Description

BackWav is a one-semester senior project developed by myself and two teammates in Unreal Engine 4. It is an arena-based first-person shooter where the player is scored based on the “stylishness” with which they defeat enemies, inspired as a cross between Titanfall and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. This hinges on the fast-paced movement system, which gives the player the ability to slide, wall jump, and wall climb. Shooting enemies accurately and within quick succession while performing these abilities grants the most amount of points.

I worked as the design director, gameplay programmer, and filler of all other gaps such as animation. I worked alongside an AI programmer and an environment artist / 3D Modeler. This was the first project for all of us within Unreal Engine, and we certainly faced some difficulties due to that, particularly with importing animated assets and setting up their collisions properly in the level. Blueprint programming was a new thing for myself and the AI programmer, though I took a Udemy course in Unreal as preparation for the project.

Pre-production Design Process

Prior to the official start of the project at the beginning of my final semester of college, I devoted some of my winter break to creating a “master” GDD (available to view here) to serve as documentation for each major facet of the game and something to refer to over the course of the semester. This felt like a necessary step for staying organized as there were a ton of potential risks in a 1-semester 3D project in an engine that was new to all of us. It was also intended to allow for basic iteration before going through the time-consuming process of prototyping features. Yet another benefit is that it made it much easier to prioritize features, and determine which ones could be cut with the least impact on the game for the user.

What I Worked On

My core focuses and responsibilities for this project were:

• Design planning and documentation

• The character controller

• The scoring system

• The UI design & implementation

• Asset importing & gameplay implementation (alongside the environment artist)

• First-person animations

• The animation blueprints

• VFX work

• Audio design (with the exception of music).

This was an extremely versatile array of work that had me working in all areas of Unreal Engine 4 and quickly familiarized me with the Engine’s various pipelines. I also had to become comfortable with blueprint scripting, which is a departure for me from traditional text-based scripting and programming languages.

What Went Wrong?

As the lead designer for the project and the person that took on the production role, I definitely went overboard on the scope. I think it would have been well-fitted for a two-semester project, or for if we had an additional designer with a focus on levels (bonus if they were already familiar with the engine). As it stood, a lot of cuts had to be made to get the project out the door, particularly in the narrative department. I also performed poorly in my first stint as a small-project producer, as I was unable to keep myself and my teammates to deadlines. We were more than 2/3rds through the project before we had functioning AI in the game. We were left with no time to iterate the AI, let alone expand on it. This had a cascading effect on the level design, as I was never sure what terrain the AI could traverse. This included a dilemma right before a milestone where the AI programmer was unaware that the main level contained sloped terrain, which differed from his test level and proved unnavigable for the AI. I think using a pre-built asset at the start of the project for AI would have been a huge benefit in this regard, as I would have known from the start what was traversable.

What Went Right?

Due to limitations stemming from the COVID lockdown, I recieved much less feedback on this project than I had on previous ones, so it is a little bit difficult to judge what was good vs bad in the game apart from the opinions of myself, my team, and the professor who served as our mentor during the project. That being said, I think that the movement controller turned out really well. The animation feedback feels very nice in conjunction with the movement abilities, which I think succeeds in giving the player the feeling of being some sort of cyber ninja. The game’s art direction is one that I’m really fond of (massive complements to the incredibly talented Clayton Cowden).