A big hello to fellow UE4 developers from Maximus Arts! My name is . Incidentally, I am also an indie developer and aspiring petrolhead. We are prototyping an open world driving and transport simulation game using UE4, and wish to share our progress with this amazing community! First, a brief overview:
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A little background:
Being a car-guy at heart, I have always dreamt of playing a fine driving game. But I got tired of superficial functionality, tricked out animations and rubber band AI in most racing games I played. And I really hate it when there’s just a polygonal plane on the underside of a vehicle with a slapped on undercarriage texture. I do not blame the logic behind it; I just do not like it. Besides, there is no lack of racing games in our industry.
So instead I opted to develop my own game where I could develop and instill an incredible amount of detail that isn’t just ‘simulated’. We would be able to see the impacts of the detail in gameplay. I chose the genre to be a simulation because simulation games are amazing time-sinks and teach us all a thing or two about entrepreneurial skills, cheats and trainers aside.
Anyway, I am developing this project entirely using blueprints for rapid prototyping purposes, since I am not entirely proficient in C++. Thanks to Epic Games’ incredible initiative, it has given me an amazing amount of intuitive insight in visual scripting. I am also aware of the limitations, but there are plenty of workarounds that get the job done. This wonderful community has seen to that. 
The prototype is currently in a very early stage (call it pre-raised-to-n-alpha where n is any positive non-zero integer, if you will). I am using outsourced art from some very talented friends and partners to get the systems up and ready. It’s much better to look at than programmer art and it allows me to predict any limitations or problems in the art pipeline further ahead of the full development. Better be prepared, correct?
The Project
In its current state, we have the following things ready:
- A playable prototype with almost completed basic gameplay;
- Advanced character and vehicle control system with both FPS and TPS cams implemented;
- Basic economy system;
- A fully functional gas station / vehicle refuelling system;
- A self-aware warehouse with about 36 different shelves for various goods. It keeps track of its inventory and restocks itself at predetermined intervals which can be programmed to depend on world events. [Video coming soon] We’ve also used nested array of structs containing nested arrays of structs. Such fun!
- Basic AI spawn system for crowd generation;
- An extension of the ‘Urban City’ level pack from the marketplace to test things out. One of our partners, Impulse Technosoft Private Limited are hard at work with environment art and level design to make the Urban City level a very happening place.
- A choice of female or a male protagonist;
- And many more things which would be out of scope of this initial thread post.
Enough text babble, gimme some graphics!
Okay, okay! Here goes:
Advanced character and vehicle interaction system:
Advanced vehicle animation system
What next?
Well, there are some obvious bugs and glitches in the animations. But the systems are firmly in place, tested and working! 
This is just the tip of the iceberg. We have many more gameplay elements waiting to be showcased in the updated thread so stay tuned and frosty! We might cook something up for christmas besides cookies! 
Signing off - my best regards, season’s greetings and happy holidays everyone!