itch.io

I released a FREE tool to help you find potential problems and optimisations in your Unreal Engine 5 projects! The tool doesn't edit any files, it simply lists issues it finds. (It's up to you to decide what to do with the info).

• You can find the Tool on my itch page HERE
• You can find instructions on how to get it set up in your own project HERE
• And you can see in more detail how to use the tool  HERE

Below you can see it in action (Below I am searching my project for any Static Meshes that are missing collision):

What is it for?

As your project grows and you add more assets, it’s easy to create lots of smaller problems without even realising it. Things like missing collision on pickup meshes or missing sound classes on sound cues etc. Although small, enough of them can reduce the quality of your game as much as a bigger bug would. Think of death by 1000 cuts (bugs). With the same concept, as your game expands it is easy for smaller optimisation opportunities to be missed and build up, creating a larger impact on your games framerate. Examples like missing sound concurrency limits, static meshes and skeletal meshes missing LODs etc. These are the kind of issues the tool is designed to help you find!

Below is a list of the current functionality which falls under 6 categories:

STATIC MESHES

• With No Collision
• With No LODs
• With Missing Materials
• With X Or More Materials
• With X Or More UV Channels
• With X or More Verts

SKELETAL MESHES

• With No LODs
• Missing Physics Assets
• X Or More Materials
• With Missing Materials
• With X or More Verts

MATERIALS

• Using Translucency
• Using Two-sided
• Missing Phys Mats
• List All Master Materials

TEXTURES

• Non-Power Of Two
• Has X size

SOUND

• Missing Sound Class Asset
• Missing Attenuation Settings
• Missing Concurrency Settings

MISC

• Unused Project Assets
• Project Redirectors

Check it out if you are interested and let me know if you have any suggestions or feature ideas!

Follow my itch account if you want to find out when I release updates and new Unreal Engine Tools.

James

Today I released a demo for my game Freerunners!  Play it for free on itch HERE 

Become a Freerunner. Find a flow and underlying rhythm of movement through your environment. Vault, climb, jump, duck, swing, flip, slide, do what it takes to travel as fast as possible whilst using your environment to outwit the enemy henchmen and save your friend.

It be great if you gave it a go and gave me some feedback on what you think of it! 

I want to know whats; good, bad and what I could do to make it better!

I’ve been making the game in my spare time for the last couple of years. It’s taken a while to get to this point but I’m super happy with the progress I’ve made. I’ve always loved freerunning/parkour stuff and this side project was originally to play with that theme, and for me to learn C++! While prototyping the game I realised that finishing and releasing a game are actually skills in themselves that need to be practiced. Tie that with the fact I was having so much fun making it, I thought I’d take things to the next level and make a full game that I release. You can check out the game’s current trailer below:

I’m making great progress on the full game and it’s pretty much complete. Really now, I’m just fixing bugs, polishing stuff up and balancing the flow of some levels. As I’m making this game for fun and learning, I am in no rush to release it, I’m just taking my time. While developing the game over the last couple of years I’ve shown and playtested it to a bunch of people, but I thought the next logical step would be to put a demo out and see what feedback I get from a broader range of people!

So give the demo a go HERE and let me know what you think!

Thanks for playing!

The link in the post no longer works, use this one to read the postmortem about the game

Yo, I just put out an update and fixed the problem with the install directory. So you can now play it through the itch.io app as well!

Yo WHiZ thanks for letting me know. I can't edit the project atm because it's still locked for the gamejam, but as soon as it gets unlocked I'll sort it out. In the meantime, if you want to play you can download it directly from the itch page

Last week I took part in the 2020 Epic MegaJam, a 7-day game jam and submitted my game, Survive Another Night 38 min from the deadline!

The theme was "It's been a long time, but we're not done yet".  I decided to make a game about a zombie apocalypse. You play a character trying to protect his family for one last night before help arrives. It's inspired by a mix of Original COD zombies and Overcooked style gameplay and the film The Road.

Check it out and let me know what you think, it's free to play: https://cbgamedev.itch.io/survive-another-night

Yo jimrad1, 

It's a complete game, short but sweet. I updated it a few times with fixes after it came out and now I'm working on new stuff. 

It's my birthday so I thought I would put all my games for free for a couple of days, enjoy!

