Kieran Cooksley

Technical Designer

Real Time Tactics

Role
Sole Developer

Made With
Unreal Engine 5
Blueprints

Timespan
9 weeks
2 Jan '24 - 01 Mar '24

Control two characters, utilise stealth & synergise abilities to clear enemies, remain undetected and escape occupied territory!

Project Goals

Implementation of Advanced AI with AI Perception to perceive and react to visual & audio stimulus
Development of common Real Time Tactics mechanics such as unit movement, abilities, & stealth and awareness.

Key Responsibilities

Prototyping new mechanics to ensure systems are bug-free and gameplay is smooth & intuitive
Troubleshooting & Bug Fixing issues, especially regarding AI perception & behaviour
Development of accompanying Technical Design Document with included technical diagrams & charts

Tools Used

Unreal Engine 5

The primary engine used for development

Microsoft Office

Project Management & Documentation

Inspirations

War Mongrels

Shadow Tactics

Company of Heroes

Commandos

Desperados

Documentation

Technical Design Document Download

Class Diagrams

Class Diagrams were used to plan out the layers of inheritance in various systems.

This helped me understand exactly what variables are required for each class and where I can inject them into the inheritance system to take advantage of parent/child relationships and optimise development.

Flowcharts

Flowcharts were created to plan out system functionality by visualising the flow of execution.

The flowcharts I created during development were essential as they helped me understand how these systems should be built, greatly speeding up the prototyping and construction stages of development.

Communication Diagrams

Communication Diagrams visualise how systems & blueprints communicate with each other to produce functional gameplay.

A high-level diagram was created to show initialisation of core systems & managers and each systems also has its own communication diagram to show what components are required to achieve its functionality.

AI Behaviour Diagrams

Diagrams were created to represent the AIs behaviour tree, showing the various composite nodes, tasks, and decorators/conditionals that make up the AI behaviour system.

Development Shots

A few development screenshots showing the project in various states from early rapid prototyping to final development & polish.

Unit Selection & Movement was the first and most fundamental feature that required implementation

Melee abilities were developed with unique animations, cursor decals, and audio ranges. Enemy Line of Sight & awareness level is visualised with the Line of Sight Plugin.

Enemies with basic patrol path behaviour was then implemented to begin developing the Enemy AI.

Visual Detection, Response, and Chase Mechanics were then implemented. (Although at this stage, the enemies had the object permanence skill of a newborn)

Audio distraction abilities & AI Audio stimulus were developed for greater gameplay control.

Enemies react differently based on the audio emitter. Some distractions will only get their attention for a while, whereas other distractions will elicit an investigation.