TRAILER

EQUIPMENT MENU

The game should be based on equipment, so the better primary weapon the player has, the more damage it does to enemies. I made this to make the player feel that when they have killed an enemy, they should get loot as drops and XP as a positive feedback. My thought was that the player needs to see what weapon and what characteristics the weapon has before they decide to equip it. In this case, both weapons are Low level "gray" so there is only a change in the appearance, and that one weapon is a 2-handed weapon. I have chosen to animate this part of the menu as it provides good visual feedback to the player.

The player then has to choose whether to equip his new weapon or continue playing with his current sword. But in this case, the player wants it and equips his new Halberd. The red "X" on the button is for discarding the weapon from inventory.

And the same is true for the bow, shield and stealth equipment menu

INVENTORY SYSTEM

In order to create an inventory that fits items and weapons and the game idea, I needed to plan for what type of equipment should be available to the player. It was also important to be able to sort among different items and weapons to present it to the player quickly and easily. So I created an Enumerator with the different types of weapons as well as items that the player should be able to interact with. When I had a clear picture of what the game needed from a inventory this went really quickly (the player should be able to use sword, shield, bow, stealth, 2-handed weapons and various useful items such as health potions and money).

I needed to find ways to add different properties to the items that players should use. And a Structure would fit well here, as I can create an Array with Structure in unreal containing the Enumeration and hence it contains the types of item that the player can use. I also inserted some other variables that could be useful, e.g. an actor that can be good for spawning that item if the player decides to throw that item off the inventory. Or an enemy drops this weapon like loot. I called the file Struct_Item.

I created a master item by creating a Blueprint Class that contained only one skeletal mesh as well as a variable "ItemData" which is of type Struct_Item, I named it "Master_Item". I then made child blueprints for the various weapons and Items from the Master_Item class (Master Item - Class Defaults Image). I also added an Array to the player named Inventory which contained the variable type Struct_Item. Also created a function with a sphere trace to find out if that item contained an actor by Master_Item, if it did it would add it to the inventory if not it would return and do nothing (Master Item BP Image). I made another function that I called to destroy that actor from the map if it contained the Master_Item class.

GAME HUD

I have chosen to place the character more to the left of the screen to give the player a better view of what is happening in the game.

The player can choose whether they want the quest or mini map visible in the HUD when they need it, I put the minimap and the quest on the left side of the screen so that the player gets as much visibility on the important view as possible and does not take critical attention from the screen.

There are 2 ways to indicate the player's life, half a bubble that is located down to the left of the screen and also around the entire screen for the player to see that it is in danger without having to let go of what it is doing. The player also gets a better opportunities to plan when it is worth taking a potion to maximize the healing effect and get as many percent of life healed. The Damage Overlay itself blinks when the player is down to less then 30% life.

When the player is looking at weapon or item, it receives feedback on what the player can pick up.

SPEC SYSTEM

The player will receive 1 point for each level the player achieves. In total there will be 10 points. But I have chosen to have 12 possibilities to spec. I have made that choice in order for there to be variation on how one player wants to play the game against another player. You should be able to spec in 3 spec trees, which contain 4 different strengths to choose from.

1) Stealth (Short ranged combat)
2) Melee (Medium ranged combat)
3) Archery (Long ranged combat)

Each strength of each spec gives a unique ability to the character, and they are strongly drawn to their main spec tree. So the player can choose depending on which spec, if he wants to "sneak" through the enemy base, "fight" through the enemy base or simply "head shot" through the enemy base.

With the ability to vary their playing style, the player can also gain a tactical advantage or disadvantage, depending on how the opposing player has set up his defense at his castle. The character recorder to the top right of the screen is also animated here and depending on what ability the player wants, the recorder should display the animation linked to that ability.

And this is how the UI menu interacts with character recorder blueprint.

(Pause menu) When the player presses a button on the skill menu, it calls for an event from the character recorder. (Character Recorder) The Character recorder puts the weapons on the correct socket and then plays an animation. This animation is played a certain amount of time which is controlled by a timeline. When the entire timeline has been run, it resets the character recorder to its default position and also resets the weapon to its unarmed position.