I’ve never built a game before but been working on learning Unreal Engine for about 6 years and dabbled with writing the code as the basis for a game. I am a web developer by profession so coding is something I’m very comfortable with. I love playing videos games especially online ones with my brother. He and I have tons of game ideas but most are so grand that who knows if they will ever be realistic.
For one reason or another the past few years I’d get really into building a game and then something in life would derail me but I keep coming back to this. The game I wanted to build has evolved over time with me getting more realistic and less grandiose.
The most recent incarnation is a fantasy role-playing game and in May with the release of this asset pack by Synty Studios https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/polygon-fantasy-kingdom I began my journey.
I had everything I needed to began: a game concept; plenty of art assets to build a medieval environment; sound effects, visual effects, and music to help bring it to life; basic animations to make the characters alive; and a RPG kit made by another author on the Unreal Marketplace https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/superior-rpg-kit.
Despite being in the middle of a worldwide pandemic my creativity was starting to flow and in fact the pandemic helped. As many businesses were impacted by COVID-19 so was the one I work for and we ended up working reduced hours for several months over the summer. During that time I had longer weekends and a couple weeks off at 4th of July, so progress got off to a really solid start.
Now it’s into September and I usually take a nice long weekend for Labor Day and head down to DragonCon but not this year. As was happening all over that convention was cancelled and I had no desire to be surrounded by thousands and thousands of people jammed into small spaces waiting in line to see a panel about one of our favorite TV shows. Instead I stayed home and worked on this game.
And what progress I made! But before I jump into sharing that progress I should back up and give you more background on this game concept I have.
The game will be a fantasy RPG set on an earth-like planet but not on Earth itself. That will allow me to mix and match themes and only have to worry about whether the tech in a pack makes sense not whether a style matches. I already have ideas for a pirate cove and a viking area in the mountains near the coast. I don’t know what I’m naming this game so for now I’m referring to it as “The Kingdom”.
To stay realistic I am keeping the scope small and focusing on the game world just being inside the castle walls.
Now to show you how it’s shaping up…
That’s the highlights! It was a fun weekend working on all this!
Social Profiles