Adding Traversal Mechanics // DEVLOG #3

Today we add ledge climbing, rolling and swimming to our N64/PS1 era inspired Adventure game, and finish off by modelling our first dungeon entrance area.
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Follow the progress on the game more closely on Twitter: / firedragon04
#gamedevelopment #devlog #gamedev #unrealengine #unrealengine5 #ue5 #blender #blender3d
🔖 Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction and recap
01:00 - Drawing diagrams to explain climbing
04:35 - Building the ledge grab climbing system
07:59 - Showcasing the ledge grab system
09:45 - Continuing to refine the climbing system
13:05 - Adding a roll to the character
14:03 - Showcasing the roll and refined climbing system
15:06 - Building the block pushing system
16:44 - Showcasing the block pushing system
18:06 - Continuing to work on the block pushing system
20:32 - Adding the ability to swim
26:31 - Showcasing swimming
26:56 - Alien Ruin Modeling Timelapse
31:34 - Alien Ruin showcase
31:58 - Outro

[@mrburninghands5740]

Nah don't make them shorter. These longer videos are really nice

[@MajatekYT]

Scifi setting with alien ruins ala Metroid Prime and Halo is a top-tier setting! Oh and as a side note, I think the multiple collision checks for the clamber are redundant - you just need the one vertical capsule as that does both distance and height checks thanks to its length and position while offset in front of the player.

[@vltimate-lavncher-orev]

This game deserves a first person option for VR

[@ibisskb]

Just following this because of the playable four-eyed four-armed alien. I guess that's also part of the N64/PS1 era, they used to be overwhelmingly creative in character designs. Now at best we get good outfits, but where did all the playable non-humans go? For real.

[@firedragon04]

Hope you all enjoy Devlog 3! ▶ New Devlogs every Friday! I'd love to hear what you all think to the visual style I've built for the 'Dungeons' which are these huge Alien Structures that I show at 30:24. In the next Devlog we focus on jump pads and freeclimbing! Excited to show you all those features.

[@PaulSpencer]

Looks really great. Super interested to see what other mechanics you intend on adding and what makes the game a bit more unique from its inspirations. Would love to know how having four arms affects gameplay.

[@firedragon04]

@@PaulSpencer Yeah that's something I'll develop more down the road, how the four arms will be used more in animations, combat, traversal...etc and how unique tools which could only be wielded with four arms work too. Right now my focus is just to get all these features in the game and working to a point I'm happy with and then develop it more from there.

[@Sunburst_No]

@@firedragon04 I think the issues your having exiting the water is due to the circle tracing, maybe modifying it to detect slopes also can help fix that. Rn it only detects edges and drops, so might be confused

[@beardgoblin1090]

Ruins/dungeon lookin' good - I'm not sure about the chains - unless you're going to make them sway gently or even be interactable - that would be cool.

[@savagemaelstrom9645]

Game name suggestion: "Cosmosis" and if you want, you can tag on the 64. "Cosmosis 64" does kinda have a nice roll to it.

[@HalldinDEV]

How the hell do you crank these out so quickly?? You are a machine.

[@firedragon04]

I’m probably going to have to take a break from the weekly schedule in a couple of weeks because I’ve been sick so I’ve fallen behind on my current task (implementing combat) but it’s still progressing well.

[@damniscream]

@@firedragon04 u should try keep the schedule, seems like KZbin pushing this series

[@firedragon04]

@@damniscream I can't help being sick but I do want to try to keep the schedule as much as I can.

[@rocketterrier]

​@@firedragon04 get well soon dude :( i hope it's nothing serious

[@javierdurini]

Having the sin and punishment OST makes the video just a wee bit better, really hope some inspiration is taken from that, great video really enjoying this devlog series

[@GamerFollower]

You should move the forward collision detection that is currently coming out of his pelvis and move it up to come out of his head, that way it doesn't check for climbable surfaces that are too short/below his head.

[@kazzinga9605]

u mean the giant co....llision sphere?

[@GamerFollower]

@@kazzinga9605 it was already solved in the next devlog lol

[@cf-unicorn]

honestly, those ruins are giving me turok vibes damn loved that game

[@miguelmontanez6342]

Love a long dev log they really show the though process behind the game and are super interesting. But I understand making them shorter so you don't have as much editing to do lol

[@ACouchpirate]

I love watching you figure out implementation of your mechanics. Of course there are minor optimization tweaks that you could do, but that's just unnecessary to do at this point, and overall unless you run into performance issues, so really, you keep doing you, it's looking great!

[@MarathonGuy1337]

awesome vid man those where some cool features and loved the dungeon art style.

[@promey7240]

The dungeon turned out so beautiful!

[@firedragon04]

Thanks! I finally get it in Engine in Devlog 6 which releases next Friday. It looks great and feels very cool to run around in Engine too.

[@lucasbaker4556]

YES YES YES I HAVE BEEN WAITING!!

[@minilabyrinth]

I made the same climbing system by following tutorials and it had a lot of problems, namely if the climbable block was like a 2x4 wood plank shape or something, youd trigger the climb but ping open air with one of the spheretraces so it would send me to world origin 0,0,0. Or it would ping the underside of it when jumping up and I'd start my climb animation like 8 inches too low and my fingers would be going thru the object, or I'd end up teleporting THRU the ledge and climbing up the opposite side. I haven't watched the rest of this video yet but what I ended up doing was always making sure my climb ledge was bigger, at least 1ft by 1 ft width and height, and making my sphere traces gigantic instead of tiny and thin, and putting a system that checks if the "hit location" ends up being world origin, then set the location I'm sent to as the last good location (previous successful ledge climb location)

[@humblebee3112]

The devlogs are fantastic so far! In regards to climbing on slopes you can check the hit normal to calculate the angle, if the angle is too large you can deem the thing unclimbable. In regards to shorter ledges you could just check the distance from the source of your raycast. No need for manually tagging things :)

[@99brickstudios]

Im loving this!!!

[@BlazeHeartPanther]

13:01 🎵Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal🎵 also, nice dungeon front, looks ancient.

[@unnamedx2]

The dungeon looks nice

[@writingreality]

Love these! Watched all 3 back to back, keep them coming!

[@luminousblackdesigns9011]

Love seeing you smash out the different mechanics, i prefer you doing this long form video instead of breaking down each mechanics into a single video like everyone else does. Makes also seem more real to the process, keep up the good work! I'm excited to see how the visual styles ads to your games story progression. Please Please do not do fetch quests they were the reason i hated in older gen games, i prefer the i found a random item exploring, and later a person is asking about it and a unique interaction occurs because i have that item.

[@FireallyXTheories]

I see that making water mechanics is just as obnoxious as the OG OoT water temple. XD Glad you got it working how you wanted it to in the end!

[@Morraak]

Nice job! Looks like a ton of progress was made this week! Really like those alien ruins.

[@paulshelkov7956]

I'd rather have them longer honestly. I'm here for the process!

[@firedragon04]

I'm trying to keep them around 25-30mins in length but some are going longer than that now.

[@Zhaobowen]

Texel Density Checker is a useful Blender add-on for the texture resolution if you want more control of that. It is worth noting that N64 games tend not to keep a uniform texel density, and mostly opt to stretch 64x64 image textures regardless of the size of the game object.

[@dokkyun_heart]

Amazing work! I really love the dungeon design, it sort of reminds me of Skyrim (for that whatever reason), but still fits the alien aesthetic. It’s also really fascinating seeing you explain how you implement the gameplay systems, as someone who would love to make a game, but isn’t a programmer AT ALL it’s really helpful! The only thing I’m not a fan of is the auto-jump, but I guess it’s more of a me thing. Can’t wait for the next devlog!! Keep up the great work ❤

[@xalberrious]

Can't wait to play! Good for you and keep it up

[@Tenchinu]

so happy I found these vids. thnk the algorithm!!! trying to make a game myself, and this is always insanely inspirational. weird question tho. How long did it took you to be as comfortable as you are now with Blueprints? coming from an art background, its the field thats giving me the most trouble :(

[@firedragon04]

I’ve dabbled with blueprints over the years but to such a small degree that it’s been the largest learning curve on this project but I’m getting there now after a few weeks.

[@sleeper_000]

This looks amazing, great job so far! After I finish my current game project I'm also super interested in making a N64 style game like this... I'm a Blueprint programmer, but for me making this kind of art style would be the biggest challenge.

[@rookrac7068]

epic stuff

[@wallnut5312]

absolutely insane, you’re very talented!! (ˋ▽ˊ)

[@AllOuttaBubblegum123]

This is something I would love to do myself. Any chance you might list what programs etc you need to start a project like this. Is it just blender and UE. Great work BTW cheers mate.

[@AllOuttaBubblegum123]

Also the video editors you use. Thanks again.

[@kravataf]

nice

[@longdongsilver3267]

I don't mind a long devlog, but if they're a huge pain to make, then shorten them

[@GrahamOfLegend]

This was a fun one to watch! I have a question / suggestion - you have 4 arms, but all the actions and animations so far treat it a though you only have two. Any plans to do something with that? Cheers!

[@firedragon04]

Lots of plans yeah, I talk about it a lot in Devlog 6 which will release next Friday, but for an idea - some of the ways I’ll utilise the four arms will be in the animations for climbing, weapons he uses, and similar. A good example is in a Zelda game if you pick a box up/are carrying something - you can’t attach anymore but in this game he’d just carry it under one side and you’d still be able to attack but you wouldn’t be able to block. There’s tons of things that will use all four arms, just 2 or even just 1 depending on the action.

[@GrahamOfLegend]

@@firedragon04 excellent!!! Can't wait to see it. Also, it's crazy how consistent you are with these. Respect it.

[@firedragon04]

@@GrahamOfLegend much appreciated. I’m working on Devlog 7 at the moment. Got 5 ready for this Friday and 6 for the following Friday all scheduled and ready to go. I’ve managed to get sick twice (just flu) between Devlog 4 and 7 though which has put me back a bit.

[@GrahamOfLegend]

@@firedragon04 even with getting sick, you're still ahead!!! Very impressive 👏🏽. Taking notes haha. Hope you're feeling better now!

[@Visigoth_]

It's cool seeing your progress... *BUT!* Why not just make all four sides of the "blocks" intractable? And giving blocks such large colder boxes is weird! It just has an invisible barrier (not immersive!!!). If the player pushes a box flat against something that blocks their ability to get on that side they can still access at least one side, and then they just have to "pull it back" if they want to push it from the blocked side).

[@firedragon04]

I was having problems where if you pulled it into something you’d then get stuck in the wall/clip through it. Pushing was fine because you could never push it into a position where you’d glitch it out like that but when I implemented pulling it did create the aforementioned glitch so I added those collision boxes either side so you couldn’t ever pull it flush against a wall and then cause you to glitch through the geometry.

[@Visigoth_]

@@firedragon04 ah. You could try having a collision box only active on the active side (where the player "grabs"), so it's switched off and on by the player's interactions.

[@Bee_Mavrick]

How do you do the transitions for dungeons?

[@bobalinx8762]

Would you know how to make a Dreamcast/128-bit-styled game?

[@99brickstudios]

Are there ways to support you?

[@firedragon04]

Not at the moment, it’s all self funded/supported currently. If there’s enough people interested in some sort of support platform for the game then I may make a Patreon or something similar down the road.

[@gontsekganyago4079]

Because the theme of this area is aline, how about you let the cubes float in the air?

[@SimonSlav-GameMakingJourney]

Do you even sleep?

[@firedragon04]

Sometimes too much tbh.

[@StanleyKubick1]

super impressive, but why does the character have 4 arms when he never uses them? just seems like they're superfluous

[@firedragon04]

Because I've been making the game for a few weeks and haven't implemented all the features and probably won't until about Devlog 50+. I have tons of plans for the arms and how they'll be used, from weapons, animations and more that will incorporate them more. The development of the game is still so early and I'm just implementing features currently but in the future when I polish the game and dive deeply into its systems, you'll see those arms all being used more.

[@firedragon04]

Devlog 6 (next Friday) goes over some other uses for the arms and Devlog 5 tomorrow teases some of the four armed use at the end of the video too.

[@dup4life]

are u gonna redo the animations? personally they don’t fit the aesthetic. cool video

[@firedragon04]

All the animations are temporary yeah, just using basic ones while I build out the features and stuff. The game will look and feel quite different when it’s done, this is all still early stuff.

[@dominosnostradamus2415]

Yo make a finished game it doesn't have to be long.

[@nise6148]

wow