UE4 Project

[MrPresident]

https://g4p.org/downloads/PolyDungeons(0.1.4).7z

More work on the HUD.
Display gold in Tab Menu
Added a main menu
Added a pause menu
Added cool death effects for monsters you kill
Framework in place for additional weapons to be added
Can equip/unequip weapons from Tab Menu
Changed item pickup notifications

I'm starting to get to the point where I'm almost ready to add content instead of systems. That's exciting!

[JamminR]

MrPresident,
How do you want bugs reported?
(Sorry, I can't use/see discord).
Email? Some other tracker? Here?
Seems I found an AI attack one in 0.1.3
At first, I thought you might have made a 'safe spawn' zone around the castle, but I was able to reproduce this issue much further away with other enemies.
Some enemies stopped chasing as I started making a criss-cross of the map.
Upon moving further away, I determined I could even walk right up to some before they'd start attacking.
Sometimes they'd stop - then start again as I moved around.

[JamminR]

I ran through the entire 'game' to see if I saw any other quirks. Other than the AI mentioned in above post, none so far.
I actually like the small detail of the few candles on the broken chandelier. Sure, they don't glow, but, it still works.
Took me a while to find the key. That was fun.
Thanks for increasing the gold - it did help me find.
Any plan to make the "bodies" remain behind instead, once 'looted' using the use key, body disappears?

Other word of note - that green bar below health. What is it?
Is it supposed to be inconsistent between versions, and never change?
In 0.1, I'm pretty sure it was full.
In 0.1.2 - It was all but quarter inch (of my screen res, 1920x1080), almost full.
Now in 0.1.3, as you can see in my attached 'fun' "I Win!" image, it's almost empty, with the same amount full as was missing in 0.1.2
And though I see green numbers on some I've killed, that bar never changes.
(I did see level go up, but the numbers were green, and in previous to .0.1.3 level so I thought they might increase that green bar)

Also - I've no clue if you even know, but, good job on finding sound effects - they are directional. Full rear.
I understand some of that may be UE4 engine, but I can hear the footsteps of enemies coming up from behind, or collapsing if I just killed as I was strafing.
I've got a small surround speaker system on my main game rig.

It's a shame about back pedaling. No fair they can swing at me while chasing, but I can't swing at them while running away.

[MrPresident]

Here is fine for bugs, for now since you can't see the discord. Once I get into it more, I may set up something more official.

The AI is rudimentary at best. It still needs a lot of work, but I'm slowly making them "smarter" as I learn more about proper AI programming and logic and have more time to do it. They are supposed to stop following you if you get too far away as, currently, they are driven by their 'sight/perception' of you which has a distance limit.

Glad you were able to find the key. My wife found it almost immediately. Of course, she went straight for the alter... lol

I could have the bodies vanish once looted. That's not a bad idea. They just need to be removed at some point for the saving to work as well as for optimization reasons. But, I do like having the loot be on the bodies rather than in the tiny bags. This could give me the option to include other items as well.

The green bar will eventually be your energy. I'm still toying with colors. The intent is to match floating text colors with their corresponding bars. Currently it does nothing. It changed values between versions simply because I manually changed it. it's there right now just so I can see what it'll look like and to remember to implement it.

And yes, the sounds! UE4 has a default attenuation feature built right in. you just have to spawn the sound in the world using a vector coordinate and give it attenuation settings and it handles the rest. I haven't toyed too much with it, but with different attenuation tweaks, you can do things like make sounds quieter through walls, or occlude certain sounds. It's quite neat.

And yes, I've not completely given up on the backward movement, just not yet. I think I can get the animations, I just need to figure out how it will work. If backwards moves you backwards, how will you turn around? Holding a key (such as right mouse) isn't really an option seeing as I'm trying to design this with controllers in mind.


I really appreciate the feedback you've given. It's awesome to have fresh eyes looking at it and giving suggestions! I'll keep posting updates as I have them

[JamminR]

So I totally missed that you'd posted .0.1.4.
Got it just now.

OMG I'm still laughing. I couldn't even get past the menu.
Totally awesome menu screen you got there MrP.
Is the Bird song public domain yet? That would be awesome if not.

Now, let's go check out the other features you've added.

[JamminR]

Notes on .0.1.4 (by time you read this, you may have already fixed the AI)

AI still seems to get lost right near me.
They'll give chase, I'll run/zig/zag a few times, and, about 15-20% of the time, I can get them confused and they just stop.
Sometimes staring straight at me in a clearing.
I totally understand the troll/giant-thing enemy getting lost in trees, but the little meanies shouldn't, and, as you can see in 01, it's just standing there, doing nothing, in a clearing.
Later on, one standing staring went back to idle animation.

Menu - love it - letter drop and chicken dance = just awesome.

Levels/bonus sword - nice.
Don't know if it's a bug, but, from equip weapons menu, with the crystal sword equipped, I can hover over the normal sward, right click, and unequip the crystal sword from my hands.


Animation - The 'fade away' white stars animation for dead bodies was nice, but seems slow? Maybe large/thick/too many too?

GFX quality - did settings change in .0.1.4? AA or other sampling? I thought I noticed a difference, but it might just be that I spent more time looking for that one enemy I missed in the walk-through of the rolling hills.

