During this past summer, I have been designing a small tech demo utilizing Unreal Engine 5. This tech demo so far does not have a name, but I can describe it as a Third Person, Open World RPG. Here is what I have created so far:

• Player Controlled Character has a Dash that launches the character forward and has a cooldown of 5 Seconds.
• The Player Character has a Health Pool, where if they reach 0 Health, they will die and respawn after a period of time.
• The Player Character wields a Sword and fights enemies by using Left Mouse Button to swing and deal damage. The damage the Player Character deals is not decided and is controlled by me for now.
• Enemy characters have been created:
  • These enemies have been given different color and texture to differentiate from the Player Character.
  • Each enemy is controlled by an AI Controller and Behavior Tree. They’re programmed to walk around within their Navigation Mesh Volume if they have not spotted the Player Character, and chase the Player Character and attack when the Player is in sight.
  • Each enemy has their own Health Pool, and when reaching 0 Health, the enemy will die and stand still.
  • BP_Enemy: is the basic enemy has 100 HP and does 10 Damage to the Player.
  • BP_ToughEnemy is a Child Blueprint to BP_Enemy. This enemy does have a shield bar, which the player has to damage before the player damages their main health. Everything else is the same thing as BP_Enemy.
• A simple map has been created. A lot of these areas were created on the spot:
  • Small Hills were created using Landscaping.
  • Forests were placed by using Spruce Tree assets.
  • Around the forests, grass was added using the paint tool and multiple grass assets.
  • The start of a castle surrounded by a moat with a bridge has been added to one corner of the map.
  • A small river was created from using a Water Asset and Landscaping.

Those were all the additions I have made to my tech demo so far. Now, I would like to get into what I have learned so far in using Unreal Engine 5 and doing this game demo:

• Using Landscaping and Paint Tools to create simple elevations and detail on the world.
• Using Blueprints to program and update character information such as health, shields, movement, and attacks.
• Using Behavior Trees and Blackboards to create a Simple Enemy AI to attack the player.
• Using asset to create a rough idea of the map and landmarks to make.

What are the current known issues of the project:

• When the Player attacks an Enemy, the hit react animation plays and delays until the damage to their health is updated. This is due to the programming of taking damage, where a delay of 0.7 seconds after the hit react animation plays to ensure that the enemy doesn’t get hit repeatedly by one sword swing.
• Due to the amount of foliage and trees added, lag will be felt playing in those areas. This possibly can be circumvented with higher PC specifications such as Graphics Cards and RAM, but the Laptop I am developing this project on has basic graphics.

What are my next goals for this project:

• Create an Experience Point System that develops into a progression system. When the Player defeats enemies, the player will get a set amount of experience depending on the enemy. After surpassing a specific amount of EXP, the Player will level up. What will happen when the player levels up will be decided later on.
• Create more enemies by using BP_Enemy as the parent blueprint to make variations of AI Enemies while still retaining the basic properties.
• Develop more of the map to create different areas and settings for the player to explore and fight newer enemies.
• Plus anything more that comes to mind.

More Ideas and Updates are on the way!