Overview
Conduit demo was conceptualized and produced over a 3.5 month period using Unreal Engine 5.2 (C++ and Blueprints), GitHub, Blender, and Wwise by a team of 7 developers. Conduit is a combat and narrative driven roguelike game; where players can explore randomly generated levels and empower souls to overcome the hardships of their human experience...and eventually, your own.
Highlights
A series of protypes were create during the ideation phase to determine feasibility and viability. The Game Designer and Engineer had created a roguelike shooter with random level generation. I had rapidly prototyped a series of simple combat AI and attacks (melee, shooter, mage, etc.). The two prototypes were eventually combined into what became Conduit.
Once preliminary game design document was released, there was cross-functional collaboration to synchronize tasks and prevent bottlenecks between verticals. I discussed with the Game Designer and Engineer to determine required features, systems, and mechanics for full release. Worked with Product Manager to ensure tasks were translated into milestones and sprints on JIRA. All tasks were assigned priority to allow for triaging based on scope or accrued debt.
I setup the base project in Unreal Engine and GitHub; and managed both throughout the lifetime of project. To streamline the process of working with the engine for the team, I created batch scripts to automate the build and rebuild of C++ files. I worked with the Audio Designer and Product Manager to integrate and test Wwise for Unreal Engine. Briefly held a tech session to walk the team through using the batch script, using GitHub on their local machine, and starting the engine.
I utilized Unreal's Behavior Trees to create enemy and companion AI for the game. The companion AI is very simplistic and simply follows the player when a condition is met. The shooter and melee enemies are just a touch more involved. They have various subtrees, tasks, decorators, and services that ensure switching of states or animations depending on the perception of the player.
Due to time constraints, a dialogue tree plugin was used from the Epic Marketplace (now Fab) and was extended to meet the requirements of the project. The companion AI utilizes the dialogue system to interact and share with the player their story as conditions are being met during gameplay. I also implemented input action controls for both keyboard and gamepad support and game saves.
Credits
Alex Nguyen – Product Manager
Alex Sigalas – Lead Artist
Colleen Alessi – Producer and Artist
Emma Millin – Narrative and Writer
Gabe Stultz – Audio Designer
Jenney Chang – Lead Software Engineer
Marcelo Derek Chabla – Game Designer and Engineer
Alex Sigalas – Lead Artist
Colleen Alessi – Producer and Artist
Emma Millin – Narrative and Writer
Gabe Stultz – Audio Designer
Jenney Chang – Lead Software Engineer
Marcelo Derek Chabla – Game Designer and Engineer