Settings Insights

• Learned Unreal's Game Settings systems and how to manage them through UI elements. These included settings like resolution, fullscreen mode, and FPS.

• Created custom settings pipelines for saving, localization and audio settings which used Unreal Engine's native functions but expanded on them for uses tailored to our team's needs.

  • Localization Example: Menu textures had text baked into the textures itself meaning the text localization in Unreal's string tables wouldn't apply to them. Instead I created functions that would report the game's current localization and culture to a global game state and had the widgets adapt their texture depending on that culture value.

  • Game Saves: Unreal's Save Game system was the base for our permanent data system including save files and setting preferences. All game elements and UI elements that use saved data are powered by this backend system.

Post-Mortem

• Pains of motivation and development:

  • This game had a turbulent devlopment cycle to say the very least. The context behind many of the cut features and half baked gameplay comes from the fact that our team's vision could not come together early enough to solidify the game's identity.

  • Learning to work despite a bad atmosphere and poor team morale was one of my biggest takeaways from the experience. Myself and a handful of team members across all disciplines persevered when many others had given up on the project at Alpha and soft quit, which left team morale low and our manpower halved. I am proud that I, and those who got the game over the finish line with me, did not give up and it gave me real experience of giving my best to a project that I was not personally passionate about.

  • Even though the game itself is not something I am proud of, the works I was able to produce despite poor conditions are invaluable to me giving me confidence that I can keep a good attitude and be self driven when the going gets tough.

• Even better If's:

  • I think there is a lot of personal feelings of regret in my thoughts on this game. In the end our programming lead had shouldered much of the responsibility of interpersonal issues on the programming team and the shortcomings of the game as a whole. Realistically there is only so much one person can do lead or not and I wish I could have taken more accountability in the moment and helped him work wise and emotionally as it seems to have taken its toll on him.

  • I believe much of the failure in this game's development stems from a weak unification of the team in the ideation phase. While I was doing everything I could by the end of the project, there were opportunities along the way for me to at least be more present for ideation and design decisions when I was asked for my opinion and I believe I was too passive.