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Adaptations to a game level, sprite design and how I used them, an addition to an arcade project - By RPG.

(Above) Unique Gulf/desert style houses, based on aerial photos of Iraqi houses; featuring a similar colour palette to the tank sprite designs. Some of these house sprites feature gardens, some feature extensive balconies; symbolic to an actual Iraqi house style, with location and size of house having a part to play in how the house looks like.

What I used:

Photoshop, a 64x64 resolution design to tie in with other 64x64 pixel art sprite designs.

Simple colour palette, tan colours with darker shades for minimalistic detail and contrasting darker colours to represent trees, dirt, stone and outdoor furniture (as seen in the 2nd building design).

They might not look the most detailed in appearance, but the overall aesthetic I was going for was a raw early 90's style arcade game; where I was planning to add camera filters to give it that retro combat feel in UE 5.2.

Research for houses from an aerial view found me looking at more unique house designs from smaller towns in Iraq.

Reference photos:

RPG-7

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Movement on a certain angle, an addition to an arcade project - By RPG.

(Above) Left/Right and Forward/Backward - Movement controlled by the axis of an angle.

For the left and right movement, it is controlled entirely off the basis of the X axis; where the player character moves linearly through the X axis to achieve either a right or left turn.

Forward and backward movement is dictated from the Y axis, where the player character moves linearly off the basis of the Y axis. Both systems of movement work parallel to each other.

Both variants of movement coordinate with each other as a singular movement input, If W is pressed it moves forward etc.

Both Left/Right and Forward/Backward movement is directly correlated to the world direction of the player character and the scale value of the character itself.

(Above) Action value X and Y interacting with Absolute Positive, which has to be greater than to be branched off into the movement sects.

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Adding an AI enemy, an addition to an arcade project - By RPG.

The process:

EventBeginPlay allows the script to run as soon as the level/game is started.

"Cast To BP_ThirdPersonCharacter" links the intialisation directly to the player, and thus anything that is connected to it affects the player character.

"Get player character" is a node that connects the variable "player character" to be linked.

The "set" pins connect themselves to the "EventBeingPlay" initialisation.

"EventTick works off the games tickrate, where for every frame the game runs on, the AI NPC corresponds with such. The "player character" becomes a "pawn" for this script, meaning that it can be moved anywhere but still have the AI NPC follow it.

"Self" node is the player itself corresponding with the script.

(Above) The AI NPC corresponding with the player character.

As a summary, the benefit of this addition is that it enables an objective. Having moving NPCs in my game helps achieve that objective, the enemy tanks come to you and you have to fend them off in swarms.

This especially benefitted me because it was my plan to have actively spawning enemies in a battlefield arena. It just makes sense in any aspect of any shooter game.

It works so well as well because you have to be so reactive to the game, with no time to delay; and the concept was to have it get more and more difficult with more and more swarms.

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"Quit Game" screen, an addition to an arcade project - By RPG.

The process:

"Any key" references any key press, its an alternative to having any set key to initialise code.

"Retriggerable Delay" sets the delay so that it can reoccur, so that it doesn't happen only once but every time the game is idled or quit by key press.

"Quit game" does what the name suggests, quits the game under certain conditions/circumstances.

An additional explanation to the retriggerable delay is that it is set to a specific, the time is set in seconds as a variable. Currently, its set to a idle timer of 60 seconds or 1 minute.

The entire process is connected to the level's input mapping; the code responsible for inputs of key presses to the level and everything in the level such as the player character or any NPCs added.

"Add mapping context" allows for you to add a contextualised input onto the level. In this case, it would be the timed idle/quit screen.

The design of the start screen:

The start screen is very reminiscent of The Godfather, with a similar text layout and same colour palette.

It was difficult to incorporate both an Arabic/Gulf style font with a more "Americana" style font; because of the differences in region and language.

Finding an Arabic style font that someone could actually comprehend in English text was difficult, all fonts were directly either for Arabic keyboards or made to look as authentic as possible to actual Arabic.

