First Time Creating Something In Unreal Engine
Hello guys, I'm Zachariah, aiming to be a game developer and this is first my devlog where I talk about how I made my first horror game in Unreal Engine.
First of all, all I wanna say is, I'm sorry to all the game developers who I talked shit about making such a simple feature. Man when u try to make something for urself, u realize how such a simple feature can be a pain in the ass if u mess up one bit. Anyways I wanna thank u developers for trying ur best to make something.
What I Learned:
So as a beginner the first thing I had to learn is how Unreal works. Took me about a month to learn some basics by watching tutorials on YouTube which I then applied to my game such as:
* Making a Menu System, Pause System and Credits
* A Flashlight System where you can pick it up and turn it on.
* Added some sound effects when hitting trigger boxes. (Even included a jumpscare.)
* Spent 2+hrs just to make a 1 min cutscene XD.
* Spending hours compressing textures as I downloaded 8K textures assets. (Ik I'm an idiot)
The Challenges:
Man, the challenges I had to go through just to change my Character model is something else. I didn't know about rigging and everything so that other models can use the mannequin animations. (FYI I'm really bad at 3D designing or art in general so never even touched blender) Also had to go through a hassle to package the game like downloading visual studios and not installing the files needed to package the game properly and mistakenly not putting my main menu map when I start the game while trying to compress my game files so its below 1gb to upload. Moreover, learning to use butler, configuring path destination and what not was a task in itself so that I could finally upload my game.
What I Made:
It's basically a short horror game inspired from Slenderman the 8 pages where the player has to escape a cursed abandoned village while trying their best to not lose their sanity.
What's Next:
I'm thinking of creating a maze-based horror or adventure game with traps and possible puzzle elements to further enhance my skills in blueprint and custom mechanics.
I hope u guys follow me and my journey to better myself.
Support & Contact:
aymanzakaria47@gmail.com
Looking for work and collarborations.
Thanks for reading
-Zachariah
Files
Get HE SEES YOU
HE SEES YOU
My first short horror game inspired from Slenderman the 8 pages.
| Status | Released |
| Author | Zachariah69 |
| Tags | Horror |
| Languages | English |
Comments
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Fellow game dev (and aspiring horror game dev) here,
First of all, awesome work on putting yourself out there and making something. It's no easy feat making a game and no matter how it turns out you should be proud of your achievement!
I'm a game dev student at university, and have slowly been doing dev with Unity since 2023. I relate to a lot of what you are saying here. Learning an engine is hard, and even years later, you'll be learning new features, techniques, tools, etc. to use. You've even attempted stuff (e.g. cutscenes) that I've never tried!
I felt a lot of self-criticism (and still do) when trying something new, especially if it takes a while for me to do compared to others. For example, in my last game, I tried coding in C# for the first time, and it took me hours just to get basic interaction in a 2D game working. Learning takes a long time, and you'll always be learning on your journey. With practice, you'll become a lot more efficient and fast at what you do.
You sound like you're doing the right things by doing jams and, most importantly, reflecting on the process.
Best of luck with your journey, and feel free to reach out if you ever want to chat about game dev! :D
- Isaac
Thank you so much, it really means a lot.
It's super reassuring to know that others go through the same learning phase cz sometimes I feel I'm lagging behind or not good enough so hearing from someone who's gone further helps a lot.
Never tried cutscenes or animations before so it was a bit wonky at first, so I just messed around till it felt organic. Hence, I can relate to your C# story since I also spent hours trying to get an interactive flashlight system to work XD. So yeah, like u said, it's all part of the process.
Moreover, I've reflected on the mistakes I made on my first project and tried my best not to implement them on my second project which I'm releasing soon. (Today!!)
Would definitely love to stay in touch and chat more about horror game stuff or just game dev in general! What kind of projects are u working on rn?
- Zachariah69
Yeah, it's a constant learning journey. You'll keep learning and realising how far you've come.
Nice work! Congrats on releasing your second game too. Huge achievement, must of been a lot of work!
Right now, I'm just chipping away at the game I made for Scream Forever (nightmare) jam, hoping to make it more functional, polished, and maybe add a few features. Got another shorter jam coming up next week with the same crew, so I'll be a bit occupied with that.
Overall, I'm trying to focus on horror whilst also experimenting here and there with other genres/aesthetics to get a wider design perspective. Also looking to try out game writing (haven't done creative writing in a while) properly.
How about yourself? :)
Thanks a lot! It was a lot of work but comparatively less than my first one since I've learnt from my previous mistakes and made things much simpler. Still tho, learnt that adding more is not always good, just gotta make sure what I do add is perfect.
That's awesome that u're continuing to polish your jam game! Horror is such a fun genre to mess around in and it's cool that u’re mixing in different things to grow ur craft. I think trying out game writing sounds like a great idea too, especially since horror benefits so much with better story writing.
Rn, I'm focusing on making another horror game inspired by The Shining, with long corridors and loops to drive up the atmosphere and fear factor.
Anyways, what theme are u going for the upcoming shorter jam?