[UE4] [GAME] A Delver's Fate

wavewarrior

I've always wanted to make a good and intriguing dungeon crawling game, with a combat system based on animations and timing, think of something similar to the combat system used in dark souls. The combat should be challenging but fair, however I never really had the time to start making this, until now.

The player will be able to switch between 2 combat styles, one involves using unarmed punches and kicks and the other using a greatsword to cut up his foes. In the unarmed style the player will be able to do all kinds of parcour-ish moves, in greatsword mode the players movement will be restricted and he will only be able to sprint.

Like I said before im going to implement a stamina system, just so that the player cant spam all of his abilities without punishment.

I finally started making this idea a reality using blueprints in the unreal 4 engine. So far i've made a character that can jump, attack, grab a ledge, do a wallrun up to a ledge, release a ledge. I've implemented full controller support. I'll keep this thread updated with my progress. Thanks for checking this out and Feedback is always appreciated.

Here is a mockup I made to see what things will look like, I still have to change the fire to a more lowpoly feel.

Here is my character model, in the mockup I already textured it.

I started making some animations for the character, these include:

Idle, Walking, Running, Hanging on a ledge, Jump, Unarmed attack combo (2 punches and a kick)

and a wall run ( I will post it when it's finished) , these animations still need to be refined.

I already implemented a respawn system where the player can get checkpoints where he respawns after death.

I also added an option where the player can choose to spawn at a random location or not.

Cheers.

wavewarrior

*UPDATE*

Hi everybody, i'm back, this time with some more features.

In this update: 
- Respawn System
- Stamina System
- 3rd to First person

--Respawn--
I still had to show you the respawn system so I made a couple of gifs.

After death you simply respawn at the point where the game started.

when you take a checkpoint (these doorframes are just placeholders) it updates the respawn point.

--Stamina--

Also I added a stamina system, it now affects the players ability to sprint, jump and attack.
No stamina means no jumping, attacking or sprinting.
Attacks and jumps drain a fixed amount of stamina while sprinting drains a constant amount.
Also like in dark souls, if your stamina is fully depleted it takes a couple of seconds to begin recharging.

You can see the stamina bar in the upperleft corner.


--3rd to First--

Yesterday I also added in the ability to zoom the camera and go from 3rd to First person.
Not sure if I'll keep it in but it gives a nice extra touch to the game.

Right now im busy implementing a system for interactables, opening doors, picking up a weapon or an item.
I'll keep you guys updated.

wavewarrior

*Mini update*

I Just finished adding a system which highlights the interactable item the player is looking at.


Now I just have to figure out how to actually  make them do things  
I'll be back.

Cremuss

Looking cool

I think you should be able to implement some kind of masking for the outlines so it doesn't draw on top of the character. It looks kinda weird that way.

Keep it up !

wavewarrior

Yeah that would make it look less wonky, the problem is I already tried this. The way I approached it was to not render the outline for any occluded pixels, but this caused the outline to be barely noticeable. That's why I kept it the way it is right now, it looks a bit wonky but at least it's very clear to the player what objects he/she can interact with  

I'll look back into it later  

Thanks for the feedback  

wavewarrior

*UPDATE*

Hi everybody, this time I have a really small update.

The player can now interact with stuff by pressing 'e'.
For example you can now pickup your weapon, a mighty greatsword.


I do have an issue that i've been racking my brain trying to solve.
When I respawn, I spawn in a new actor of the character Blueprint, so logically I check if I already picked up the sword, if yes, then spawn a sword and attach it to the player. 
The issue is that when i try to spawn and attach the sword to the player, for some weird reason it does this just at the moment of the player's death.
The result being a sword floating in mid air on the location of the player's death...



Right now I'm thinking of just leaving this the way it is and try to fix it some other time.

If anyone has some suggestions or tips on how I might solve this issue please leave a comment!
C&C is always appreciated  

wavewarrior

*UPDATE*

Hello everybody.

It's been some time since I posted, but I've got some good news.

I fixed the respawn issue and  am now able to respawn with the sword. 
Also you only respawn with the sword if you picked it up before dying, otherwise you respawn without it (duh).

