Project Apocalypse
Project Type: Personal Project
Genre: Action-Horror
Software Used: Unreal 5.4
Language(s) Used: Unreal Blueprint
Timeline: On-going (started December 2024).
Description: Project Apocalypse is a project that I’m very passionate about, the idea for this game came to me after a friend and I entered a game jam. Our theme was survival, and we went straight to zombies. After the game jam business was done, I found myself infatuated with the idea of creating my own zombie RPG, so I started, and it’s been a blast to work on.
Goals: Create a fully playable demo/vertical slice of my own RPG.
Responsibilities: Level blockout/ polishing, blueprinting level interactions, writing narrative (dialogue/ environmental/ flavor text/ backstory), character design, systems design (creating charts for upgradeable weapons, enemy stats, etc.), documentation, designing encounters, combat design., sound design, and VFX.
Documentation:
Story
Not my art! - Main character inspiration off Pinterest
Project Apocalypse is a third-person horror action-adventure RPG where you play as DB1 a Dustbound in the New Colonial Union. A fractured society ruled by the Supreme Chancellor over the remnants of a zombie infested Washington State.
You were born in a breeding camp and know nothing of your parents or origins, other than that you hail from Colony Alpha and that at a very young age, you were relocated to Colony Delta, where you now reside.
As a Dustbound, your duty is to uphold peace across the colonies. Whether it's combating raiders, eradicating the Undone, or mediating conflicts between citizens, your role is to protect and preserve order in this fragile, post-apocalyptic society.
Playthrough
For the first level area I wanted to start off in a unique environment. Something that I can do a lot with level design wise and after some research I decided on having it take place in a steel mill. I thought that using this environment would allow me to do some interesting things with the machinery that would make for an interesting level.
I created a good bit of level sequences/ cutscenes to show some story development. It’s all very basic, I just used some free sounds I found on the web and then some very basic animations off of mixamo to. Given the scope of this project is supposed to be something along the lines of The Last of Us or God of War, but given I am one mere lad this is what I have for now.
I’m working on this pretty much on the daily, so things are being updated constantly. As of right now almost all of the dialogue is finalized. So, most of my efforts at the moment are going towards making the final cutscenes and working on some gameplay like the event where the player uses an inhalant to walk past the large group of zombies (2:06). Aside from the in-game events I’m still working on designing the combat, that is a whole beast in itself and is going to require more time and effort specifically just on that. Being one person handling everything alone I feel spread thin, but tis the life of an indie developer.
Level Layout Planning
From the start I know I wanted to have some sort of walls/ giant fences that the zombies would be pouring into the compound from. The MC’s current mission is to reestablish comms with this steel plant, the reason comms went out is unknown. Throughout the level the player will be able to piece together what actually happened here.
I had no idea how steel was made or any of the machinery that was in a steel mill. So, I had to research, a few hours of YouTube learning as well as talking to a steel mill worker I met off of Reddit I was able to finally create a layout in my head of how the flow of the level would go. Once I was able to get a gist of the flow, I was able to start planning out what buildings were going to be necessary, and which were going to be there for looks. For example, the building where the steel was rolled and then carried onto trucks would allow me to use the machinery like crane’s and such to traverse the map in an interesting way. As shown in the playthrough.
Splines
I was very late to the game when I figured out about splines. I had no idea how useful they are. I was able to place a series of train tracks as well as my road leading into this mill area. Roads, paths, rivers, train tracks, there’s so much you can do with them, and I am just very surprised that I hadn’t learned about them earlier.
I’m planning on having multiple encounters that involve either the MC riding their bike down an abandoned highway or even taking a train down through the abandoned state. Using splines allows me to quickly design how these encounters are going to play out. Also, on the technical I know there’s a bunch you can do with them in terms of actually doing something like moving a train down a set of spline points. But I will get further into that once I’m further into development.
I created a system that allows me to quickly and efficiently add subtitles with narration (VOs not added yet because I don’t have any). So basically, using data tables I can store a set of voice over lines. Then in the level sequencer I reference a blueprint (Subtitle Manager) that has functions that will set the text on screen. It makes it extremely easier to add narration to cutscenes and then add the subtitles along with said narration. This project is heavily focused on narrative so creating this system was a priority and I’m happy to have it done so now I can focus on other priorities like combat and other mechanics.
