Twisty Passages: I submitted a game to Epic Game Jam

Unreal Courses Show
#1

and to download and try it out (Windows 10 64 bit PC, keyboard/mouse)

You are a spelunker who fell through a rock chimney into a dark cave infested with…aliens! Good thing you brought your headlamp and infinite-ammo grenade launcher, like you always do when exploring caves! You quickly find you are not the first, and the last guy to fall in left charcoal markings to navigate by. Essentially one ten-minute level with boss at the end. End screen shows stats and saves best stats for comparison, and lets you restart game or quit. No saved game…if you die you restart. Use Pause menu to quit game (or Alt-F4).

Key bindings are mostly like the Unreal Engine 4 First Person Template:

Jump: space bar or game pad face button bottom or motion controller (L) trigger

Fire: left mouse button or gamepad right trigger or motion controller ® trigger

Reset VR: (untested with VR/HMD!) R or Motion Controller (L) Grip1

Crouch: C

Pause: Escape or Pause or Global Pause or P, any key resumes or click Resume (or Quit).

Move Forward: W or Up arrow or Right mouse button or Motion controller (L) thumbstick or gamepad left thumbstick Y axis

Move Backward: S or Down arrow or Motion controller (L) thumbstick or gamepad left thumbstick Y axis

Move Right: D or Gamepad left thumbstick X axis or Motion controller (L) thumbstick

Move Left: A or Gamepad left thumbstick X axis or Motion controller (L) thumbstick

Turn Rate: Gamepad right thumbstick X axis or left or right arrow

Turn: Mouse X

Look Up Rate: Gamepad Right Thumbstick Y Axis

Look Up: Mouse Y

Move Up (swim mode): Space bar (same as jump)

Move Down (Swim mode): C (same as crouch)

1 Like
#2

Bravo! Creepy music and all! Looks like it would be fun to play. Thanks for sharing. Any feedback you’d care to share about how your game stacked up at the Game Jam?

Brian

#3

Well, I watched the official Epic playthrough on video, and got plenty of feedback as the player griped about everything! “The collisions are messed up! The static lighting isn’t right, just use dynamic! Weird postprocessing effect! No checkpoints, and it was just starting to get fun!” Well, the last was a conscious decision, since I only had two weeks and am too old to skip sleeping (imagine Abe Simpson…ok, not that bad!) and a checkpoint can be tricky, depending on how much state is scattered around the game.The other things…always challenged by Unreal with those kinds of issues. In that small game, I guess I should have just used dynamic lighting, but in anything big, that kills the framerate. After all the griping he said, “great game!” I watched a few other playthroughs, and it was the same deal, a lot of griping followed by “great game!”

#4

Gotcha. I’m just starting to dive into Unreal Engine. How long have you been using it and developing games in general? Thanks for sharing the feedback.

Brian

#5

How long for games in general? depends on what you mean–lousy BASIC games on a Vic 20, since the 1980s. Unreal engine—I started maybe 2 or 3 years ago off and on, but heavily only in the last few months.

#6

Gotcha. Guess I’m just trying to get some realistic idea of how long it takes to become fluent with the engine. For someone like me who doesn’t have much free time with a full time job and 2 kids, I’m just wondering how much time I’d have to put in to even get up to speed.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Brian

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