The next update will be a big one, because I'm reworking all of my animations and I mean all of them.
The reason for this is that I use a CAT rig for my character, and thus did not have a rootbone, I have now added one and have to rework all my animations that use rootmotion.

I'll be back.

C&C is always appreciated  

wavewarrior

*QUESTION*

I'm still undecided on a name for my game.
So maybe it would be cool if people could vote and/or suggest some names, currently I picked A delver's Fate, but this isn't set in stone.

Here are some of the other titles I had in mind:

• A Walk of Fate
• A Delver's Risk
• An Explorers Fate
• ...

Thanks for reading  

wavewarrior

*EXTRA INFO*

For the people that like to read up on what will be in the game, I made a small text document.
Not everything in this is set in stone.

Happy Reading  
 
[spoiler]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GAMEPLAY 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--Stamina System--

 -> Drains when sprinting.

   -> Consistent drain over time.

 -> Drains when dodging

   -> Fixed amount.

 -> Drains when attacking.

   -> Fixed amount.

 -> Drains when sprint Jumping.

   -> Fixed amount.

 -> When stamina is drained, but still above 0 stamina it recharges at an increased rate.

 -> When stamina is fully depleted, it takes a certain amount of time before recharging.

--Dodging--

 -> Consists of a roll that grants a certain amount of invincibility.

 -> Dodge roll also activates on landing after a certain amount of airtime.

 -> Also activates after a sprint jump.

--Damage--

 -> After receiving damage character staggers, Stagger = invincibility for a certain amount.

    -> Enemies stagger but do not receive invincibility.

 -> If damage is taken during an attack, attack is canceled and combo resets.

    -> Same applies to enemies.

 -> Damage is a fixed number, it does not scale.

    -> Health is instead scaled.

 -> Health bars are shown above or below enemies, this is shown in a xx/xx fashion.

 -> Player has a vial of health. this allows the player to regain a certain amount of health.

   -> The vial has a certain number of charges, example: 1 charge = 20 health.

   -> The vial gains a fixed amount of charges by killing enemies.

-> Certain enemies give more charges than others.

   -> These vials are also used as a currency, and allow the player to buy certain upgrades.

--Combat--

 -> Combo based combat, player needs to time his attacks and look at animations to be effective in combat.

 -> Every final attack in a combo does significantly increased damage.

 -> Player can choose between 2 modes of combat:

    -> Unarmed.

          -> Fast, multiple light combo's.

          -> Has little stagger and lower damage.

          -> Player remains mobile.

         -> Player has the ability to sprint, ledge grab, sprint jump and wall running.

    -> GreatSword.

         -> Slow, Heavy combo's.

         -> Has a lot of stagger and High damage.

         -> Player Loses the ability to ledge grab, sprint jump and wall run.

         -> Player has reduced movementspeed, player can still sprint, but at a reduced speed.

         -> If enemies are below a certain amount of HP the player can perform an execution, dealing a massive amount of damage.
              (Only in Greatsword mode). 

 -> The player has 2 types of combo's in unarmed mode.

    -> A low combo, which consists of a series of sweep attacks, which allows the player to hit low to the ground enemies.(Deals reduced damage)

    -> A normal combo, a combo which deals normal damage.

 -> The first attack in the greatsword mode is considered as a low attack and hits low to the ground enemies.

    

--Movement--

 -> Sprint

 -> Wall run up to ledge grab

 -> Ledge grab

 -> Knee jump on ledge

 -> (Wall Jump)

 -> Dodge Roll

 -> Sprint Jump (Player jumps a larger distance at an increased stamina cost)

--Enemies--

 -> Spiders

    -> A low to the ground enemy , requires the player to do a low kick.

 -> Humanoid enemy, has a lot of similarities with the player.

    -> uses different weapons in comparison to the player.

--Traps--

 -> Spike Trap

   -> Activated by a button, can be activated by player, but also by enemies.

 -> Boulder Trap

   -> Boulder falls on top of player, insta kills the player.

 -> Pit

   -> A pit where the player is required to Sprint jump across.

--Checkpoints--

 -> Basic checkpoint system, player reaches a checkpoint.

    -> Next death he respawns at checkpoint.

