the player currently has.

This mechanic is spread throughout multiple various games because it is just so simplistic and so easy for the player to understand. Kirby and the Amazing Mirror also use this mechanic but in a different place. Kirby's health bar is on the bottom of the screen with an actual number representing the amount of lives he has left to spare which in this pictures case is 2.

Dead Space is a unique game that implemented the player vitals into the actual player with the vitals being visible from the back. This is a very unique ways that the developers decided to display their HUD system.

The game also has HUD implemented into its actual level with waypoints being around the map directing the player into the right direction so that they do not get lost and make their game experience frustrating.

Persona 5 is a game that uses its health system smartly by presenting it in the bottom right corner of the screen. This makes it very visible for the player to see how much health and SP they have left in order to figure out what moves they need to use to win. The HUD system is all over the screen with the ammunition being shown on top of the actual player character which allows the player to be fully aware of how much they have left at all times.

Mirrors Edge has a lack of HUD throughout the game or too much HUD around which makes it confusing for the player. The images that I have found above are of mods made by actual players of the game in order for the HUD system to be less confusing and less distracting from the actual gameplay.

CrisTales has a different way of representing its HUD to the player from the rest of the games that I have presented so far. CrisTales gives the player the option to get information or not by pressing on a button to get "hints" throughout the game to what they are meant to do. This is a clever way to help the player without forcing it upon them to allow for the players that want to have a more difficult experience to figure out everything on their own.

Dead Cells is one of my personal favorite games and a perfect example of how the HUD can be used smartly in games. The health system is displayed on the bottom left corner of the screen right below the weapons that are available to the player. This is perfect for the player to be able to intake multiple information at the same time by only having to look over once. On the right hand corner of the screen the player has a minimap that they are able to use to navigate their way throughout the level which is a very clever idea for players who might get lost and not find their way back throughout it or for those who are not able to figure out where they are meant to go. The map allows for the players to backtrack and realize where they are located with ease. The coins next to the map is a clever way of shoving things together in order to not take up too much screen space as well as the coins are usable for multiple outfits, weapon upgrades and more. The HUD in this game to me just looks perfect and is a great display of things that I can use in my own game to not take up too much space throughout the screen.