Fortunes of the Forgotten

Fortunes of the Forgotten is the final project I worked on at Full Sail University with a team of talented individuals for four months. The role I played was the primary programmer of the project. I designed and scripted mechanics, gathered data from play testers to balance mechanics, and fixed bugs within the project.

Gameplay Trailer

Mechanics

My part for the projects mechanics was devoted to our major mechanics such as the grappling hook mechanic, Item/Environment interaction systems, Enemy AI, and supporting other team members with their mechanic designs. I also coded smaller features such as our vaulting mechanic. You can view some of the blueprints using this link.

Grapple Mechanic

The Grappling mechanic allows the player to press Q to grapple to a grapple point within their view, or hold Q to slow down time and select a grapple point near them. This mechanic uses three blueprints; the player blueprint for the inputs, the grapple points actor component for functionality, and the grapple point so the game knows where the player will be grappling.

Interaction System

The interaction system was built to be reused for any item and/or object we could think of. So, using actor blueprints I created base interactable objects for both items and environmental (EX: Door) occasions. For the items, I made a system using data assets that allowed us to place the base object and select what type of item it was, changing its mesh while keeping base functionality. For the environmental interactable, we could simply create a child blueprint and override the interact functionality.

Enemy AI

I handcrafted the enemy AI to challenge the player. They detect the player through sight and sound, then they use varying tactics to defeat the player. Using a base enemy blueprint/behavior tree, I created four different enemies that use their own tactics. A melee enemy that runs in and circles the player, a shotgun enemy that gets into close range before shooting, a submachinegun enemy that fires a three round burst from medium range, and an AR enemy that finds a point far from the player before shooting.

Balancing/Bug Fixing

Since I was the main programmer of the team, I had to constantly get player feedback to make sure the mechanics were fun, working, and balanced. Though player testing, we found a lot of problems that needed to be fixed, such as the grappling hook not targeting properly, and we even removed features due to feedback. One such feature was our original inventory screen. Players found that the inventory was unnecessary due to there not being that many items to collect, so we tried removing it and transferring to on screen tooltips, which made for a better and more cohesive experience. When working on enemy AI, I needed a lot of playtesting to make sure they were balanced. I even made a specific jira task to collect data via playtesting to see if I should decrease their movement speed and if so then how much. Needless to say, balancing and bug fixing was a constant job during the entire project, and allowed me to grow my skill within that space.

Level Design

Though my role was programmer, I did design one level in the project. That being the Cultist Mine Level. I block meshed the whole level and added a few final assets to the level before handing it off to the level designers in my team to be finalized with assets. The level was designed to teach the player about our climbing mechanic, as well as allowing them to practice our grapple mechanic and obtain a new weapon through exploration.

Level Showcase

Timestamp: 0:20 - 4:22

Takeaways

This project was my first big look into the industry, facing both personal challenges and team challenges. We had a tough time with communicating due to personal time restraints, which hit the project hard. But this project had taught me a lot about working with a team, taking charge, and learning/adapting on the fly in order to get a good product out before a deadline.