Project Details
Engine and Tools: Unreal Engine 5 | GitHub
Team Size: 5
Duration: 14 weeks
Roles: Gameplay Engineer, AI Programmer, UI Programmer
Itch Page
Game Overview
Violet Steele is a third-person action adventure stealth game set in the steampunk country of Novellia. Once a peaceful and flourishing country, Novellia is now under a hostile takeover by the Hex Alliance due to the abuse of robots fueled by the revolutionary invention of electricity.
Play as Violet, the only citizen of Novellia who knows the truth: her father is the engineer who invented electricity, and he was killed by the Hex Alliance for his desire to share his discovery with the people to better their standard of living. Embark on a dangerous mission to infiltrate the Hex Alliance headquarters with one goal in mind: retrieve the blueprints and fulfil her late father's final wish. But be warned, ruthless robots lurk around every corner, and the path ahead is fraught with peril.
Gameplay
AI
As the AI programmer, it was my job to create AI that not only acted realisic, but also react to their surroundings accordingly
Each robot uses a behavior tree to determine their actions, by default they will walk around assigned patrol points placed around the map.
They will react to sound and sight, with sight filling a bar above the players head. The bar will fill faster the closer the player is to the robot and once filled, will chase them.
Scan
A problem that we ran into is that players had a hard time finding what objects they needed to/could interact with in each level.
To fix this, I added a post process material that would increase in size when the player pressed their scan ability.
A trace would follow the material and tell any objects that could highlight to highlight a certain color.
Throw
Problem: Players could not effectively use the throw mechanic to distract guards.
Solution: I added a prediction path for the throw mechanic so that players could aim where they wanted and accurately throw the gear.
