Coding & Game Design (Fall 2024)

This project was assigned as part of my Coding II & Game Design III courses, taught by Brian Foster at Wichita State University.

At the beginning of the semester, I set a personal goal to improve my coding skills within Unreal Engine. This course has proven to be the most valuable learning experience I've had so far. While challenging, it has greatly enhanced my ability to navigate Unreal Engine with greater precision. Here is the link to my GitHub project.

Below is a list of the assignments and topics covered throughout the semester:

Coding II:

Saving and Loading:

I learned how to create, load, and save a game. For this assignment, I made a second level to move between, that has a coin asset in it, and a "one-way gate" for the checkpoint. When the coins are collected, they change material to indicate that. When a checkpoint is hit, it saves the player location and collected coins to a save file.

Devlog: https://godfright.itch.io/fall2024/devlog/849845/saving-and-loading

Data Tables (Weapon Spawning & Dialogue)

During this week of class, I learned about Data Tables, Structures, and Enumerations. For this assignment we used all of three of them and made it into two parts:

Weapon Spawning:

For this, I created a weapon spawning blueprint that spawns weapon blueprints with randomized damage values based on a "base damage" variable in the struct. I then implemented weapon models that were based on certain weapon types.

Dialogue:

For the second part of the assignment, I made a dialogue system.  When the player approaches the dialogue system, it says "Press E to talk". Once pressed, dialogue should appear and allow the player to play the next line with "E".

Devlog: https://godfright.itch.io/fall2024/devlog/848788/weapon-spawner-dialogue

Behavior Trees:

For three weeks I learned how behavior trees work with AI. For this assignment, I created a new level with patrolling AI and Guards that must be drawn away with sounds in order for the player to get to the goal.

Devlog: https://godfright.itch.io/fall2024/devlog/849932/behavior-trees

Shooting With Bullet Drops:

This was a fairly easy concept to learn since LineTrace was something I learned years ago. I created a function that accepts a start position, a velocity, a MaxSimTime.

Devlog: https://godfright.itch.io/fall2024/devlog/849897/bullet-drop

Game Design III:

Making a toy:

In previous semesters we've talked a lot about theory in terms of video games from the book titled The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell. For this assignment, we looked at Lens #17: The Lens of the Toy. It states the following:

"To use this lens, stop thinking about whether your game is fun to play, and start thinking about whether it is fun to play with" (Schell 114).

So, for our first assignment, we were given a task to create a game that does not have an objective but it should still bring joy to the player. I chose to make a simple foam pit.

You can find the original itch page here: https://godfright.itch.io/a-ball-pit

Two-Player game with split screen:

For this assignment we learned how to do split-screen co-op. We learned about force feedback and having controller vibrations. We were given a task to make a split-screen game with force feedback, screenshake, and assets from the Unreal Marketplace.

Here is the link to the original itch page with devlogs: https://godfright.itch.io/find-the-key

Each assignment will have devlogs talking about my experience and what I have learned versus what I already know. Every year I will show off my knowledge with new content, or current content with devlogs. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed making this.