Orune

Description

A 2.5D Story Heavy Platformer about a Prince and his friendship with a dragon. The story follows a fairytale that takes our heroes into a dangerous adventure. Only through their friendship can they overcome the difficulty of their journey.

Orune is the main project I am currently working on in my free time. I am the only programmer on this game currently and my responsibility is the development of all programming and graphics, this includes AI, Shaders, Physics and all the mechanics in the game. I even do all the rigging and most of the animations in the game currently. Being the sole programmer is proving difficult, but I am very passionate about this project and hope to one day release the game and see its success. My Programming in this game utilises C++ and Blueprints at a very advanced level. I use C++ for all core mechanics in the game and Blueprint for design based features such as triggering sounds and effects. I have utilised UE4's architecture fully and expanded on it with my own classes to achieve the features currently in the game. I sadly cannot link the source code since the project is under NDA but if you contact me and ask for it I am happy to make an exception. Aswell as game mechanics, I have developed many editor features for this game to ease the jobs of the artists I work with for example I have created various tools to allow the level designer to control the level's flow, camera work, and managements of checkpoints around the map. These are all important to our game especially the camera tools since we are aiming for a cinematic experience with the gameplay. Originally this game was prototyped in Unity with all the mechanics in the trailers working but we later ported the game to UE4 since it suited our teams workflow much better.

The game is currently on steam privately and so if you would like to keep updated with our latest progress, email me for a steam code or follow our social media.

Project Technical Aspects

Advanced C++ and Unreal Engine 4 API

All mechanics and Physics utilizing C++ and the UE4 API to its full potential. All mechanics are created to be reusable and work in different situations for example multiple playable characters are in the game and they all use the same base class and components for movements, interactions, health etc. I have designed the code base of this game to be very modular allowing features to be added and removed without anything breaking due to too many dependencies. My code base is general and modular enough that I could use it for any Side-Scroller game without needing to use all the features and components on the actor. I always strive to make my code reusable in all my projects.

Advanced use of Materials

Material system used for creating procedural materials, dynamic weather (wind and snow) and Toon shaded Graphics. I created my own material functions library that can achieve dozens of desired effects on our graphics in game allowing easy programming of new materials. 90% of the materials in the game are procedural to give a random, hand drawn feel to the graphics. This also gives alot of customisation to the artists that use them on my team

Advanced AI

Companion Character that follows around player and helps with different tasks. Companion's AI is self changing allowing the companion to change behaviour according the friendship between the 2 characters at a particular story stage or depending on unlocked abilities.

AI also used for all Enemies and NPC characters

Advanced Animation Programming

Animator that is programmed to fully use state machines, blend spaces and montages for the various complex and layered animations in the game for all characters. Game has humanoids, quadrupeds and octapads each width many layers of animation including ones from sequences or cutscenes.