Wednesday 3rd May (9 AM – 1 PM)
Myself and Aaron came across an issue when playtesting Slippery Staircase. When the players pass a point in the level, the floor trap opens up which will respawn the player upon entry; If two players fall into the pit at the same time, we found out that only one player was being respawned and the remaining player was stuck. The solution to this issue was to extend the depth of the pit and layer multiple respawn triggers over one another, as this way, if multiple players were falling at the same time, they will hit one of the respawn triggers.
Additionally, we were able to implement the counter mechanic for Sumo Slam. The counter mechanic effectively creates a King of the Hill, last man standing game, as upon 3 successful collisions, it triggers the end game widget.
Saturday 6th May (9:30 AM – 11:40 AM, 2 – 5 PM, 6:30 – 10:30 PM)
I changed the wheel to accommodate for the inclusion of 5 challenges, as it previously only had 4 challenges. I created a new texture for the wheel in Photoshop whilst adding and repositioning the colliders to work with their new positions. As Sumo Slam had replaced the Red Light Green Light minigame, I had to create a new line in the Wheel blueprint for Tile Trouble.
An additional change that I had to make to the Wheel blueprint was adding invisible walls around the wheel, as during experimentation in the main area, I found out that the player could “select” a challenge if their mesh hit the wheel. By adding cube static meshes around the wheel in the blueprint and toggling the visibility, the only way that the players could select a challenge is by standing on the central platform and spinning the wheel.
As an additional measure to help the players, I created a “Sign Guy” static mesh holding a sign that I could use throughout the game for various different things. In the main area, there are two meshes, with one displaying a level overview when the player gets close and the second displaying the controls for the game, which has a custom image for the controls created in Photoshop.
In the Sin Bins of both Tile Trouble and Sumo Slam, the Sign Guys were added with text on their signs for the players who lost the challenge. Additionally for these players, they trigger an audio clip upon entering the Sin Bin.
Using the created Powerup randomiser, I added Powerups into the levels for the players to collide with. I also added textures to Tile Trouble to keep with theming of other levels, as some parts of it were textured and some parts were the Unreal standard grey checkerboard material.
Just before we were about to build, we found an issue with the Main Menu not being displayed for myself and Ollie. When testing in the viewport, the main menu was visible and could be selected, yet when testing in the New Editor Window (PIE) or in the simulation mode, it was not appearing. We joined a voice call to try and determine the problem, as nobody had touched the main menu widget when sharing the files.
We found the issue when we were sharing screens in Discord. When Aaron was sharing his screen to myself and Ollie, the start button was within the canvas panel, but when it was displayed on our screens it was not in the same position. When bringing it back into the correct position, the issue was solved.
Sunday 7th May (5:40PM – 8 PM)
I realised that Hank, the main character of our project, was still to be imported into the game. At a base stage, we wanted to have an idle animation for when he was stood behind his desk in the main area, as his base pose was a T-Pose. Using animations from Mixamo, I was able to set up a system that places Hank in one of 8 random idle animations when starting and when the player is in front of his desk, an audio clip is played and he transitions to one of 8 random dances. When the player moves away from his desk, he resets back into an idle animation.
Monday 8th May (11AM – 5:30PM)
Myself and Aaron met up to record the required video as a part of the assignment. When we loaded the project on the University computers, we found that all of the widgets had the scaling changed, despite us not changing any variables or lines in the blueprints; This led to us quickly restoring the widgets to be functional, as before this, half of the information was not visible on the screen.
We created a loading transition for between the levels, as the players would fall once the wheel was spun and instantly load. As one of Hank’s dances that he can do at his desk is the Can Can, we set up a camera in a blank level that had him playing that animation accompanied by a snippet of the Can Can, downloaded from Orange Free Sounds (Orange Free Sounds, 2018). This was duplicated 5 times for each of the 5 minigames, which ensured that when the wheel landed on a segment, it would load the respective transition and then the correct level.
We added music to the main area that we obtained using my Epidemic Sound license. Additionally, we added a model of Hank dancing to a location in each of the minigames, as if he had come to watch over what was happening and provide entertainment.
One thing that we noticed when testing was that the AI enemies in the Hexagon Maze were unable to leave the hexagon that they were placed in, even when the breakaway doors were no longer blocking the entryway. By unchecking “Can ever affect Navigation”, the nav mesh updated and the AI could now give chase and path to the players.
GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE
Below is the gameplay footage of Hank’s Happy Hour, recorded by myself and Aaron with two other friends to showcase the 4 player split screen.
ANIMATIONS USED:
Mixamo (n.d.) Blow A Kiss. www.mixamo.com. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=Blow+a+Kiss
Mixamo (n.d.) Can Can. www.mixamo.com. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=Can+Can+
Mixamo (n.d.) Chicken Dance. www.mixamo.com. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=chicken+dance
Mixamo (n.d.) Dancing Running Man. www.mixamo.com. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=dancing+running+man
Mixamo (n.d.) Dancing Twerk. www.mixamo.com. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=dancing+twerk
Mixamo (n.d.) Drunk Idle Variation. www.mixamo.com. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=Drunk+Idle+Variation
Mixamo (n.d.) Gangnam Style. www.mixamo.com. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=Gangnam
Mixamo (n.d.) Happy Idle. www.mixamo.com. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=Happy+Idle [Accessed 7 May 2023].
Mixamo (n.d.) Hokey Pokey. www.mixamo.com. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=Hokey+Pokey
Mixamo (n.d.) Idle. www.mixamo.com. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=idle.
Mixamo (n.d.) Old Man Idle. www.mixamo.com. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=Old+Man+Idle
Mixamo (n.d.) Rumba Dancing. www.mixamo.com. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=Rumba+Dancing
Mixamo (n.d.) Silly Dancing. www.mixamo.com. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=silly+dancing
Mixamo (n.d.) Standard Idle. www.mixamo.com. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=Standard+Idle
Mixamo (n.d.) Warrior Idle. www.mixamo.com. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=Warrior+Idle
Mixamo (n.d.) Zombie Scratch Idle. www.mixamo.com. Available online: https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=Zombie+Scratch+Idle
AUDIO USED:
Epidemic Sound (n.d.) Sound effect: String Plucks 4 | Epidemic Sound. www.epidemicsound.com. Available online: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/1d8ZI5CIgN/.
Epidemic Sound and Glove Box (n.d.) Glove Box – Ain’t No Princess (Sting Version) | Epidemic Sound. www.epidemicsound.com. Available online: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/GdCPjlIxhV/.
Epidemic Sound and Hara Nova (n.d.) Hara Noda – Can | Epidemic Sound. www.epidemicsound.com. Available online: https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/g3fLTLH7Jw/ [Accessed 8 May 2023].
Orange Free Sounds (2018) Can Can Song. Orange Free Sounds. Available online: https://orangefreesounds.com/can-can-song/ [Accessed 8 May 2023].