Ryan - Games Design

  We finally did it! We finished it! Honestly, I've enjoyed this project a LOT, it's been a treat to really try and flex my muscles for design with asset limitations. This week has been filled with illness and lethargy in the family home so I was thankful that I'd gotten myself ahead last week and that I only had a few tweaks to finalise to complete the work. I removed the remaining Print Strings to clean up the display while playing, this was purely an aesthetic issue but I felt this was around the time it should be implemented. Once that was sorted I took a moment to reassess the text system as I claimed I would last week. This was an easy enough job to follow but it took a lot of tidying within my blueprints. I tend not to post my blueprints within this blog as I feel like the overall look and effect of the mechanics is more important than the "how", especially with this project. But I'll provide a quick shot of how I have mine organised below. Where I can ...

  This week took quite a hit in terms of this project. Life stuff got in the way with ill family members and the exhaustion that comes with that, so my progress is behind where I'd like it to be. That being said, the work that was completed is stuff I'm pleased with! (top) Mine Layout (bottom) Mine Lighting I managed to complete the layout within the mine and got all of my lighting finalised in there too. I added a secret door (using some giant rocks) and set up some of the lightable alters as the "key" for unlocking it. Secret Rock Doorway  I also added a bit of verticality so as to keep in mind what Josh had mentioned in feedback the week prior. There is a small parkour-style section where the player will have to jump up some rocks on a cliff face to progress to an additional area. Rock Climbing area Once I finished the mechanics needed for the mine as well as the visuals within I decided to make a start on the user interface, the printed strings have been frustrati...

  Building a Community This week has been full steam ahead building an interesting world for players to interact with! After finalising the majority of mechanics last week, I have been focusing my attention on building levels and areas for the player to explore and progress within. - I initially wanted to create a village with a few simple tasks for players to complete therefore allowing them to explore the area and get accustomed to the mechanics in a safer environment. I instead, however, gave them a single task within the village which involved breaking and collecting rocks to give to someone. I spread these rocks across the map a fair amount and allowed the player to fully explore the village. Initial Village Sketch Design The village itself was created with the idea of it being a coastal village surrounded by woodland, this meant I could limit the amount of space the players could walk off towards whilst still making it feel natural. I added a few of the building assets and ma...

  Following on from our Unreal Engine Level Blockout project we moved over to level design using pre-made assets and predetermined character designs. The brief has asked us to use the assets provided along with the mechanics given - however, we were also told we could implement a few mechanics of our own and create a few simple assets should we need them. I wanted to spend the first section of this 4-week project creating some additional mechanics I felt would be useful in the type of game I wanted to create. Firstly, I wanted to make the player pick the hammer up at the beginning of the game. This was easy enough to add, a simple pickup version of the hammer left in the world which when picked up activates the one on the HammerGirl blueprint. After creating this I used the bones of this blueprint to create one for a torch. I want the player to have to go and explore a mine and lighting in this environment will be crucial. All I needed to do extra here for implementation was switch...