SysEval: Iteration Protocol
Project Duration: 1.5 Months
Introduction:
Collaborated with fellow designers to rapidly create a kart racing game for the GMTK Game Jam
Following the four day jam the team spent time polishing mechanics and adding more courses.
My Role:
Game Designer
Level Designer
Voice Actor
Key Contributions:
Player Item Pickup System
Five Player Powerups
Level Design (Offroad, and Crisscross)
Unreal Engine 5
C++
Playthrough of Offroad Level
Tools Used:
Unreal Engine Blueprints
GIT
In Further Detail
Player Pickup System:
The best kart racers offer players pickup as they help guide the player to make decisions about how they move through a given course and add to the excitement.
Pickups were brought in via one parent that handled the functions for adding a powerup to the player, removing unused powerups from the player, and removing itself from the world.
Pickups would also be given designated spawning locations that would listen for when the player completed a lap then replace the pickups at those locations.
This system was also reused by other designers to create track obstacles that could listen for when players hit certain lap requirements.
Powerups:
Powerups were given to the player via pickups and allowed them to directly have control over how the course would affect themselves and AI drivers.
Stopwatch:
The Stopwatch ability acted as a time slow which allowed players the ability to maintain their speed but gain way more control over their vehicle.
This ability allows players of all skill levels the ability to make the risky maneuvers that speed you up, but with less of a risk of crashing.
Speed Boost:
The boost allowed players to choose a moment to rapidly accelerate their car for a brief period.
This could be used to allow them to do things like further their lap lead, clear an obstacle just in time, or go into a jump furthering their distance.
Molecular Shift
For a brief period of time players are able to move through the Ghost racers
As each lap adds more ghost racers this ability becomes invaluable as the track gets tighter to maneuver around and collisions more prevalent
Remote Hack
Upon activation Ghost racers would take in a random input knocking them off their course.
This ability gives players the option to knock the Ghosts out of their way without losing speed ramming them.
My Biggest Challenge:
Setting up the pickups and powerups through C++
I have primarily worked with just blueprint so implementing these systems through Unreal Engines version of C++ was quite the learning experience.
After reading through more of the documentation and collaborating with another member of the team I was able to get a good grasp on it and implement the majority of the aforementioned features on my own.
