tomcotton-fmpy2

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

Final presentation

Looking at how the game will be presented, i have a start and exit button on the first page, a reset key that has been addressed at the start of the game as shown below

also in this image is the bigger box of text, explaining what the game is about.

as mentioned before the P key will send you back to the title screen.

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

Putting music in my game

To add the music in game its very easy, all you have to do is upload the mp3 file into the game and pop it in the event begin play of your character

Then in your character make a loop that will continue to play in game

and thats about it, the music is now in game and ready when you play.

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

Adding some music to the game

I found a cool piece of music to use online, for free and i wanted to put this in my game, I found a lot of free use music in a big plalist that i liked so i will show it here, i checked a few of these but i found one i liked, that will be shown in an mp3

This is the music that i went for, it was hard to find one that fits perfectly, but if i keep this quiet it wont be noticed

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

Were the systems i added helpful

I think that the health bar addition is a cool idea, but i am not sure how i would actually implement a damage system, as i cant find a good tutorial for this specific thing.

I think the reset button is really helpful because of how the game is supposed to be played, without this key i would have had to manually had to reset the game and that would have taken a very long time.

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

Reset key

This is a really small post, when you press the 'p' key in game it will reset, allowing for another person to play

all it does it open the title screen again, therefore resetting the game

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

Simple health bar

I added a quick simple health bar to my game all i had to do was add in a progress bar

and add a little bit of code on the event begin play in my drone to use this in game

with all of this, the drone now has a health bar

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

Why did i choose the gun models?

I chose this specific model for the guns, was because they were the same aesthetic and style as each other, and they were both free to use and made by the same person

There was a lot of different styles of shotguns, but i feel like the weapons i used fit into the style of game, and looking at pegi ratings they would have fit into the under 12 rating that i was hoping for.

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

Why did i choose the drone model?

When looking through sketchfab i found a lot of really nice drone models that i could have used, but i specifically chose the round ball that i liked, i chose this model because of the fact that it had spaces for 2 guns and i felt like that would really push my skills limits, as the video tutorial that i followed only used 1 gun, after reviewing this, it was fairly easy to actually add that 2nd gun onto the drone

There were a lot of nice designs, i originally did consider using a traditional quadcopter drone for my project, but i liked the challenge of using a nonconventional drone.

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

Drone product packaging

its very simple to package the game, i did this so none of the debug strings are shown

you have to check the system that you are using, unreal engine can also create mobile games too.

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

Drone Showcase

here is the showcase for the final drone video, in all its glory.

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

Really quick title screen

Here is a really fast title screen, the image is ai generated just for convenience i will link the website that i used below

The prompt i used was 'title screen for a game called 'drone havoc' '

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

How has my project changed through development?

I have fully changed around the style of my game, being a showcase of a skill instead of a full game. I chose to do this because i felt like a project like this would be different, and i was able to collect lots of new knowledge around drones, that being what i set out to do on this project.

I feel like this will be a clever way to showcase my skills, being advertised as something that others can take, and implement into their own games, in the code of the drone, i have placed a spot for the damage to calculate, leaving this blank will allow people to add their own damage systems for their game, instead of people pasting this in and it not working because the damage system doesn't match with the characters damage system.

Another thing i changed was the weapons. I originally had an idea for the ability to swap weapons, But as i didn't know how to animate things i went for a better approach, That being 2 guns, a smaller faster sub machine-gun, and a large slower firing shotgun, Both of these with a crosshair and its own sound effects and bullet tracers.

Overall i think my project turned out better with the new layout, being able to show off my work in a better style than just a gameplay video.

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

Playtesting - longer responses

Looking at the last question, asking what new features could be added, there were a few ideas for some fun things.

I never thought about a dash system, but using the stamina bar would be awesome. I feel like a dash wouldn't specifically fit the aesthetics of the gam considering the future military style I thought about while creating it.

Damaging the drones and the overall health system so far has been a mess of a job to code, and I am very unsure of how i go around tackling it, so I have decided to leave it for now. I might revisit it at a later date though.

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

Playtesting results and personal feedback

After completing the sprint button i decided to conduct some playtesting, here are the results and my feedback

I agree with this, the guns and the drones are of similar design and aesthetic

I can see how the guns wouldn't fit the future military aesthetic that I was going for here, but personally i think they fit well

In my opinion the minimap is the best feature, it works perfectly and it was fairly simple to create and add into my game. highlighting the enemies and possibly ammo crates if i was to make them would be a really cool idea.

The sprint is a little bit buggy and I can see how play testers wouldn't like it. I could add some audio for the game to make it less boring but for now I think the sprint works well.

I will do a separate post on the longer answers because they have a lot to discuss.

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

Unreal engine - Completed stamina sprint showcase

Here is the full showcase of the stamina bar, shown in game. you can see it regenerate while you arent sprinting too, This works really well at escaping the drones that are chasing you

Here is all of the code used, neatly organised

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

Unreal engine - Stamina bar

Creating the stamina bar is very easy, all you need is a progress bar, i decided to add text and a little bit of decoration behind

You then need to bind the progress bar box to a bit of code, its very easy, only needing you to call the player characters variable for stamina and dividing it by 100 for a simpler box.

[tomcotton-fmpy2]

Unreal engine - regenerating stamina

To create the code for regenerating stamina, all you have to do is this

This code will check if you can regen stamina, checking if the stamina is at a value of 100 or less, if it is less then we can regenerate the stamina, if not then we cant. We then have to add this to our shift code, in a very similar way to the initial sprint, calling a retrigger able delay, With this the actual code is done, the next post will be showing an actual stamina 'bar' used in game, then a showcase of course.