The Idea
For some reason I decided the game I really wanted to work on was a 2D beat em up. And, after watching Jim Trinka's Auld Da videos; I wanted it to be an Auld Da Game. So after making some basic sprites, and just to clarify; all the assets in the game are placeholder, I got to work on a prototype.Combo System
My first attempt at a combo system didn't quite work. It was rhythm based free-flow combo system like you would find in the Batman Arkham games. Except in two dimensions. After a week of tinkering, it wasn't quite working.So now the Combo is a more traditional button masher. Each input is added to an array of previous inputs, which is then checked against predefined combo arrays. The system itself is complete, but there are only two combos currently. However making a new combo won't require any more coding, only making new sprite sheets for attacks and setting up the attacks in a spreadsheet.
Slow Motion
Slow motion is fun and opens up scope for more enemy types. Implementing slow motion in Unreal Engine 4 is fairly easy. There's a global time dilation variable that effects all actors in the world. Where as each actor has it's own custom time dilation variable. So to get the Auld Da moving at super speed; his custom dilation is set to an appropriate speed (five as max is fairly fast) while the world time dilation is set to one over that value. So every actor moves at one over the Auld Da speed while the player character moves at his normal value. As (1/x)*x is 1.Enemy AI
This is obviously still in very early development. I'm aiming to have 3 or 4 different enemy types that will have different reactions to the slow motion power so you're not just button mashing enemies to death.The nice thing about the behaviour tree system in UE4 is that it slows down in keeping with global time dilation. So the enemy 'brain' slows down in slow motion.
Graphics
The world of Auld Da will be 3D, but the gameplay will be locked to a 2D plane, and all the characters will be 2D sprites. UE4 sprite flipbooks can have materials applied to them. So 2D sprites can still receive 3D lighting information by using normal maps. One again, these are just placeholder assets. The normal maps were created very quickly in crazy bump.
