Production devlog

This development log marks the mid-way point of development for our mainline project Bludgeons & Flagons

Development is progressing well! and the team at WILDBORNE games is on track to delivering this game in players hands in a handful of weeks or so. This development milestone is for the primary production process of our game and is where most of development should take place. The next time  we make another forward facing post, it should be the post-production milestone/stage of development. In that milestone WILDBORNE games will work on polishing the product and delivering the best possible game to players.

To begin, this sprint the programmers started to build out other maps that may be needed for a final release. As we intend to include a character selection screen to switch between different characters, it's vital that we started work on this system as early as possible in order to reduce the potential appearance of bugs or errors. To begin with how we we develop a system such as this, I'll go into brief detail. So first we would have to create a new UE, either by copying the existing map or creating a new map based off of a blank plane. Then we would create a new game mode that would allow us to create UI elements without it interfering with the primary game mode. 

The above screenshot shows the basic framework of the character selection system. How it works is that every time the game detects an input lining up with the change character button, it will increment an integer index by one and then that index is read by the system and if it corresponds, it switches to that new character mesh. Then as soon as the player activates the 'next level' button, the game then loads to the primary fighting map. At the same time, the current index value corresponding to the mesh is loaded into a game instance and then loaded onto the event begin play of the character blueprint. (Screenshot depicted below) In addition, each variable made and system created will have to be copied onto the other character for functionality to share between characters. 

Then the programmers worked on getting functionality in the main menu. Similar to how the char selection screen was created, programmers created a blank map with no plane and created a new game mode to implement HUD elements that don't interfere with other systems. The main menu is fairly simplistic in practice, only serving as a buffer before the players can enter char selection; as well as being the map that is loaded when the players die. The menu offers a way to quit, a way to start the game; as well as a way to look at the leaderboard. 

On top of this, we've also refined how the camera moves between the players, similar to how the camera system works in fighting games in the same genre. In addition, we've started work on combat, as well as the pipeline of getting artist created assets into the game.  To go into detail on the combat system, we'll use either line traces of sphere traces for the player's weapon to detect the other character and once it comes back as a positive, It'll call the damage interface and decrease the health float value.