Project Type: Prototype 

Engine: Unreal Engine 4.23.1 

Language: C++

This Devlog will focus on adding player sockets, fixing several issues, quality of life indicators, niagara,....

Extending the Trap Spawning System

The trap system is one of the core items important for DEADBEAT. This is why weekly we try to improve this system to allow more quality of life ease of use and support more specific cases.

This week one of those cases was the 2x1 trap. A new size means new conditions to be able to spawn them.

Managing this new trap and adding them to the randomized selection of traps was not too hard to do. The system we build earlier in production was easily manageable and allowed us to quickly allow this new size.

Additional Trap visualization

Last week, it wasn't that clear when traps would activate and damage. We therefor created a new visual system where we generate Instances of Static meshes to visualize the hit region of the specific trap.

This gave the traps a clearer view, lightened up the scene with a new color, and gave a nice visual effect.

Pickup Boxes

Having pickups is one thing, we figured out we wanted a unique mechanic for pickups, not just a simple spawning and grabbing.
We decided to create a prop that would fall from the ceiling and breaks on the conveyer belt. The pickup would then be shown, coming outside the prop.

This approach allowed us to also build a more complicated mechanic around this: If the player stands under the falling object and it falls on the player, they lose health.  This would prevent players from "Waiting" on a spot where a pickup would appear in the future.

Player UI

UI is always an important factor in any game. DEADBEAT is no exception to that. We figured we wanted a clear UI that would have some unique design to it. This was quite a challenge to do in C++, but in the end we managed to create a quite nice system for it. This allows us to have color visualization for each player, which already allows for a much clearer gameplay.

Player Uniqueness

Players in DEADBEAT should be able to recognize what character they are. This is a very important factor as well, luckily the Art team of DEADBEAT have prepared several cool Hats and Armbands to recognize yourself!
Implementing this was quite easy, we have a random selection of all the hats and armbands, than bind these to the Arm and Head socket corresponding to each player. Due to the nature of Sockets (on a skeleton), these will automatically follow animations,.. 

BPM Reaction

As an additional note we noticed next week that it's quite important that the background does not feel too static. As a way to resolve this and to further work with the rhythm in DEADBEAT, we decided to make a simple material reaction system.

This is done simply with Dynamic Materials, attaching these to a blueprint object, then changing the material variables from within  C++.

In the future, other background elements will also react to sound.

Camera Shake

As an addition to the player feedback, we decided to make a simple camera shake upon getting damage as player.

This was done with a very easy to use component already integrated in UE4. Namely, a Camera Shake Component

This was an additional effect and is purely added for player feedback.

Niagara (Particle) Effects

Particle effects help the scene to have more visual interest and that's exactly what one of the focuses was of the artists this week: using Niagara to make particle effects. Some of these particle effects are already visible and integrated in the scene:

Sound/SFX

Although there was already a background track (which will be changed in the future). We still had no sound in DEADBEAT other than that.
This week we implemented a system Animation notify system where sound effects are called on the traps. So far only 2 traps have these sound effects, but coming weeks we will be gradually adding more sound to the project.

It's another very important focus of the project. So we hope to do a nice execution of implementing audio.

Additional Fixes

- Fixed MipMap levels of conveyer belt texture.
- Additional animations, ...
- New props (Camera,Drone,..)
- Added sound effects
- UI Elements,...

What's Next?

We are going to continue creating more content for DEADBEAT and optimizing the gameplay and feel.
We're getting on a point were we will optimize and elevate player feedback.
Lot's of improvement on the core of the game is expected in the coming weeks.

~

We would once again thank you for reading the weekly Devlog of DEADBEAT.
Gradually but surely, DEADBEAT is more and more evolving into the game we envisioned, and we can honestly not wait to show the public what the DEADBEAT team has in store.

See you next week!

The DEADBEAT Team.