• Darkness encroaches Project
• Overview
The darkness encroaches project was designed and intended to be a "adventure puzzle game" with elements of light horror, this was going to be aimed at the PEGI rating 7 so anyone of pretty much any age could play it. The game itself was going to be based in a mansion like its inspiration "Luigi's Mansion", it was also going hopefully have a "sanity drain" mechanic instead of health based on another inspiration eternal darkness. I wanted the game to have a low-poly feel with a cel-shaded art style, this is because this would be more reasonably activable to a single person then a high poly "realism" art style.
• Planning the project
• Initial ideas
Knowing how little time we had from the project starting late we had to choose a game idea based on horror, then think of a couple game mechanic we would create in unreal engine. These could be anything but one had to be based on lights, so I settled on the following:
• Openable doors (rotation)
• Keys for (to unlock certain doors)
• A flashlight (for when its dark, and to get rid of a monster)
• Main house lights (that would shut off when a specific event happened)
• A monster (chase sequence)
These where what I decided on based on what I thought could be reasonably achieved in that time, I also ordered them that way to remind me what to work on and in what order. This was to make sure the more important things where taken care of in case time ran out, this being because we had issues that prevented us for starting the unit when we should.
Also created a couple "initial layouts" for the mansion on paper just to have a idea of how I wanted the map to look.
• Brainstorming
Knowing I didn't have enough time to both learn unreal engine and create any real assets for the "game" I opted to use blue boxes to represent all the non-essential assets in the game, that and the doors would just be black assets that would rotate when interacted with. (unless locked) As for the "essential assets" a basic model would be made for each one to represent them being the keys, a flashlight and a monster. I knew that before any of the game could be tested a "game world"/map for the player and assets to exist in would need to be made, so I set up a list of things that needed to be done in what order.
1) Design a basic "House/Mansion" layout.
2) Plan a rough idea of how to implement the mechanics that I settled on in the "initial ideas" section.
3) Build the layout of the mansion from the designs from section one.
4) Import the "essential assets" to unreal that where made in blender.
5) Populate the map with temporary "placeholder" furniture and "essential assets".
6) Use unreal engines "blueprints" to make the games functions.
7) Test the game and problem solve. (going back to different sections if needed)
During this section I also chose a couple games similar to what I wanted to create as examples of what my game idea was, this was to show what locations I could potentially use if a Mansion turned out to be not idea. I did however settle on using a mansion for the game as it just felt right.
• Research
Knowing that I would be creating an adventure horror based game, I looked into how they implemented the mechanics I had settled on. This was to see if I could figure out how each worked and to see if I could glean any tips on how they should look in my project. I also looked into several random YouTube channels that had tutorial of unreal engine at this time, specifically ones that explained "blueprints" as I had no idea what these where before starting the course. (I had been taught basic C#/C++)
• Developing the project
• Creating the mansion
First part of actually bringing the mansion to life was to star making the mansion itself, this was achieved in unreal engine. The game was based on unreal engines "First Person Shooter" level blueprint, that was altered to look like the inside of a house/mansion. This was done by "moving and resizing walls", "adding doors" "placing furniture" and relocating the player spawn point.
• Issues with creating the Mansion
I had several minor issues with creating the mansion, the most annoying was how unreal uses similar movement and alteration mechanics but on different key bindings. The different key bindings caused me to accidentally move things when trying to change their size for example that and it make me confused with both blender and unreal key bindings for a while. There was also the issue with getting used to unreal engines snapping and movement of objects as it wasn't as easy as blender to line things up, plus on top of that the unusual way you "move" around in the environment was hard get my head around causing this section to take longer then I was comfortable with.
• Creating the "blueprint"
I created several different code sections so that my "initial game idea mechanics" would work, they took a while but I'm reasonably happy with how they turned out. The door code was probably game me the most satisfaction to complete, mainly because it was the first part of the code that stated working that and it was the most obvious of the mechanic chosen. The flashlight was the most annoying due to issues (explained in the "unreal engine" page)
During this stage I was planning on grating a chase with a monster, however doing so wouldn't leave enough time to complete the rest of the requirements of the unit.
• Issues with creating the "blueprint"
This took way longer then expected as several large issues cropped up during development, I managed to make workarounds but there was a lot of wasted time doing so. The main reason for this is the fact that this was the first project that I created using unreal, that being said it was also the first project where I use "blueprints". I had several false starts with some of them, but I did successfully find other ways to implement them. For example giving up on attempting to connect the flashlight to the bones and using an empty instead, another was that the door wouldn't stop at the right location so i decided to use "event ticks" so I could make sure the location was always updated.
• Final thoughts
• Self review
• Prior knowledge
When I stared the course I already had a basic understanding of game making and blender as I used to do so as a hobby a while back, this was my first proper use of unreal though. Most of my recent skills in blender were self taught and my coding knowledge was over ten years out of date and needs improvement because it was only "basic" knowledge. That being said one of the main reason for joining the course was I love to create stories, mainly ones that could be made into games but never had the skills to pull it of or the money to finance someone else to make it for me.
• Problem solving
As Stated in the above sections there was several issues that arose during the project, although I asked for help with a couple of things it was to do with being self taught and not knowing what certain things were called. I think I did rather well with coming up with solutions to problems and alternative ways of doing things if the "proper" way was to complex, the end result may still have issues but at least I managed to reduce them to a more stable state. I was a little disappointed that I didn't manage to finish everything I set out to do, I'm still happy with what I accomplished in the time we had though.
• Challenges
The main challenge was the fact that we didn't get as much time as intended to complete this unit, it started several months late due to circumstances out of out control including but not limited to:
• Starting the course late so I was always playing "catching up" with work.
• Computers not having the necessary permissions or lacking the required software.
• Nobody being available to teach the course when the normal lecturer was absent, ending with barely any lessons to learn everything we needed to.
As for more personal challenges, I'm very self destructive and at multiple times have thought I'm not good enough and should just quit the course. I have managed to keep going though, to be honest this is mainly out a feeling that this is my" last ditch attempt" to do something with my life. Another thing is my "prior knowledge" skills are mostly self taught or gotten from a college course then years out of date, so its taking a while to "transfer" my old skills but is is interesting to see how things have changed and what is possible now.
• Approach to next project
The next project will have the benefit of not "going in blind" when it comes to unreal as I have leaned several ways to implement things in unreal, I have also gotten a rough idea of were I need improving on using the program. So my next goal would be learning to use blueprints more effectively, that and working out how bones work in both blender and unreal engine. This is because know how bones work would be important for rigging/animation purposes, that will probably be important for my next project.
That and hopefully there are no unforeseen delays to the next project, that and I hope that there is more learning opportunities. Not that I haven't been teaching myself on my own time using non-college resources, but that doesn't really help as much as having a lecturer available during actual lessons. (also what was the point of joining college if I'm teaching myself.)