Blog
Three years ago today I started working in Unreal Engine since becoming a student at Full Sail University. Looking back at it now, it seems primitive compared to what I’ve been able to accomplish more recently. I want to take a moment and track my path of growth and further experimentation, not only for myself, but, for other creators getting their start.
Read MoreAs some of you may know, I’ve been working with Digiplay Gaming on Brawlbots, a multiplayer shooter built in Unreal Engine 4. This has been a unique experience for me, network replication and ensuring game-play balance is no small feat.
With the code base I’m working from, a lot of work has been done for me and I’m thankful for the time saved. However, I still felt like I was thrown at the deep end as the first thing I wanted to do was connect two different devices (as this game is intended to be cross platform) or at least two devices on the same platform. And while my initial tests did show that it was plug and play (as advertised), trying to get an Android player and Windows player to connect was next to impossible. Whether this was because the builds weren’t consistent or some other issue I’m not aware of, I was a little disappointed.
Next, was the hurdle of replicating functions and data between players. Weapon firing and UI sounds were already handled, but I wanted to add an announcer that tracks match state (what team captured the flag, player kill-streaks, players dropping in/out, etc) as well as some BGM. At first, I thought there was a hurdle as my previous research said that audio replication was difficult. But surprisingly, looking at an example from the code base, I just needed to create a Custom Event that played a sound that replicated to all (the server and the clients). This will help with connecting player actions to the announcer VO as the replicated event can be called as part of an interface event or delegate call.
Something that seems hard, is actually easy.
This feels like a lot. And refreshing the look is gonna take a lot of work.
As this project has a multiplayer emphasis, there is an emphasis on low barrier to entry and making USPs clear and exciting. My frame of reference for multiplayer shooters are games like 007: Agent Under Fire, Team Fortress 2 and Resident Evil 6 (don’t @ me). All but Team Fortress 2 feature split-screen play allowing friends to get together and compete with each other or other players online. And I think split-screen can be a USP, so building the infrastructure for multiple local players was going to be hard. Thankfully I had some idea of how to handle this in Unreal thanks to Deadly Golf, a very unique game I made while at Full Sail. However, the code base was intended for one player connecting to other single players through LAN/WAN. And so for now that will be on hold. However, getting the GUI to show up on each section of the screen was much easier.
Speaking of the GUI, designing a good HUD when there’s a lot of data to track (current player health, ammo, player/team in the lead, mini-map, score) is not easy. However, the base HUD is very utilitarian, all dark images and white text. A good GUI delivers clear information and looks good doing so. Unfortunately, making the HUD more appealing requires a lot of TLC from artists and I am not much of one, so for now, taking advantage of Unreal’s UMG that can resize elements based on screen resolution is gonna go the long way for small devices like smartphones to (hopefully) game consoles or high resolution PC players.
On the subject of consoles, designing input for game-pads is different that keyboard and mouse as there’s a limited number of buttons and there is an implied default control scheme for shooters. It’s a good thing Deus Ex was retooled for the PS2 port.
The concept of Brawlbots is fast and frantic arena shooting, so intuitive controls is a must. That being said the code base implements leaning controls and did not implement this for game-pad users. So the question is, do we retain these controls or do we ditch them to ensure a level playing field? That is a question for play-testers and community feedback.
As development continues on Brawlbots and other projects, I will do further write ups on my experience developing mechanics and the journey of discovery they will lead me on. Perhaps one day I will transition from high level game designer to low level game designer.
Another year has come and gone and so much has happened. Let's take a look at all of the updates and experiments that I've worked on this year!
I started working on a new Unity project, The Hunt. It is different from my other games in that it’s meant to run on mobile devices such as smartphones. It’s also different in that it’s more fast paced than my other works so a lot of hurdles are yet to be overcome but I’m excited to see where it takes me! You can find the most recent web build of the game here on this site! Click here to check it out.
Hell’s Asylum, while being on a hiatus for a while has seen overall improvements! A new camera system, improved saving/loading and improved performance with more C++ code in the backend. Moving forward, more native code will be used to create features that are otherwise unable to be made in Blueprint. The first update of 2020 is expected to be available by late March. Stay tuned for updates!
While not the main focus of this site, as this is more of a portfolio for my game design work, I have made strides in my songwriting endeavors. I collected some electronica I wrote for other projects and for fun and have it available on Bandcamp. Check it out here. I’m aiming to have more music out this year! You can find my music at my SoundCloud page.
I’ve kinda been slacking off in updating my social media presence but that stops today! Expect weekly blog updates here as well as updates on my Patreon page!
Updates! Lots of them! Though my life enjoys keeping me busy, I’m making it a goal to get new content up and available online. Personal consistency is something that I’ve always struggled with and this year I’m gonna beat it. So come along on this journey of long nights, bug fixing and uploading the wrong build at 11:59pm.
2020 is gonna be so much fun and I can’t wait!
So recently I’ve felt a need to move away from Blueprint and work more on my C++ skills. Not only for portfolio reasons, but also to get more performance out of my games and future projects. I think Blueprint is great for the purpose it serves but for me, there’s no better way to learn then by practicing a new skill.
Read MoreFirstly, Aragon: Hell’s Asylum is seeing a major overhaul and revitalization since my last update (the one where I almost broke everything). I’ve also been experimenting with packaging the game onto other platforms (HTML5 and Android in particular) just to see what is possible on non-PC hardware.
Read MoreRecently, I’ve been working on making improvements to the performance of Hell’s Asylum. As the levels, AI, and general development get more complex, I’m making it my goal to get as much performance out of the code as possible while also making it easy to modify and make updates when necessary based on bug testing and feedback.
Read MoreI saw that tomorrow will mark the one year anniversary of the first video I uploaded on Project: Phoenix, that would eventually become Hell’s Asylum. And I went back in my head to think about all the old and outdated logic I had thought was top notch at the time….
Read MoreI hope you all had a happy and restful break. I’m committing myself to make more frequent updates for my projects Aragon: Hell’s Asylum as well as Cycle of You! .
Read MoreAll of this got me thinking, it’s important not to place all of your faith in a single person or a single company. There is only so much you can accomplish alone that you miss out on what is possible when combining multiple talents or avenues of work.
Read MoreNow that our development cycle is complete, I can bring some of the lessons learned to my project, Aragon: Hell’s Asylum as well as other ventures. And one of those ventures, I’d love to tell you more about.
Read MoreIt’s been a long time coming for Aragon: Hell’s Asylum, originally created as a shooter straight out of the 90’s, it’s now an Action-Adventure game with RPG elements. And with this increased complexity, comes the need to dig deeper into the engine and learn how to accomplish what I want in the game.
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