Brian The Penguin in : It Came From The Skies

G’Day Unrealites,
I am new to UE4, as part of a course I am doing I need to pick an engine and make a mobile game, I chose to do a side scroller in UE4 and I was hoping to get some feedback on my first project from people that know the engine and industry a lot better than I do.

It is pretty simple now and probably won’t get too complicated for the purposes of the assessment, but I plan to keep on working on it after the course to turn it into a full project for release. Most of the assets are temporary and will be refined or replaced, but what is there is a good idea of what I want to end with.

I have built an android version and a win32 version for testing, as well as a not so impressive HTML 5 version, though it still mostly works there it is only for testing anyway.

http://www.drakahn.info/penggamedemo.php Main links are for my home computer in sydney, depending where you are the google drive links may be faster. If I am offline there will only be the google drive links.

So yeah, basically that is it, any ideas, feedback or tips would be wonderful.

Also, on the phone if the player jumps then the character stops walking until the button is let go and pressed again, if there is an obvious fix here I would love to hear it, otherwise I will figure it out I guess.

Keep it Unreal.


Update: I have decided to keep working on this once I have finished the course, when it is finished I plan to have a lot more levels, that are longer, and that cover many different environments (I.E. I was thinking the next environment would be an island one with a turtle boss. )

I also now have started an IndieDB page, I am not good at the marketing side yet but I hope to learn, any tips for any part of the process to becoming someone that can make a living from sole developer or small team game dev, or even asset creation, would be great.

Any further tips to make this current project a successful first game, or even just a good first game, would also be awesome.

Anyone looking for team members for an indie or small game, remember me in a few months when I am free.

Updated to release 4, added dropbox links.

I fixed the control issues by unticking the focusable checkbox in the widget editor.

Some screenshots / videos would help.
Not many people download an executable without such things.

Cheers mate.

Alright, downloaded it anyway.

Cute little game you got there!

Some ideas, besides the obvious work that still has to be done:

  • I don’t like the death screen at all. Maybe some small death animation / delay like in super mario.
  • The collision of the turtle is kinda funky, i was jumping correctly on them but still i’ve died at least 50% of the times
  • Some pickup items to spice up the gameplay (like the mushroom or flower in mario) would be great at a later time
  • ice floors!
  • Level 3 has no end :slight_smile:
  • Replace the high poly trees with something low poly, fitting the characters artstyle
  • Replace the gold “coins” with something different, add more “goal” pickup items (maybe Letters or different coins)

Great start, keep it up!

Fifth demo is uploaded.


Thank you so much.

-The death scene I have in mind is to do something similar to the old crash bandicoot games. With a few different stylised death animations.
-With the turtle, the collision does need some tweaking, you need to jump on its head to kill it, there will be a tutorial level or help screen that explains it later.
-Pickups are a great idea thank you.
-I have a start at slippery ice platforms in the latest version, another good idea thank you.
-It does, it is just after a long empty space, it is still being built.
-Changed them to cartoony sprites, I think it matches the style a lot better, thank you again.
-The coins have cycled through a few different ideas, sitting on shards of the meteor that caused the ice to go crazy (floating platforms and infecting other animals), but will probably change again.

Next version uploaded, it is playable from start to ‘finish’ now, (well, the first boss) Still a bit of work to do on the boss but the scoring system is working and I have added epicleaderboards high scores to it as well.

I think it is actually starting to shape into a game. The boss battle is more of a battle now instead of just avoiding, and there is a minimap and shard counter to help collect all the shards.

Alpha 9 uploaded, Scoring improved, IndieBD page created.

Looks nice, but i would either have painted or realistic graphic style, not mixing both.

Thank you. I am going for a stylised look overall, which parts are too realistic? I am planning on changing the stairs, not sure to what yet.

New environments and enemies.
Map transparency so it doesn’t block your view as much.
New PC interface, less crowded.

Direct download links added.


0.1.2 released, has anyone tested a recent version?

(Still no filter on the name field, go nuts with the high scores)