Starsweeper

Role: Role: Game Designer, Artist, Asset Creator, Level Designer

Applications: Unreal Engine 5.3, Blender, Adobe Substance Painter, Adobe Audition, Visual Studio

Team Size: 1

Time: 2 Months

Finish: In Progress

Challenges

This is my first solo game, and I encountered many challenges. The first one was that Unreal Engine does not have a built-in Mario World style method to editing gravity, and editing gravity changes a lot of how the camera and capsule align themselves.

What I Learned

I learned how to utilize C++ with Microsoft Visual Studio, with was a much more difficult process than I thought. I had to download the plugin to Unreal Engine, then configure Visual Studio to work, and then build from my current code. I also had to go into Unreal Engine and redo the entire Third Person Character blueprint, redoing all of the math for force, camera movements, and jumping. 

I also decided to make as many of the assets myself as I could, learning Blender for low-poly objects and even some animations. I changed some materials to create the glowing effects that are often seen in the game.

Next Time

I would not recommend using Visual Studio with Unreal because I am constantly running into compatibility issues. Github doesn't allow the Visual Studio build to be pushed, so I have to rebuild it every time. Also, Unreal Engine 5.4 pushed a node that allows you to edit gravity, and unfortunately made my code not work.