Keeping the beat in Unreal 4!

We're really looking forward to not beginning our posts with this: we've been very busy this month, and had almost no time for our personal projects.

That's only almost, though. We have had time for an approximately 3-day practice project in Unreal 4 (about 1.5 days of this was done on a GPD Win device, which can run Unreal 4, impressively, and is also portable, so we could work on it during a long trip). I (Lussy) have finally figured out a way to bind things to a soundwave's position (in seconds) in Blueprints, so we've made a replica of the rhythm game Taiko. Because we didn't have to come up with new gameplay, and only had to implement the existing mechanics, we've been messing around with binding things to BPM, and working on sickeningly colorful graphics.


Excuse me for the sub-par play, it was late and oh yeah we had to show off the 'Miss' particle effects!

The song and beatmap in the video are from one of the original Taiko games, but we used this osu file to bring them into our project by exporting the contents to .csv and importing it into a data table.

We tried to only include really light, unlit-only graphics that wouldn't impact gameplay. We even though about only using 2D sprites or just widgets, but it just didn't seem right for an Unreal project. But in any case, the gameplay stays stable even if the framerate dips. I can't overstate this, we're REALLY happy about the whole thing syncing up, and we never had to use ticks. I've been trying for years to accomplish this

So where to from here... This is a really low priority, tiny project, but we have a few ideas for our own gameplay mechanics that we are going to replace the Taiko mechanics with. Only the timing mechanism will stay. Until then, ... We managed to actually sync things up to a given song and rhythm without the framerate messing things up! Woooo!

Puzzles!

Hi!

We’ve been progressing with the puzzle game project mentioned in the last post. We’re learning a lot about how to make stable things, how to manage a project and time, and how to optimize games for lower-end machines. We have a couple of game mechanics ready, so the bulk of the work will be to build levels using these mechanics.

This puzzle game has a simple goal: get to the end of each stage by solving puzzles and avoiding obstacles. For now, most of the problems are solved by pushing buttons with the character, or placing blocks onto them, with some light platforming mixed in. The whole idea is to mimic programming/digital circuits with the puzzles - think logic gates, nodes.

Here are some gifs so you can check out the mechanics with placeholder art:

A basic level's layout

 

Breakable glass

Playing with momentum

Picking up and carrying items

Opening secret passages

Utilizing moving platforms

Obtaining the bonus box - this box grants the player extra points if taken to the exit

 Many ways to die:

Finishing the level:

We will put the new skills we learned to good use in our bigger projects. Please look forward to more updates in the near future!

Progress, hard work!

Hey!

We are properly progressing in the development of Project OLP, FINALLY. This week we got lots of things done, like equipping and picking up weapons, and playing proper animations on slopes (and slowing down and speeding up according to the slope's angle). Also we're working on a new map.

Here are some pics and gifs:

The map

Slope blendspace:

Weapons

See you next time!

September update!

Hi!

In this update, there actually is a lot to say.
Last week I (Lussy) started learning and making blueprints. As we are finished with all characters, Geril is progressing decently with the environment, so with though it would be best if I did Blueprints next to modeling. As a result, our game is finally starting to look/play more like a game - even more so than it did in Unreal 3.

Here is a video in which we demonstrate what we achieved up to now:



I still have a lot to learn about Blueprints, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. If I get more comfortable, we may try to make some tutorials. But for now, here are some of the features I added:

Sliding

Falling from a height

Walljumping

Stopping after sprinting

Some gifs of the test maps:

The sandstorm

 Inside the "house"

 
 Sal cloth test:

Also, we were interviewed by Sketchfab! You can check the article out here.

That's all for today! Look forward to more updates, more game mechanics, and more comics!

***BONUS***

 WTF moments:

After the video...