Ash and Blood
Project Type: Personal Project (My precious)
Software Used: Unreal 5.4
Language(s) Used: Unreal Blueprint
Timeline: On-going/ WIP
Playthrough
This is a passion project I started a few months ago. I really wanted to work on something that I would want to play myself and that is a game with a strong narrative that is supported by engaging mechanics. And what could be a more engaging mechanic than traversing down a mountain with a grapple hook?
It’s only been a few months since I’ve started but the world is building itself at this point. Levels 1 and 2 are pretty close to being complete, that’s what you’ve seen here. Currently working on getting a solid blockout for level 3. Then I’m on to creating the actual city itself. Very excited to get started on that.
The rest of the demo including forest areas, caves, and the city of Tidegate will be coming soon… This is just an update on my progress.
Story
I created the story for this game in my Story in Video Games class, my junior year at AAU. All we were tasked with was creating a simple synopsis for some game that we would expand upon over the semester. But once the idea for the game started flowing in my head, I started writing more and more for it. In the PowerPoint above I go very briefly into the lore of the world and its inhabitants. The more I wrote the more I fell in love with the story, but the goal wasn’t to write a book. It was to create the world that my game would take place in. That being said this is a demo so only a very brief section of Umber is shown.
One thing I struggled with at first was trying to do all of the story first. Yes, I was thinking about gameplay and such but not enough. So, I had to take a step back from writing and actually figure out how my mechanics were going to support the story and make it a fun world to play around in. The main things I wanted to show to you all were: Movement (climbing system/ traversal) I used a project pack called AGLS that allowed me to get a feel for how the player would traverse the environment. Narrative (using complex but still simple system that allows the player to feel like their choices matter). And finally Combat which is still in development. Slowing down on the story was probably the best decision I made for this project because games should be fun and a great story with terrible gameplay is still a bad videogame.
The demo is going to take place about a year after the beginning of our story, so players will be missing some important backstory, but it will be teased throughout the demo.
Climbing System - AGLS
I attempted to create my own climbing system and deemed that I was spending more time on it then necessary. So, I doxed it, yes it worked but it looked God awful. I looked up some different packages across UE marketplace and just on the web and I decided to use Jakub W’s AGLS project as a base for what I wanted to implement. It allowed me to start walking through the blockout I had started as well as traverse parts of my blockout that I wasn’t able to yet. Jakub has a bunch of systems that are pretty phenomenal, super talented guy.
Deciding to go with AGLS was a choice made merely for time's sake, it would have taken me months to get something like this working by myself and there were/ are many things to still be done for the project. For example, my dialogue system that I will talk about below. Having a system like this determined in the beginning gave me direction for how I would go about blocking out the rest of the level. At first, I was going to design a town without any climbing functionality, but now that I have a system like this, I can create a fun cityscape where the player could enjoy navigating.
Wristhook Mechanic
When I decided on the main pillars for this game I decided on Movement, Narrative, and Combat. The narrative I had/ have a pretty good understanding of how I want to deliver, and combat is a WIP. The movement I decided that I wanted to do something like Uncharted meets God of War, with some dashes of other games like Seikro. I had the idea for this mechanic when I was brainstorming on a way to combine pretty much all 3 of the pillars. And I came up with this.
Currently it’s still in the works, but the main functionality is there. For this I worked with someone named Usman Wahab, who has helped me with a lot of my technical shortcomings. He is a very talented technical designer, and he’s helped me immensely on this project with the technical stuff I haven’t been able to hash out myself. I DID NOT CREATE THE FUNCTIONALITY
You can check below in the document I made for how it should function.
Blockout/ Environment
I did something I don’t usually do, and I just started building out my beginning area. Usually, I get motivation and creative ideas when I’m designing a map, but this time I felt like I knew exactly what I wanted so I just started building.
To start off, I blocked out most of the environment using the landscape tool. It started out as a small little base camp that ended up being a massive mountain range that borders a harbor town. I used megascans for most of the polished environment pieces and foliage. Everything I did for these levels was hand placed by me, I created the landscapes from a flat plain, I placed the foliage using the foliage tool and then I added meshes to that to bring it all together.
I stepped out of my comfort zone working on environment art, but it has been such a blast making the forests and creating points where the player can look back on the areas they just traversed. Whether it was the mountain ranges or a cave connecting two parts of the map together it was both extremely challenging but very rewarding when it all came together in the end.
The main thing I wanted to focus on during this project was the pacing and making sure that each beat felt like there was something worth doing. I didn’t want it to feel like you were aimlessly walking through a forest.
Optimizing the foliage was a challenge in itself, but once I figure it out (culling and HLODs), I was able to really start bringing the environment to life. I’m excited to continuing fleshing out some areas I have in mind and continue to bring the world of Umber to life!
Branching Dialogue
I was heavily debating if I wanted to do a linear narrative, something like Uncharted or God of War. But I am a sucker for games where the player gets to make decisions that actually effect the world, they’re immersing themselves into. So, I decided to go with a branching dialogue. Currently in the works of implementing said dialogue, but I have written many of the encounters already.
There are a lot of software out there that can help with doing so, the one I really like to use is Twine. I got accustomed with it in school so early on that it’s kind of my go to for projects like this.
It allows me to both plan out and experiment where different decisions will bring the player. Whether that’s them being taken captive by the city guard or telling jokes to a group of bandits to avoid conflict. Each decision has its own unique dialogue that allows the player to play multiple versions of Elian, while still retaining his identity.
I want this project to be a narrative experience with fun gameplay which are the types of games that I love.
Combat
Coming soon…
Tidegate
Coming soon…