- Indie Dev Story -  https://cbgamedev.itch.io/indie-dev-story

Quit your job to become an indie developer and make your first game. A singleplayer 'clicker' game which tries to mimic the frantic feeling of being an indie developer; make your game while trying to stay healthy, social and earning enough money to pay the bills.

- RAGE - https://cbgamedev.itch.io/rage

 An 80s style beat 'em up, inspired by the likes of Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Marvel Vs Capcom.  Fight through a single-player game mode, unlocking new characters and a VS mode so you can play against your friends in local-multiplayer Player Vs Player action!

Also if you like reading about game development, I wrote postmortems about making these games:

Indie Dev Story - http://ubm.io/2hwotOP

Rage -  http://ubm.io/2vGc2Gy

Hope you enjoy!

Cheers

James

Hey, thanks leafo, Good idea for the customizing, it looks much better now!

Hey all, I just released a game I've been working on in my spare time, check out the itch.io page here

RAGE is an 80s style beat-em-up, inspired by the likes of Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Marvel Vs Capcom.  Fight through a single-player game mode, unlocking new characters and a VS mode so you can play against your friends in local-multiplayer Player Vs Player action!

• 1 Player game mode: 5 tournaments to beat

• 2 Player game mode: Player Vs Player (unlocked through single-player)

• 4 Playable characters: (3 unlocked through single-player)

Also if you are interested in game development stuff I wrote a postmortem about making it : here

Cheers

James

Ahh that's great thanks for your help leafo! Yeah I was using windows notepad to view the keys.

In case anyone else has the same issue; to get the keys in a nice format, open up excel then File -> Open and set the little drop down to be "All files", so you can see the generated .txt file with all the keys in. Then follow the on screen prompts about formatting. Default settings on these worked for me. Then there you have it nice and easy to read on separate lines!

Hey there,

I'm using "Create Bulk Key Group" to generate a large number of keys 1,000+ for a promotion someone is running. The file that I get with the key data is a .txt file that has all the keys as one long string. Is there anyway to easily split this into the separate keys so it is more manageable?

Thanks for any help!

James

Hey AryanR, Put out a new patch that has resolution fixes in it, should hopefully sort you out! Let me know if you still have any problems! Cheers

Hey samitcc3,

Just released a new patch wich has a cooked a 32-bit version, hopefully that should work for you!

Hey kurib big thanks for the feedback! Just released a patch which should fix a bunch of the issues that you saw. One of the biggest was that I changed the way that I was calculating the days passed. Originally I was doing it off tick, now its done off a looping timed function which I think fixed a bunch of things! Thanks for playing!

Haha, "its a game developers nightmare" you made me laugh. You need to buy items on the left! I'm impressed that you managed to 72% without buying anything!

Hey man, Thanks for playing, enjoyed your playthrough! If you are into development stuff you might like the postmortem that I wrote: http://www.cbgamedev.com/?p=311 I used Unreal 4 to make the game!

Yo dommy,

It all gets packaged up during the cooking process but here are links to the songs I bought for it, you could have a listen there!:

The chill song: https://audiojungle.net/item/ambient/10679107

The Dubstep song: https://audiojungle.net/item/dubstep/15833425

The rock song: https://audiojungle.net/item/hard-rock/16934441

Cheers!

Hey,

I released a little game I made: https://cbgamedev.itch.io/indie-dev-story (Playthroughs last around 8 min)

A singleplayer 'clicker' game which tries to mimic the frantic feeling of being an indie developer; make your game while trying to stay healthy, social and earning enough money to pay the bills!

Its free to download,

Hope you enjoy!

Also I wrote a postmortem about making it if you enjoy reading about game development processes

Gamasutra link: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JamesR/20161212/287...

Or my website if you want bigger images/gifs: http://www.cbgamedev.com/?p=311

Cheers,

James

It's on itch.io now for free: https://cbgamedev.itch.io/indie-dev-story

Let me know what you think :D

I wasn't quite sure where to post this, so feel free to move it if it's in the wrong place!

I wrote a postmortem about my process of making a little game called 'Indie Dev Story' using Unreal Engine 4. I thought it could be interesting to others and useful for myself to reflect on the process of making the game.

Gamasutra link: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JamesR/20161212/287...

Or my website if you want bigger images/gifs: http://www.cbgamedev.com/?p=311

Cheers

James