It was made to look basic on purpose, I didn't want to make a start screen that was too busy because it wouldn't be worth the hassle to keep changing the font to arrange itself nicely with the game itself.

The screen is supposed to be dark themed, because the game is supposed to highlight, in a way, the era of which video games became most prevalent; the same era in which the 1991 Gulf War occurred, and at the start of the video game "boom", Operation Just Cause (or the Invasion of Panama).

The purpose of the start screen is so that when the game idles after being left for exactly a minute, you can go back to it and play it again without it just lingering on the screen. Also, the system that it is intended to be played on doesn't automatically reset without a delay timer so its a benefit that it works in a reset format.

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Adding a fixed camera, by RPG.

Event BeginPlay initialises the code, allows the player controller (the controller that "attaches" things to the blueprint for the character) to be able to be seen through the viewport (or level/game). The "self" node is a reference to the character, where it is attached to "new view target"; thus making the player controllers "target" the camera.

"Get Player Controller" makes sure that the player is connected to the camera settings; and helps ensure that the camera actually follows the character instead of looking at one specific thing.

As an addition, the "self" module helps "set view target with blend" determine what is being "plugged" into it, in this case "self" is the character you play as or the mannequin other than those that are NPCs.

"Set view target with blend" determines the location of the camera and the location of the player/level; the "target" is the player controller, helping ensure that the camera stays in view of the player.

"new view target" is the player character itself.

A fixed camera is a camera that doesn't allow itself to "connect" directly to the player character, but instead allows the camera to be located elsewhere in the map but still maintaining a good view of the player character from wherever the camera is positioned.

Fixed cameras follow parameters, unfixed cameras don't; this is shown when a player character has a fixed camera appended to it, where the camera continues to follow the character regardless of movement. Cameras fixed to one location are often better regarded for games that involve being played from another angle, those like isometric top-down shooters and side-scrollers.

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The process of making sprites for an arcade game: M1 Abrams sprite - By RPG.

(Above) American M1 Abrams tank design, the sprite that is controlled by the player as an in game character.

Done in 64x64 resolution, same style of the T-55 sprite and made to be comparative to the T-55s dimensions.

Simple shading was used to give the pixel sprite a little more depth, and to accent/highlight the dips in its bodywork. This was done with the aid of reference photos as M1 Abrams tanks have hidden divots which aren't typically seen unless seen from a bird's eye view.

(Above) Its shooting equivalent, which shares the same style and similar design; for a non-US style M1 Abrams.

Shares similarities with the T-55 design, whereas the T-55 had a more basic smoke design when shooting the M1 has a more "explosive" smoke design; hence the bore and size of the metaphorical round is bigger.

Reference photos helped determine the size of the smoke cloud when the M1 is shot, and the yield of how far it spreads out.

As a summary, the design was in similar process to the T-55; I would say the most significant process that I had included in my design would be the syncronisation between a real image of an M1 Abrams from a bird's eye view and the 64x64 pixel-art copy.

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The process of making sprites for an arcade game: Iraqi T-55 sprite - By RPG.

(Above) Photoshop template of in transparent PNG format, of the Iraqi T-55 sprite (used as the enemy sprite).

The sprite is made in 64x64 resolution, using a basic NES pixel-art style.

This version is the shooting version, as having a complicated animation for shooting would not suit the style of game, especially it being a retro-style arcade shooter.

The time it took wasn't that long, using no advanced tools or processes to complete this sprite design.

Using reference images helped, as the T-55 is a pretty unique tank; its size and bore is small and it had to be represented right or it would look irregular and wouldn't fit nicely into the game.

(Above) Photoshop template of a non-shooting Iraqi T-55, or its idle form, in transparent PNG format.

It required only one layer to make, utilising a transparent background so that it would be easier to turn into a sprite within unreal engine; and to stop it conflicting with the map design.

