Beta Build Design Documentation
Getting there!
Sorry it took so long to get this build out, but last time I promised dialogue for all my npcs, a full intro map, and basic combat implementation and I could not let y’all down! On this build, we have a main menu, npcs with animations and dialogue, the entire intro map, and enemies!
This main menu isn’t anything to write home about, but it’s there! We have a background my old roommate drew (shout out Jackson Denson) and buttons that let you start or quit the game!
We now have animations for all of our npcs with dialogue trees! Everyone has something to say, and you have multiple ways to respond!
Not all of them are finished, as some of the dialogue leads to ability assignment and then following you, which will be in the next build.
The intro map is complete, allowing the player to explore this starting area in whatever order they please! I have a “set path” the player is supposed to go on, but with multiple paths to promote exploration! I have too much going on in each tileset to make it one large area, so I have it sectioned off into five smaller levels.
For the next build, I want to clean up music from area to area, make the camera follow a bit more robust, and have different player start locations.
I have the start of enemies and combat in this build! This took me forever. There unfortunately isn’t a ton of tutorials on top down 2d games in unreal, so I had to use a lot of google, taking bits and pieces from different tutorials, and brute force. Most of the tutorials were a little bit too basic, casting to enemies and the players. Instead, I used an interface! If an actor is hit by an actor, it sets off an interaction with that actor. Now, I can set this to any enemy and they will be attacked! Furthermore, by adding the damage to each individual enemy, there is less code on my player or attacks that would bog the game down.
This will make it easier to implement numerous abilities with different effects, such as stun and “steal life”.
This build also includes music, ambient noise, and sound effects!
For the next build, I just need to polish everything to make this a better, shippable demo.
- For exploration, I want to make the camera more robust; the camera will follow a little behind the player in whatever direction they’re moving and won’t go off the edge of the map. I also want to have multiple player start locations, depending on where the player enters! I also want the music to continue throughout each level instead of restarting.
- For dialogue, I want to fix the text the npc says so it is horizontal! I really need to fix this, as dialogue is extremely important in this game and you can hardly read it! I would also like for the text to scroll, and to give each npc a different “simlish” audio that plays
- For combat, I would like to assign the abilities after a certain point so the player earns them! I also want to make the enemies chase you and attack, so it’s like actual combat.
- For art, I need to fix the animations! Most unreal 2d games are side scrollers, so it is much easier to just switch the animation based on left and right. Since this is top down, I am using a multi-directional animation source, which has been giving me some difficulty. Once I figure out how to fix it, the game will look and feel much better, as I already have flipbooks for all my enemies and attacks.
That is obviously a lot of stuff, but I am very close! Now that I have some time off from work, I will have more time to make this a tight knit demo that shows off the potential of this game!