--UI--

 -> Stamina bar

 -> Health bar

 -> Number of vials

 -> Minimap Showing the dungeon in top down view.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

STORY 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DESIGN

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Genre: Third person, RPG

Goal: The goal of the player is to slay all enemies within the dungeon and cleansing it of its curse,

           hoping to find a cure for his own.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   THINGS TO DO

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 -> Low Attack animations for unarmed.

 -> Greatsword animations. 

    -> Upward slash going from right to left.

    -> Medium slash from left to right.

    -> Downward slam into the ground.

    -> Upward slash pulling sword from ground.

 -> Roll animation.

 -> Implement Health system.

 -> Implement Damage system.

 -> Ragdoll physics when dead.

  [/spoiler]

MrRik

Nice stuff! Really liking the indiana jones character

dDissAa

Hey nice progress you have there! 
Really digging the animations aswell ^^.

Danor

The animations are awesome! Keep it up
Looking forward to seeing more  

Synyster

This is looking dope man. I look forward to seeing more  

wavewarrior

*UPDATE*

Hello everybody, i'm sorry for the lack of updates, but I'm busy doing a complete overhaul of all of my attack logic.
The reason for this is that I want to make a base blueprint for all my npc's and playable character, this will make it a lot easier for me to implement more general features for the player as well as the enemy.

I already made a simple AI that just walks around and will start following the player when it spots him. 
Also you can now crouch, and I also fixed all my bugs that I previously had.

But since I'm recoding a lot of stuff I'm sure I'll have a lot of bugs to splat.

wavewarrior

*UPDATE*

Alright I'm back, I've finally worked out my new workflow and have some updated stuff to show.

I implemented a crouch, you can now press ctrl to crouch and you can only do so when you're unarmed.


After you've picked up your glorious weapon, you can switch to it by pressing 'F'


This is the first attack in the greatsword combo, the red lines you see are purely there for debugging


This is the second swing in the combo


And lastely, if you kill an enemy they now ragdoll 



C&C is always welcome  

Connecta

Hey man, this looks great!:) Are you still working on it?
Me and a friend are working on something similar except we're doing it multiplayer - which brings its own problems. Are you going for level designed dungeons or randomized?

wavewarrior

Hey, thanks man!
Yeah i'm still working on it, but I've been really busy with some other work I had to finish.
But thats done now so I finally have some time again and will start adding stuff again, I already changed some things but haven't posted it yet.
My levels are partially randomized, I make some modular pieces and give them a certain enum type, this way I can generate a level and then manually adjust it to make it more interesting
If you need help or anything i'm always happy to do so!

Connecta

Ah cool! Lookin' forward to see what you got cooking:) 
Might copy this idea of keeping a Polycount-blog with updates on my project as well, kinda fun to have the progress saved like this.
Thanks, will do. Still kinda early in the project but might ask you stuff later on:)

wavewarrior

*UPDATE*

I know it's been some time since my last update, but a lot has changed and many bugs have been fixed, as many of you probably know, for every bug that gets fixed, many more pop up.

One of the things I did was changing my modular pieces for the dungeon, I added a ceiling and changed the walls.


The large debug sphere is there because I'm currently working on a targeting system to make combat easier.

I also added a simple animation trail on the weapon, so that its more visually appealing, I still have to add a screenshake to emphasize the strength of the swing.

And finally u can now kill yourself with just one press of a button.

Thnx for reading,

Have a nice day!

wavewarrior

*UPDATE*

Hello everyone,

I changed a couple of small things this week, 
I started fooling around with particles and made some dust to add some mood to my level.



I also changed the animation trail on the weapon, although i'm gonna revisit this soon.



Thnx for reading and expect some major changes in the following months

Have a nice day!

bigcman120

Any idea on how much interaction there will be with the elements (fire, water, maybe some high winds, collapsing ground, etc.)? Interested to see how you would implement or code them as well as how they would mesh with the style you have currently.

wavewarrior

Actually, I haven't thought about that yet, but the idea of having things like that to suprise the player and force him to adjust to the world seems awesome!

Thanks for your input! I'll give it a go soon enough

bigcman120

Alright, would be even more interested (and complicated) if you had the elemental factors slightly randomized as well.

wavewarrior

*UPDATE*

Today I managed to fix some things that were bugging me, like when you died you would respawn, but the world wouldnt reset, so you could kill some enemies, die and then respawn and just walk through the level without enemies. Now the world simply resets when respawning.

