Snake Eyes Perk Prototype
Producer | Programmer | Level Designer | UI Designer
5 Developers | 4 Months | Unreal | Third-Person Melee Combat
Description:
Snake Eyes was a project made for my Senior Design capstone. Sponsored by Atomic Arcade Studios, my team and I developed a perk system prototype for a 3-D melee combat game in Unreal Engine 5.2. The game includes 32 perks with each augmenting the gameplay in some style, 3 different levels, enemy AI, enemy radar, and a robust combat system.
Responsibilities
Authored key documents including communication procedures, development methodology, project roadmap and a user guide
Fostered clear and constant communication through weekly team check-in meetings, progress updates to sponsor, and larger project update presentations to various stakeholders
Integrated productivity and visualization tools such as Trello and Google Docs/Sheets to facilitate task tracking, display current role assignments, and guide future sprint estimates
Led UX/UI efforts through market research and usability testing. Designed and integrated key quality of life features:
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Tool tips for perk pickups
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Enemy radar
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Player/Enemy health bars
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Perk info page
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Active vs. Passive perk HUD
Designed and grey-boxed level using Unreal's Level Editing Tools
This perk creates a healing aura dome where you heal overtime while inside
This perk heals you the portion of damage dealt to enemies
This perk creates a healing aura dome where you heal overtime while inside
Implemented 2 perks using C++ for Unreal
Documented a post mortem for the sponsor handoff that highlights what was accomplished, challenges encountered, and what could be improved for future teams
Key Learnings
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Plan Dedicated Development Time: Having to balance other classes along with this project made it difficult to dedicate time toward development leading to slow progress at the beginning. Overtime I developed a schedule where I would designate specific days and times for the project resulting in an increase of productivity.
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Don't Be Afraid to Ask Questions: This was my first Unreal project I programmed in C++ so I had a lot to learn in a short period of time. At first I would try to learn through tutorials and documentation which helped a bit but was very time consuming. I then leaned toward asking for help from my teammates who had more experience with C++ in Unreal through pair programming, significantly speeding up my learning and work efficiency.
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Do Your Research: As the UX/UI lead it was important to conduct market research to ensure an optimized player experience. From analyzing similar melee combat games such as Ghost of Tsushima, God of War: Ragnarok, and Hollow Knight, features such as enemy radar, dynamic leveling system, and pop-up tool tips were added in response. These features were positively received through playtesting sessions.
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Be Wary of Version Control Shenanigans: Unreal can get weird when it comes to version control. Uasset files such as Maps, Blueprints, and Data Tables should not be worked on simultaneously with another teammate as merge conflicts can only be handled by taking one teammates changes and redoing the other's. To navigate this challenge, my team and I communicated whenever we were updating an asset and assigning at least one reviewer to a pull request.
