Third Person Shooter Development Update 2: Mechanics, Pause Menu and Preparing for Animation

An update on my current progress, my main focus right now has been to get everything working mechanically in game alongside modelling and rigging a playable character. The quicker I get this done the quicker a playtest can go out. I'm hoping to get the first playtest out by either Wednesday or Friday. But anyway what's been done?

Haste Style & Strike Style Movement & Mechanics

Firstly I started to work on how I think the game should play and how I want the player character to move around the game's environment.

Haste Style

Haste Style & Strike Style have movement speed differences, Haste Style you move a lot quicker and if you hold down the right trigger on a controller you can sprint and move even quicker.

While in Haste Style you can jump and double jump. If you press the B button in mid air you will slam towards the ground, which will be used to break objects and as an attack.

This straight lunge forward will be a mid air punch that will knock enemies away. It will also be used to smash through breakable walls. If you use this move on the ground it will instead be a short ranged punch which you can combo into a 2nd and 3rd punch.

Holding down the left trigger in midair will activate the characters hover boots.

Strike Style

Holding down the right trigger during Strike Style will cause the player to shoot with their weapon, right now this is shown in game as a line trace.

Some target practice to check hit events. When a bullet hits an enemy they will take damage until eventually being defeated

AI

Not dabbled in AI before so as a start I've got some simple AI behavior patterns working that can be used for some enemies.

Chase AI is a pawn that attempts to follow the player wherever they go.

Patrolling AI goes from one target point to another. I can freely customise where the target points are and how many of them there are. In the example above there are only two target points, however I can add more to allow the pawn to patrol a larger area.

I forgot to record footage of it (you can see it in the background of the chase AI GIF) but I also made a random location AI where they randomly move to a spot every 2 seconds within a large area.

Pause Menu

I also added a pause menu to the game that will show certain game stats as well as provide the player with other options such as viewing the level map, checking their equipment, checking item info and quitting the game.

Pause Menu Mockup in Photoshop

Pause Menu in-game

HUD

Lastly I did some HUD work involving getting a working health and armor bar along with the strike style crosshair and the currency counter.

Modelling the Player Character & His Weapon

Along with the unreal engine work I have finished modelling what the player character will look like. He's ready to be rigged and animated.

Here is the gunblade weapon that he will use. 

 And that's everything, now I've got to rig and animate the character, put his animations in game and get the game ready for a quick playtest.