I fixed an issue where if you pressed the sprint button without moving you would still lose stamina.

and finally I added some particles when you hit stuff.


Thanks for reading and I'll be back

quockhanhlk

it looks better and better as you post, this thread is awesome man ! keep it up!

wavewarrior

Thanks for the support man ! I definitely will !

ackehallgren

Wow. This looks really charming. Great job!

Connecta

Love it! Looks great
How is the combat? Have you manged to get a good feel in it? (or is it still to early?)

cesarinm7

Awesome work dude, keep it up. It's always good to see some of this inspiration and progress. I have a question, How did you do with anim trail for the sword effect? do you have any tutorial, document or whatever helps to make something like that effect? I have seen some in youtube but none of them as good as de effect you have. thanks

wavewarrior

@Connecta
Combat is still in the early phase, momentarily you can just kill enemies and enemies can kill you.
But dodging and such will be added.

@cesarinm7
I actually just watched those youtube vid's and drew a very simple texture in photoshop and used that as the texture for my particle.
something like this. Dont have my tablet right now, so this is done with a mouse.
Hope it helps



Thanks for the support guys!

wavewarrior

*UPDATE*

Hey everybody, i'm back with a few changes.

First off I implemented a main menu and pause menu system. 

Not sure if this works but i'll try putting a video here.

https://youtu.be/QUqhaB5xJUU

I also added the ability to slow down time, this comes with a very high stamina cost (Not sure if it will be used).

Thnx for reading and as always C&C is highly appreciated

wavewarrior

*UPDATE*

I just finished working on my targeting system, you can now lock on your enemies and toggle between them.
Next thing on my list, dodging and wall running.



As always I'll keep you updated.

bigcman120

Menu system is very smooth. Any idea if the final design for it will look as spacey?
And the targeting system is familiarly functional, does it work well if you're right next to an enemy? Would you be facing the enemy or would the camera be more oriented at the dot above their head?

wavewarrior

@bigcman120  The menu system will still be changed to something a bit more fitting to the game's artstyle .
The way targeting works is that it aims at the center of an enemy, so if you would stand right next to the enemy it would aim at its center.
I'm still optimising things to make it feel as smooth as possible (I'm trying to make the game mainly controller oriented).
If you have any more questions, I'm happy to answer.

KaiserJohannes

I like the menu. However I - and this is a super personal opinion - dont like the way u switch between submenus, i think it would look nicer if the one you are on flys out to the right and the new one flys in on the left as is. Not sure if thats understandable, if unclear what i mean let me know i will post a picture

wavewarrior

*The Big Change*

Here I am, yet again

And this time it's a huge update, i've decided to throw everything together and make an intro to see how the game plays.
Here's a video to the level
Enjoy.

https://youtu.be/7TPvdRju7WU

I still have to fine tune a lot of things, and I still have plenty of things I want to add to the game.
As always, thanks for reading.

Have a nice day (or night) ! 

bigcman120

Interesting. Wondering what the blue ring is, critical hits or stuns maybe?
And the "switches" that have the sword in them. Plans to keep them as is, or would there be an animation of the player inserting the sword to activate them?

wavewarrior

The Blue ring is an indication of area damage and indeed a much more powerful hit. The switches will indeed be changed to the player inserting his sword.
I just had no idea how to do this and used the current thing as a placeholder :awesome:

Ra6ga5ka

Hey nice but you should go with a bilboard shader for the HP indicator instead of make the plane look at the character to increase the readability. also the blue rings do not indicate a area of damage to me.. they are kinda missleading. try to use red with a semitransparent fill.

wavewarrior

@Ra6ga5ka
Alright
Thanks for the tip, and now that you point it out I'm having my doubts about the blue ring, I'll change it asap.

Connecta

Hey man, it looks great!
However I preferred the look of it during the outside-environments more (even though it's just the test area) since it had more of them nice area lighting + realtime shadows and clearer visibility. Nothing I don't think you can get into your dungeons, but maybe worth to consider. Perhaps opening up the ceiling and making the areas more wider? 
How's it going, still working on it?

Keep at it!