The Old King – ARPG Demo

PLATFORMS:
Windows PC

ENGINE:
Unreal Engine 4 / Ue4

Tools Used:
Photoshop, Blender, Maya

DURATION:
3 Weeks

COMPLETION:
2020

TEAM SIZE:
1

Roles:
Gameplay Systems, Level Design, Scripting, UI/Audio Implementation

Project Information

Overview

The Old King Demo is a playable section of a souls-like level including multiplayer support. I decided to challenge myself to recreate the systems of a game like Dark Souls within UE4. The focus of the project was to create the gameplay systems and level design alongside scripting and world development. The piece was primarily created using Unreal Blueprints. As this was focused on level design and mechanics, the majority of the 3D art assets are Epic Store, Megascan or previously owned assets.

Systems

The demo includes a full combat system with light and heavy attacks, blocking, rolling and lock-on strafing. The player inventory system allows you pick up different weapons and armour with different stats and in the case of weapons, different movesets. The player also has health and stamina gauges to manage which are affected by enemies and using combat abilities.

The player can encounter a variety of enemies which can prove lethal to the player and vice-versa, upon death of an enemy the player gains XP shown in the corner of the screen.

As with any souls-like game the demo features a boss encounter, the boss being notably different than standard enemies with a large health bar and a variety of attacks at their disposal.

Some details for polish were aspects like different footstep material sounds depending on the surface the player encounters, movement noises for the characters armour and sword swings and grunting for attacking through animations.

Enemies in the world will attack the player with a variety of movesets and react to the player from a distance before moving in for combat.

The demo is fully playable in a multiplayer state, with the applicable systems being replicated/notified for multiplayer use, though the current demo does not have a server system attached as that was not the focus.

Level Design

The demo area includes 4 distinct areas which were intended to provide different challenges or atmospheres for the player to experience. The player begins in a crampt destroyed tomb, before reaching a larger more natural environment of a graveyard on the edge of a loch/lake. Eventually the player will find themselves accending an ominous set of stairs which sets up the more doom-and-gloom feel of the more urban area with a distant burning castle and broken siege weaponry. Encountering a destroyed bridge, the player faces an abandoned village and a variety of close range encounters with enemies. Once successfully passed the village, the player will then follow a muddy track through a worn-torn scene and climb through the destroyed castle to meet the boss within.

The two main principles I followed for the creation of the environment was enemy encounter design and set-pieces. The player should be within an environment which allows for interesting enemy encounters but also be visually appealing cinematically.

The environment design began as a grey-box before testing collision and AI navigation and finally the creation of the environment itself was a combination of assets I owned from various sources or created myself within Blender or Maya. Additional assets within the demo are a variety of battlefield props by Erin McRitchie and the second main weapon type in the demo, the Spear and spear props by Miles Brown.

Full Feature List:

Player controller:
  • Mouse/Keyboard and Controller support.
  • Player Attacks including: Light Attack and Heavy Attack with variations in movesets, such as 3 different light attacks.
  • State Machine controlling animation and movement with idles, idle postures, walking, jogging, sprinting and blocking.
  • Directional damage blocking.
  • Player rolling, with two varieties in and out of combat.
  • Death state with animation and UI.
  • Animation SFX: Footstep notify’s, equipment noise and weapon audio.
Inventory and Equipment Modifiers
  • Equipable right and left hand weapons/shields with character slots.
  • Helmet slot for equiping headwear.
  • Seperate weapon movesets per the two weapon types (Sword and Spears)
  • Equipment which modifies player stats and damage taken or output.
Level Design
  • 4-8 distinct areas ranging from dense, urban to rural forest locations.
  • Selection of mini-area routes for the player to navigate to their goal
  • World design intended for Nav Mesh support.
  • Landscape materials with 11 landscape blends.
  • Custom Lighting for a dramatic and not overly colourful aesthetic