Seen here, the design was drawn on a single layer in a very basic style; keeping the same resolution, of 64x64.

As a summary, the designs weren't overly difficult to make; the use of reference images helped a lot as the T-55 is the most produced tank in the world, and there are a lot of different types in a lot of countries all with unique camouflage patterns. It made it easier to compare the dimensions of the tank to try to scale them down into the resolution of 64x64, because I wanted to it be comparative to my M1 Abrams tank sprite.

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Arkanoid (classical "high score" game), an explanation, by RPG.

Arkanoid, released 1986, is a block-breaker arcade game manufactured, developed and published by Taito.

It has since been released for multiple platforms:

Arcade machines

Amstrad CPC

Amiga

Apple II and Apple IIGS

Atari 8-bit systems

Atari ST

BBC Micro

Commodore 64

MS DOS (Microsoft's first OS)

Macintosh (Apple "MAC" Computers)

MSX (Sony)

NES (Nintendo)

PC-88 and PC-98 (Zilog and NEC respectively)

Thomson

TRS-80 (RadioShack)

ZX Spectrum

iOS

Mobile devices/phones

For North American markets, it was further re-published by Romstar.

The player's objective is to control a paddle-like craft known colloquially as "the Vaus". It shares its similarities with Atari Breakout, in the sense that the objective is to break blocks of different colours (and score, dependent on what layer the block is destroyed on). A reason to suggest that Arkanoid is similar, and not the same, to Breakout is because at the time of release Breakout.

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Adding Sprites to arcade project, by RPG.

Applying Paper2D settings, in sprite actions, removes the background of the image, keeps the image's pixels sharp and makes sure that the pixels don't blend when scaled up. This turns the image into a texture.

Right clicking on the texture file creates a sprite from the texture, this should be under "create sprite". This can be added to the blueprint for a player character, through its viewport.

In the components settings, add a paper sprite; this will enable the sprite that's been created to be added to the player character's viewport.

The issue with this is that the sprite interacts with the base player character; the characters mesh, however, cannot be removed.

To fix the issue of the base character (mannequin) being visible simultaneously where the sprite should be, you would make the base character invisible (within rendering, "hidden in game").

A bug that I encountered was the fact that the sprite started jittering. When moving the sprite, it would appear as if there is some sort of problem with the rendering or projection of the sprite itself.

Changing the projection mode from a perspective angle to an orthographic one changed the way the sprite represented itself within the game. An orthographic projection is more likely to work better than a perspective view in a top-down game.

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Atari Breakout (classical "high score" game), an explanation, by RPG.

Atari Breakout, or simply "Breakout", is an arcade game developed and published by the company Atari Inc.

The game itself was designed by Steve Jobs (who later co-started Apple), Steven Wozniak (Co-owner of Apple Computers Inc.), Nolan Bushnell (establisher of Atari Inc.) and Steve Bristow. Programming was forwarded by Brad Steward, and began on the Atari 2600.

Released on May 13 of 1976, design was initially headed by Steve Wozniak based on conceptualisation from Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow. The game was influenced by Pong (1972), and the mechanics that were used in that game because evident within Breakout's manufacture.

Objective wise, the game is simplistic; you are expected to knock out the coloured blocks one by one and row by row, the different colours indicate a different allotted set of points and are hit using a ball which interacts with the "paddle" (or in this case, a moving platform).

In 1978, the Atari VCS enabled Atari Breakout to played in colour; prior, it was only able to be played in a monochrome format.

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Atari Asteroids (classical "high score" game), an explanation, by RPG.

(Above) - Atari Asteroids; implementing a very simple score-based system.

Atari Asteroids, launched within the year 1979, is a multi-directional shooter arcade game designed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg.

Released for a series of Atari systems, plus the additional Nintendo Game Boy; the game achieves major success in both its JP and NA markets. As the game was developed within the peak of arcade-game development, Asteroids is widely considered part of the "golden-age" of games of that era; with it being ranked with the greats, such as the likeness of Atari Breakout and Pac-Man.

