Enemy AI Studies: Thursday, March 31st

Today's main focus was enemy AI. I learned that there's a class called Character that is normally used for NPC and enemy movement, but trying to figure out how the class works has been a doozy.

The capsule seen here cannot be resized for some reason, making it very difficult for me to work on collisions. I haven't inputted the TakeDamage coding yet, so right now in-game mechanics are like this.

It moves in place and if I jump on it, I just roll right off. So now, I have another issue to work with.

I looked up tutorials on using AI and blueprints in general so hopefully these three videos will give me some ideas.

(The tutorial with assets from Braid seems to be a hit with other Unreal users)

The Little Things: Tuesday, March 29th

It appears the damage collision on my spikes have mysteriously stopped working, so I spent all of class trying to figure out why that is. It could be the environment and not the spikes themselves because the settings for the spikes are as they should be.

I also began to work on the healing frog item; I just have to figure out how to make it disappear as soon as you collide with it. The coding should work as soon as I have that going.

The enemy AI seems a bit complicated, and since the official UE4 youtube page doesnt have a part 4 of the tutorial yet, this is something I'll have to figure out on my own. So far, it hasn't been easy.

Triumph: Thursday, March 24th

After a whole week of grueling technical issues, my computer's back in action and I'm closer to the finish line.

The last pieces of assets are completed and now it's time to put everything together onto the stage.

So far collisions seem to be working alright, so I began working on the full layout.






The game is short on purpose (since it's related to my senior thesis), but after playtesting this layout I think I'll stretch it out a bit more.

There is one block of land that has bones within the dirt, and that is the placeholder of when the game ends.




Next class, I'm going to look into how to trigger a cutscene based on where the character lands.

Things left to do are

1. Background art
2. Final cutscene
3. Start and Restart buttons
4. Music
5. Enemy AI
6. Healing Item
7. Fix projectile and hit collisions


Speaking of a healing item, the art asset for it is complete (seen below), I just have to add the proper coding.



(It's a coquí frog!)

Everything's coming together, let's hope I don't have anymore technical issues from here on out.

Dealing With More Technical Issues: Thursday, March 17th

On Tuesday, my computer had to be taken into CTS for repairs. The constant computer issues I keep having put a damper on my motivation, but I don't plan on giving up on working on this project altogether. So, for the meantime, I've stuck to working in my sketchbook to work on the last of my concepts.

[Will add pictures from sketchbook at a later time, Blogger doesn't allow me to upload images from my phone unless I download an app I don't particularly need]

Because there are currently no more 2D side scroller tutorials for now to watch from the official Unreal channel, it's time for me to do my own research on how to finish the rest of my game. I create a list of what else there is to do:

- Make healing items

- How to insert cutscenes and trigger them at the end of the game (I'll also need to make said cutscenes to begin with)

- Create text bubbles

- How to make the game restart upon completion

- How to insert a play button in the beginning

- Work on backgrounds and set them up for side scrolling

Computer Struggles: Tuesday, March 1st

Today the school computer is having a hard time cooperating with Unreal, so I was not able to do much in the program. The computer froze twice while I tried to fix new assets I just added, so I am unfortunately feeling quite defeated.

Well, at least I did get those assets done.

The animations run smoothly within Unreal, now if only the program would cooperate for more than two minutes.