As for backpedaling - I understand challenge of the animation, but... why do you need to see the front of the character? (other than fun shots like I did standing on the castle)
So, I press the back arrow... the  character starts running towards the camera.
That's good for seeing what's behind me, but...no good for fighting, especially if I'm about to run into more enemies, trees.
Don't most games, the back (S) key actually walks backwards, back to the camera? (Honestly, I don't play many 3rd person games, so don't remember)
I play a driving game pretty often, the car backs up without changing the front of the car to the camera unless i hit a camera modifier that views from front of car towards back.
My opinion is that I should only need a view modifier when I want to do exactly what the character does now - face the camera.

EDIT - about AI - I've no idea if you've considered this - why do they all run same speed? Seems to me the female looking creatures would be quicker than goblin rock dudes, goblins quicker than mace dudes. Giant/troll things, well, slow or faster, could go both ways. Right now when I'm zig-zagging, they always bundle up and I can hit 3-4 at a time in a swipe. Though that's nice for the player, it seems they should have different speeds and only bunch if I stop long enough.
female > goblins > mace > giants maybe

[MrPresident]

All of the AI in the game (currently) is development stage stuff.. they're all copy/paste with different meshes. No differences. Once I start adding content and balancing, that will obviously change.

Also.. again, I need to further refine the AI, but it's not as big of a deal inside of confined spaces, which in the end, is where you will fight most of these. There won't be creatures to fight on the overworld in the actual game. They're just there for your amusement and for testing while I don't have a dungeon for them to live in yet.

The unequipping thing isn't really a bug, but I can see how it might be confusing. I'll change that to only unequip if you right click on the one that is actually equipped.

I did in fact change AA, but I'm not sure if that was before or after 0.1.4. Maybe it was before? Not sure.

The particles for the dead NPCs is supposed to be them "ascending" after being killed.. or the whole Thanos effect if you like. Maybe it's a bit too long, maybe not. I'll toy around with it.

I will look into reworking the movement. I suppose you're right, and if you want to see the front, you can stand still and rotate the camera, but when you start moving, it'll move forward or backward. Think God of War. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVKJsVEWdlM)

Glad you liked the menu.. that was a product of me being up at like.. 1am and sleepy me thought it would be funny.. Definitely keeping it, though I might toy with varying the dances. My wife thinks it's funny to have them all dancing in sync though.

[MrPresident]

Just checked out Mixamo, and it would seem there are all of the animations I would need to do a movement system like this.. I just need to import them onto my character and work out the animation system. Shouldn't be too hard.

[JamminR]

But but but, I'm afraid of the dark.
I understand that's what this originally is aiming for though. A dungeon crawler.
I much prefer bright outdoor worlds.

Re: Backpedal - Has anyone else tried the alpha? Asked anyone if in agreement? I'm attempting to be a developer's devils advocate, not run your decisions.
(I'm sure as an online friend and Ulysses teammate you know that, but stating to be clear - just ask Megiddo - I bugged him quite a bit in early stages of ULib/ULX )

[MrPresident]

Don't worry. I plan to have some overworld activities.

Planned:

 - Property ownership in various villages
 - Farming on your property
 - Crafting new weapons and consumables to help you on your dungeon crawling adventures


I'm certainly open to more ideas for overworld activites, even if they are casual in nature. I want the game to appeal to a broad audience.

[MrPresident]

MrPresident,
How do you want bugs reported?
(Sorry, I can't use/see discord).

https://trello.com/b/RQWpGyEb/polydungeons

I've set up a Trello for tracking features. Feel free to discuss individual things on there if you wish, or report bugs related to the posted features. I will look into establishing a bug tracker at some point as well. Of course, this forum is always fine as well. I check these forums regularly.

[MrPresident]

[JamminR]

HaHa. Watched your menu clip yesterday. Saw it again tonight and just realized trolls are break or 'russian' dancing in the back of the board section dance.
Too funny.
Reminds me of this golden oldie.


Feature suggestions
- sword in right hand, light capability(spell stone/torch/whatever) in left (or vice versa/opposite hands)
Some of the dungeon areas are very dark.
Perhaps time how long light lasts depending on difficulty level.
Bonus for ability to take torches from wall/floor/recesses as you progress in the dungeon.

- caves
you have lots of mountains as your 'border' edges of the upper world.
I'd guess caves might lead further in, perhaps even coming out into one of/the dungeons

[MrPresident]

@JamminR - How is this? Flies around with you and will help to point out things of importance.

[JamminR]

Fine. Come up with an idea 5x better than mine. I don't mind. I'll just keep lighting sparks and watching you burn brightly.


Nice. Make sure it's equip-able. I personally wouldn't want it all the time.
(Though, I guess it could help focus points when exploring above ground too.)

Plan on adding day/night above ground? I imagine the sprite being more helpful there at night too.

I tinkered a bit in Quaint - wish I had a light for it.
It had a nice day cycle.

EDIT - OH! Re: Sprite - if not overly difficult, as you develop enemy AI, perhaps allow the sprite to be 'thrown' into areas and distract the enemies from you a bit.