DEV BLOG 01
PROJECT HAS STARTED!
Today I am officially starting this project. This is my first blog post and yes, the project itself consists of absolutely nothing. The good thing about that though is that it can only advance from here. I will be developing this game in Unreal Engine 4.
So for those of you who still don't really know what Churches is about I thought I could go into some detail in this blog post as well as set some initial goals so you know what is being worked on and the basic plans going forward.
WHAT IS CHURCHES?
No, it is not a church simulator game nor is it extremely religious. I myself am not a religious person. It does however play upon the idea of what would happen in a present day situation if a God like character decided to wipe the earth and start afresh.
I use the story of Noah's' Ark as an example.
We have all heard of it and know the main details. God wasn't happy with how humans were being so violent so set a man named Noah to gather a male and female of every species to seek sanctuary on the ark that he had built. God then drowned out the evil from earth with a massive flood. This left Noah to rebuild humanity again once the water level had fallen.
I want to play on this idea of a greater being, not happy with how his Earth has become a dark and vile place to have another attempt at purifying humanity. Except this time he wants to try a different approach.
So instead of wiping out everyone, he has decided to divide mankind. Those who have been pure, faithful and helped others will join him in heaven. Those who have sinned, been unfaithful and have preyed on the weak will remain on earth. It is then up to them to change their ways and rebuild humanity together, or destroy each other in the process.
However they will not be able to just carry on with their lives like normal. Everything man made, i.e. buildings, machines,electronics, clothes etc will disappear in an instant as if by the click of a finger. The Earth will be reset back to its core beauty of just land, sea and air, pretty much back to the stone age.
The only thing he will leave untouched are the churches. This is his way of giving a sign that this was from forces beyond human nature and an attempt to restore faith in him. Those who didn't believe in him may now have a reason too and in that case may change their ways.
GAMEPLAY
The idea for this game is to be a first person perspective. Be as realistic as possible and give the player moral choices whilst they are playing.
Having these churches means a few things for the player. It gives locations, having unique buildings in a game makes it easier for the player to navigate the scenery. They can learn what is in their surroundings and these churches will act like markers to help them not get lost.
The other reason these churches play a great role is that anything that was inside them will remain. I have the idea of different types of churches. Some could be church camps that offer activities for children or some could even be something like a front for a mob. (Sounds a bit far fetched but just watch John Wick and see how it could be possible).
This in turn gives locations for loot. Players will be able to farm for gear, items, clothing or even weapons and then maybe replicate these by themselves.
Imagine for example a church summer camp. This could contain a lost property box with clothes in, walkie talkies that the leaders use to communicate with each other. Maybe bows and arrows as archery is an activity. Food and drink. Now you can see how many variations of loot could then be obtained from these locations.
These will become highly populated areas which can make them more dangerous. Players can obtain items that can not be crafted and so therefore players will be looking to find and loot these areas.
CRAFTING
I want to offer the player the ability to craft. This means items that have been farmed/looted could be combined together to make newer/better items. This also encourages exploration. If a player can see that there is an item missing to be able to craft something, they are going to explore around and look for it.
PLAYER ATTRIBUTES
Players will have attributes such as health hunger and thirst. I may later implement other ones such as temperature or blood loss to name a few but I am for now focussing on the main ones. Hunger and thirst will deplete over time and when they reach 0, they will start to affect health and maybe stamina too. Players can top these up buy looting/farming different consumables and eating or drinking them.
CONCLUSION
I hope this gives you an idea of what I am trying to achieve here and maybe even peek your interest a little. There will be things I say I want to include that may not work out and as I am constantly developing this, I may also add other things too.
UPCOMING
There are a few areas I want to get up and running as soon as possible. Mechanics and level design being to main 2.
I will start by implementing the following:
Level Navigation
User Interface
Player Character
Terrain
Day/Night Cycle
I will start off by setting up my character. I don't want the default mannequin that comes with unreal engine 4. I will be using either Adobe Fuse and Mixamo to create and animate a character, Or I will be using a rig and arms mesh I purchased and doing basic animations myself. I will try them both out and document them in a future dev blog.
I will also be using a heightmap to generate my terrain and then cleaning it up and editing it in engine. I also want to set up the functionality between scenes i.e. splash screens, main menu, options, level loading and the main level. They don't need to be anything fancy yet but just so that its all in and working would be great.
So this is my plans for the next few weeks. I will document everything I do and release new dev blogs accordingly.
