DEV BLOG 14

Final Post

Intro

I added the animation matinee sequences to the intro scene. Now when you start in your house you hear a scream, upon investigating you will hit a trigger box. This will remove all controller input for the player and an animation will take over where he kicks the door down, sees his wife floating up and through the ceiling (being accepted into heaven) and then as you run towards her to try and help, everything is wiped including the very house you are in so the floor and walls disappear causing you to come crashing to the ground which in turn knocks you out, the the intro credits roll.

GOOD or Evil

I wanted my game to have an ending. Something to work towards. But having a morality system, it seemed a waste not to make the ending different depending on which side of the morality system you had maxed out first.

Being heavily inspired by the acts of god, the perfect alternate endings i thought would be heaven and hell.

I created a mechanic that once level 5 on either the good or evil side is reached then it will open a portal inside the church. Normally players can go through the doorway where the portal is and it is a normal room with loot in. However when one of the portals open, a mesh is rendered in the doorway with a live image of where the portal leads. The cameras update so that it appears you are just walking through the doorway however when you do the character is teleported to where i have set these endings up. This makes it almost seem seamless but there is a slight delay but barely noticeable.

Bad Ending

For the bad ending it is a fire in the centre of the room and when the player gets close enough to the fire the floor will disappear and the player will fall, (as if going to hell). When the player has fallen far enough they will hit another trigger. This will make the scene fade to black and then the bad ending credits will appear.

once the ending text has finished it will load the intro level and upon getting back to the main game, a unique item (A Black T-Shirt in this case)

Good Ending

For the good ending it was very similar. a white room with a cross in the middle. This is to help draw the player to that location. Once they hit a trigger box near the cross then the ending animation will play. This is a basic montage where the character floats up and then rotates to look straight up. The scene then fades to white and the ending text is revealed.

Upon that finishing the game will reload at the intro level inside the house and they can then start the game again. When they get into the main game they will unlock a unique item (A Yellow T-Shirt in this case) only available when finishing the game with the good ending.

nPC - Morality System Test

I created a Non-Playable character that sits near the church and has an animation I created using the unreal engine matinee feature. It animates the character as if in pain/struggling. When close enough a prompt widget will be displayed saying "Press E To Help". Players can then press E to try and help the NPC, however if they do not possess 2 first aid kits then a sound cue will play to help the character understand what the need to help. Once you have 2 first aid kits and press "E" on the character, he will disappear and another sound cue will play with the character thanking you. The alternative here is to left mouse click to send out a ray trace to the character as if attacking him. This will kill the character in 2 successful hits, making him disappear again as if killed and he will drop loot. In this case a flashlight.

Flashlight

I added functionality to the flashlight. It is very basic as it has no animations but gives you an idea of how the hotbar use function can be used for other things than just consumable items. It is a spotlight assigned to the character but hidden on event begin play.

Assign the flashlight to a slot and then when that slot number is pressed the flashlight turns on. PRess it again to turn it off. This really helps when looting the church.

First Aid Kit

I also added functionality to the first aid kit. When assigned to a slot and pressed, 1 is used and 20 health is added to your health bar.

Example shown in NPC Example video above.

The End

and that brings me to the end of this project. I hope you have found it an interesting read and can see the amount of work I have managed to produce. It has been, fun, hard and extremely educational.

Thanks for stopping by,

Dean Hillary