The games popularity enabled the game to become imitated. Defender and Gravitar made their way onto the market, directly influenced by the design and gameplay of Atari's hit. With the game selling 47,840 cabinets and 8,725 cocktail cabinets, it only came to prove that the game was both a financial and influential.

In the 1980's, it was ported to Atari home systems, Atari VCS system copies totaled 3 million sales.

The main objective in Asteroids is to shoot down asteroids and saucers. A triangular ship is controlled from side-to-side, where the player can shoot forwards and and move forward.

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Arcade game history, and its cultural importance, by RPG.

Arcade games have been around since the early-1970's, with individuals paving the way in video game design when modifying and prototyping minicomputers; an infamous example is with Galaxy Game, being developed in 1971 and made available through a DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) PDP-11 minicomputer installed into housing and connected to a wooden control board, monitor and seats.

The first coin-op, or otherwise named "coin-operated" games were developed on mainframe computers (colloquially known as "early computers", with a very similar appearance to spectrum-analysers)

Soviet arcade games, like that of the original Tetris, were then developed into more Western-orientated games; in this case, Tetris was further adapted on by Nintendo. The originator for Tetris, Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov, created, designed and developed the game whilst working at Dorodnitsyn Computer Centre under the authority of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union (now the Russian Academy of Sciences). Despite him being the original creator of Tetris, he own creation didn't receive any royalties until 1996 when Henk Rogers founded the company "The Tetris Company".

Very first Tetris game being played on a Electronika-60, a computer made in the Voronezh, Soviet Union from 1978 till 1991.

Arcade games in Western-bloc countries VS Arcade games in Eastern-bloc/Soviet SSR countries:

Soviet SSR/Eastern-bloc countries:

Diversant (1989), made in the Ukrainian SSR;

The game Diversant follows the objective of defending your city from a Martian invasion; with similarities to Space Invaders.

In the game, you are expected to shoot down enemy spaceships flying overhead which then deploy ground soldiers. The initial focus of the game increases quickly as waves of spacecraft fly in spontaneously. If you let in 10 ground troops to successfully touch down, you would lose.

Development for the game was aimed for the "Radio86 PK" - a DIY kit game console. Unlike other games developed for the platform, Diversant had its own sound effects. Other games in the console's lineup only included "bleeps", "bloops" and "pews" - or simply didn't have any audio

Kommersant (Businessman) (1991 - End of Soviet Union), made in the Ukrainian SSR (Kyiv):

Kommersant introduces itself as a financial strategy game, where you are a businessman trying to stay away from bankruptcy. You begin with a house, a car, some oil and a small plot of land. For the average Soviet citizen, not yet accustomed to capitalism, it gave a rough idea on how a market economy worked. The objectives sometimes differed and demanded a quick reaction from the player - from eventual bankruptcy to mob kidnappings, with even natural disasters happening from time to time.

In game, you could also day-trade the stock market, place horse-racing bets and take part in casino games; detail even expanded to where the player could chase lucrative deals with chanced encounters in fancy restaurants. The main objective was about growing your fictional business as much as possible.

Welltris (1988), made in the USSR (Moskva):

A puzzle game emerging from the many trial-and-error experimentations of Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of Tetris. It was commissioned by the Moscow Centre for Scientific and Technical Creativity of the Youth, which at the time was creating educational computer assets.

Macintosh, Amiga and ZX Spectrum systems were among those that ran the game. Like Tetris, Welltris had block figures that the player had to arrange. The only exception from Tetris is that you had to clear the rows both horizontally and vertically.

Tweaking the size, and speed of which the blocks fell at allowed the user to gain more points.

(Above): Original 1989 copy of Welltris being played.

Western-bloc countries:

Tetris (Nintendo NES, Atari and Game Boy versions) (from 1989)

In 1989, six companies claimed rights to create and distribute Tetris for home computers, consoles and handheld consoles. ELORG, the board/bureau responsible for Tetris' copyright claimed that none of the companies who reproduced the game had any legal entitlement to, and thus rights were signed over to Atari Games. Non-Japanese console and handheld rights were signed to Nintendo.

