Skip to main content

Storytelling & Gaming- Christmas Break + Submission Week

 

Semester A: Week 1- Week 10
Student: Tai Ser Yeet (22064351)
Programme: BA (Hons) Digital Media Design
Task: Christmas Break + Submission Week


CHRISTMAS BREAK + SUBMISSION WEEK

Jigsaw Minigame

This YouTube tutorial consists of 8 videos guiding the player through a step-by-step process on how to create the Jigsaw Puzzle game.

I began coding the game with the same images that were given by the creator. 

Creating the Blueprints



Rearranging the Puzzle Pieces



Adding Buttons

A few buttons were added to allow players to return to the main level, to replay the game, and also to quit. Later I made the bottom two buttons appear only on the Victory screen.



Choose Image Screen

I made a feature where players can choose any image from the 3 given, diversifying the playability of the game.

Creating Animal & Character Animation (Cows, Hens & Fish)

For the male and female characters, I animated their idle movements and their walking movements by compiling the sprites that I had extracted. I also adjusted its duration per frame and set it below 10 seconds.

Female Idle 



Female Walking


Male Idle 



Male Walking


Animal Animations

Big Fish Animation


Small Fish Animation


For both fishes, I created two directions in which they will move; left and right. I did that by duplicating the animation cycle that Janet had given me.

Cow Animation (Idle and Walking)




Hen Animation (Type 1 and Type 2- Idle and Walking)

Type 1-Hen



Type 2-Hen



Object Animation

Fishing Line


Female Character Movement in the Game

 

After completing the axis mapping for the main character, I noticed that the player was moving the opposite way than intended. So, I reversed the function of each key and the character's directionality below and it worked.


Female Character Directionality




Since Janet has only given me the female character's left and right profile, the directionality of the player merely has two sides. If the player decides to walk forward (which is up), the character would be facing the left and vice versa.


However, an issue occurred when Josh was testing our game. He discovered that when you press two keys at a time, the character moves in a different direction than the programmed animation. For example, when the player presses the W key and A key simultaneously, the animation facing left now moves backward to the right. It was a minor issue that we had but we could not afford to spend any more time on this section of the game so it remained unresolved.



Hen Game/ Jigsaw Puzzle Game Blueprint and User Interface Design

For all of the minigames' UI, I made three buttons; Play, How To Play, and Quit using the widget blueprint function under the user interface feature in Unreal. All the buttons are self-explanatory and easy to understand so the players can easily navigate around the game.

Main UI Menu 




Sub-Menu (How To Play)



Third Attempt on Fish Minigame

Over the Christmas Break, I handed my fishing game over to Janet to solve the issue of Josh's random spawning blueprint. She was actively looking for tutorials that cater specifically for 2D games in Unreal and simultaneously going back and forth with Josh to get his guidance. 

On Monday, she got help from Josh as there was a minor issue with the fishing line mechanics and fish spawn. From that day onwards, I took over and finished off the fish minigame.

Blueprint and Score System





I chose 15 fishes as the set number that the player has to collect to end the game. 


I referenced this tutorial on how to create the score system and the timer. 

Adding the Box Triggers for Menu 

These box triggers were added so that the minigame menu would pop up when the player went close to the animal area. 


Exporting the Game

Problems after exporting the game

  • The main menu will not close
  • Fish minigame: After pressing the 'back' button in the 'How to Play' widget, the player ends up at the Hen menu
  • There is no 'Quit' button for all the games
  • The fishing game is glitching. Sometimes the score even goes above 15
  • There are no instructions for the main menu
  • Try to add music to the games
  • The cursor is gone for the fishing game after you open the menu
  • The main menu has no sound
  • After coming back from the hen game to the starting point, the player cannot move the character
  • No UI instructs the player to click on the F key to cast the fishing line

In our last class before submission, our group had planned to solve our queries on the fishing game, and cow game and complete the UI design. Once again, Josh was such a big help in solving the issue of spawning our fishes into the scene as well as getting the fishing rod to be cast. Meanwhile, in terms of the cow game, I personally felt that it might not be completed on time so I have accepted that we will only have two minigames to submit. As for the UI, Neha did not show up for class so Ben took over and completed the main menu, and sub-menu for minigames with the guidance of Josh.

That very same day, Neha wanted to merge the UI that she created with Ben's and asked if I could send the latest Unreal file to her as it was done on my laptop. However, when I sent her the file through Onedrive, Google Drive, and email, she claimed that she could not open the file on her laptop which left me with no choice but to complete the rest of the UI myself. It was definitely very time-consuming and spent close to 16 hours staring at my monitor from 2pm to 6am. 

Here are the UI Designs that I created: 

Main Menu 




Sub-Menu (How to Play)


Good Try Menu (After Game Has Ended)



The entire time I was wondering if I should have started my part of the project sooner and ignored comments from my teammates stating that I should not stress so much. When I was finally done with the game, I exported it as a test and went to sleep while it did its thing.  

After exporting the game, I noticed a few issues with the UI and I immediately asked Janet for help. In less than an hour, she solved the majority of my problems and I am so grateful she was there to do so. Later, I proceeded to add background music, more buttons that lead the player to the main menu and added instructions for easier playability. 

The background music that I chose was more towards the country music genre. It also has to be upbeat so that it makes the player excited to play the game. Not only that, I found a few Victory sound effects on YouTube that fit perfectly into the scene after the player has completed the game.



When I was finally satisfied with the game, I emailed the file to Janet once more for her to check before I exported the game for the last time.


Labels: