The last few days have been focused on the core gameplay mechanics. Setting up a proper foundation for a large scale game is critical to save hundreds of hours of rework later on when you inevitably realize that something you built needs to be refactored. I have experienced this personally and professionally at enterprise scale and that understanding has led me to appreciate and value a solid architecture early in development. As an indie dev I cannot risk needing to spend hundreds or thousands of hours on anything but innovation and creativity. For this reason I have spent the entire week focused on that strong foundation and core code to create a scalable, modular system that will support my vision for the game.
Needless to say, I have been sailing a sea of the unknown.
This required a deep understanding of Unreal's Gameplay Ability System (GAS) and setting up many core components to leverage this framework. While it took many hours, getting this system in place will pay huge dividends when the game is live, particularly the multiplayer side of the equation. Unreal poured thousands of dev hours into engineering the system and rather than reinvent the wheel, I felt it crucial to get intimate with the system and build my game on its core principles.
As a side note, I wanted to remark on the journey thus far. I have been developing the game for about 8 weeks now and I am hitting a key milestone in my progress. I am getting into the part of the game where I have hit major roadblocks in the past when creating original game ideas. The crossroads where my ideas meet my technical and programming limitations that require me to dive quite deep into areas that I would consider my weakest technically. I've been an artist since I could talk. I fell in love with instruments and music at a very young age. I stand by the concept that unended curiosity and passion for what you are chasing is a requirement to realizing massive dreams. To achieve the seemingly impossible goals like mastering an instrument or building your own interactive world would be a lifetime achievement worthy of praise. I have been dedicating myself to learning new information every day and challenging myself to stay uncomfortable my game's development. It is forcing me to push through problems I've cowered from in the past. It has changed my outlook on difficult concepts that prevented me from building this game in the past. I've thrown myself into this process knowing that I will forge my vision in the fire and come out on the other side with something I can be proud of. I love to learn and this journey pushes me outside of my strongest skillsets into an unknown ripe with rewards for those that persist.
With that said, here is a list of the big leaps made this week towards Anduraen's existence:
Created player state class
Created custom game mode
Enabled Gameplay Abilities System (GAS)
Added GameplayAbilities, GameplayTags, and GameplayTasks modules
Added Ability system component & attribute set to player state & enemy class
Setup multiplayer replication mode for characters and enemies
Setup the Init Ability Actor info
Implemented attributes into the attribute set
Setup rep notifies for multiplayer
Setup attribute accessors
Setup effect actor base class
Implemented custom delegates for overlapping components
Established the game UI architecture
Stubbed out UI widget base and child classes
Created health potion pickup
A powerful system is starting to emerge. I am writing more C++ code than I ever have in my life and the language is becoming more familiar with every build. I am enjoying the control, flexibility, and strict nature of the language. It has pushed me to understand modularity, encapsulation, and great coding practices at a much deeper level. I feel like I've gained 10 levels this week alone.
The grind is tough but I am starting to reap the benefits of the dedicated hours spent letting myself fail, learn and grow.
Cheers,
Vinny
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