These renditions included different cover-art, box-art and a overhauled starting screen; differing to that of the original Electronika-60 version.

Pac-Man (Namco/Midway Arcade Versions (From 1980, July in Japan)

Pac-Man, with its original name being "Puck" man (of which it derived itself paku paku teburu, meaning "gobbling something up") was developed initially in July of 1980 and release first for Japanese and Asiatic markets; December rolled around and it was set for stores in US, EU and UK domestic markets.

It falls in the category of a maze action video game, intentionally designed with playability in arcade attractions.

The objective in this game is to eliminate of all the dots in the game, also dodging the ghosts; these ghosts come in 4 colours: Pinky (Pink), Blinky (Red), Inky (Cyan) and Clyde (Orange).

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Arcade Video Games explained, by RPG.

(Above): Contra (1987), Konami

Arcade games, or arcade video games take input from a set of controls, and outputs these inputs to a display.

All arcade games are coin-operated, and require some sort of payment; these types of games are house in an arcade cabinet, and within amusement parks/arcades.

Early games include those of Galaxy Game and Computer Space, both of which established in 1971, and they initiated principles for arcade games and the processes that follow.

The first successful arcade game is considered to be Atari's Pong, which debuted in 1972. Advancements to both design and gameplay architecture allowed arcade games to experience a golden age; widely considered to be between the late-70s and mid-80s, with accurate dates being disputed.

Companies, and the industry as a whole within the world of arcade games had a steady resurgence in the early 1990s to mid 2000's; but eventually declined with the availability of consoles like Sony's Playstation and Microsoft's Xbox, which boasted and advertised higher allotments for graphics and better optimisation than their arcade counterparts. However, despite the decline in Western popularity for arcade games; Asiatic countries still have a strong grip on the arcade game industry in the present, and these would be Japan, China and South Korea.

"Golden-age" games includes the likes of Space Invaders, Pac-man and Donkey Kong. Other adaptations that could be made are those of Super Mario Brothers and its franchise games, and racing games of that era that adopted top-down and vertically-facing displays and mechanics.

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Starting screen initiation script, by RPG.

(Above): Script that intialises a start screen from the press of a singular key or multiple keys/any key.

The process:

With a widget already created as a variable, which will be both the design and code for the actual text and screen itself, it will form its own variable which will correspond with the viewport (or in other words, what is displayed on your screen).

The "space bar" node tells the code that it should only be executed once the command has been achieved, in this case it being the press of the space bar key.

The "new var" (the variable created when the widget interacts with the viewport, or when the "start screen" interacts with the display itself) connects to its "target" (of which being the animation which is formatted using a track); this then allows the code to enact the animation of both the text and the start screen, and have it properly display onto the level.

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Starting screen code, by RPG.

(Above): Code that allows the name/text to move around the screen.

The process:

"Animation" is a variable, which is connected to the "play animation" node (script that allows whatever is linked to it to play, and coordinates itself with the track).

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Starting screen for arcade games, using widgets, by RPG.

The process:

To make the widget, or in this case a loading/start screen for an arcade game to move, there needs to be a timeline (track) implemented so that the text moves around the screen in coordination.

Location X and Location Y control axial movement of the text; meanwhile, the same principle follows with the size of the text with controllers "Size X/Y".

The track's position is modified so that it follows the text as it moves around the screen; it gives you the increments of time allowing you to make the duration longer or shorter.

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Video game characters inspired by shapes, by RPG.

Kirby (Circle):

Bomb - Mario (Circle):

Creeper - Minecraft (Square):

Tommy Vercetti - GTA: Vice City (Square):

"The Doctor" Romanov | Sabre - CS:GO/CS:2 (Triangle):

Chuck - Angry Birds (Triangle):

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