Tornamental
- Gameplay Programming
This is an Unreal Engine 5.3 tile base game. This game, you as the player will move along a grid and encounter different puzzles, obstacles, and interact with various things inside these levels.
Outlining my mechanics
ClickUp
When planning out my mechanic, I decided to use click up to keep track of my progress. Making a check list of what to do and what next steps I need to take. Setting deadlines for myself, moving my click up card to different phases to ensure that I am making the necessary strides towards completion.
The Drawing Board
Google Drawings
After creating my clickup card, I went to google drawings to visually outline what I want my mechanic to do. This gives me something to go off of when I step into Unreal and start working. Overall, I want the player to pick up an item, when they do, they will be able to pass through a door and progress through the level/move onto the next level.
First Map
The Start
After familiarizing myself with this game concept, I generated a simple level. Learning how the player moves, how my current mechanics work with gameplay, and seeing what possibilities await with the resources I have and will create.
First Mechanic
Door and Keys
The first mechanic I came up with was doors and keys. When the player goes up to a closed door, they will not be able to walk through it. They will need to collect the keys stationed somewhere in the level. Some doors will require more keys to be opened than others. Some keys will need you to interact with other objects in order to acquire it. Since these doors and keys can be placed anywhere in this tile map, it gives a lot of room for level/puzzle design.
Second Mechanic
"Jumping"
The second mechanic I came up with is "jumping". Really the player is actually just skipping over one tile every time they press the jump button. In this image, the player needs to jump across a pit. If they try to walk over the pit, a game over screen will appear and the level restarts.
Mistakes were Made
Impediments
One major issue I had with this project was that I was no longer able to change any tile or entity to my mechanics which were a door (a child class of tile) and key (a child class of entity interactable). This really messed up my plan to create something fun and unique. After failing to debug the issues several times, I decided to go with my last resort and work around the issue. By this I mean, copy the layout of my already working level with both my mechanics in it, and editing/deleting things in the copied levels so that it looks like I placed them there intentionally. I never figured out in the end what went wrong with my project files, I hope when I run into this issue again, I can troubleshoot it.
