Game Programming #1

The Road So Far...

A few months ago, I started a Game Programming in Unreal Engine online course, and started making a video game version of a board game idea of mine. Not a digital board game, but a reimagining. Even though the finish line is still out of sight, I've learned a lot in this time. I have many mechanics and systems that do exactly what I want, even if it doesn't look pretty yet. It's an obscure idea in it's current form, and I can understand that to people who are not in my brain it must be difficult to comprehend. I realized I should be documenting my journey, so I hope it isn't too late. I use Github, so I have commit notes to reference to go back through my various trials and tribulations. I solve a lot of problems just by writing them out, so take a journey with me.

First, the game. What is it. Well, I'd be tempted to explain the board game, but at this point the board game and the video game are so unlike each other, there's no point muddying what will already be hard to follow. The game, which does have a title that doesn't really make any sense and we'll just call The Game for now, is a 3d sidescroller about traveling through parallel worlds to recruit allies and raise your stats, so that you're prepared to fight the final boss. I guess it's also kind of a rougelike, because the game isn't meant to be very long, and it's so random and luck-based that you'll get exactly the right allies, I definitely see it as a game you'll play through hoping for the best, and replay when you fail. Maybe if things aren't going well, you restart early and try again. The whole game on a timer, the length of which is still undetermined, and everything you need to do to fight back wastes some amount of your time. Recruiting allies makes you more efficient at The Game's various actions.

That still sounds like gibberish, I'm sure. How about some specifics?

The Story

Eons ago, a powerful, all-consuming Darkness was sealed away to protect the multiverse. It was bound by a holy site that has existed in one form or another since then, but no one knows exactly what or where it is. In the present, The Darkness has slowly spread it's influence enough to affect all the various realms, and there is a real danger that it will find the holy site and destroy it, freeing itself forever. It so happens that the current incarnation of the site is a high school, and more specifically, a stairwell where four teenage friends have lunch. When the Darkness being to escape, these teens unknowingly become tasked with the goal of driving the Darkness back. Dark portals open all over the school, and students fall through into dangerous and foreign lands, inhabited by monsters and other dark things. The teens must travel through these portals, rescue the lost students and recruit them to the fight, becoming stronger with their support. They'll also recruit allies in the form of familiar-but-unique dopplegangers of themselves, as the teens in all worlds are unknowingly linked to the holy site. The Darkness methodically spreads through the worlds one-by-one, searching for the holy site, and it's only a matter of times before the Darkness finds it's target, and the final battle will begin. Hopefully, the teens and their allies will be strong enough to defeat it, or at least seal it away.

The Game Idea

The Game starts in a sort of Hub level (the school), with (at present) 10 doors that lead, ideally, to 10 different levels. Which door leads to which level is randomized each game. Additionally, three doors at a time are "dark" and lead to a single dark level. Finishing the dark world will return that door to normal. Every undecided interval, the oldest dark door will turn normal, and another door will turn dark, symbolizing the progress of the Darkness. When all doors have been dark, the game ends and you are transported to the final fight.

Each normal level contains 4 students, and one ally. Right now they're all boxes in one of four (but potentially five) colours. To recruit a student, you must defeat its enemy form, and also be eligible to recruit a student of its colour. Allies can be freely recruited, and are located at the end of a level.

All entities in a level are persistent, so if you leave and come back, any students you've recruited will be gone, and any enemies you've defeated will still be defeated. So if you can't recruit the students in one level, you can try another one and come back. But if you can recruit all of the students in a level, then the next time you enter it will be reset with four new students and one ally to be recruited.

• Red students increase your attack strength, so you can turn enemies into students faster.

• Blue students increase things like movement speed and dodge chance, so you can get around faster and take less damage (taking enough damage kicks you out of a level)

• Green students enable you to find more students in a level, and how many you can recruit (leaving and re-entering resets this limit)

• Orange students reduce the time taken to open a closed door, close an open door, and potentially reset a level while you're in it

• Allies come in all four colours and provide benefits that may come from recruiting enough students, or entirely new abilities, like recruiting new colours, or ranged attacks, but you can only have two Allies at once

Completing the optional dark worlds doesn't provide students or allies, but it does impact the final fight by weakening The Darkness in advance. In theory, one world will be the one currently being consumed, which will cycle through the 10 doors, and going there will be risky but have a greater impact on the final fight.

The player characters, the teens, are also one of four colours, representing their personality. To begin, they can only recruit students of their own colour, their peers, but with help they can branch out of their social group and become stronger in new ways by recruiting students of different colours.

Progress Continues

It's been a long journey so far to turn the idea from my head into something I can look at and walk around in, and it still requires more work, but I'm still very pleased so far.

to be continued...