Before I start working on my first game

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

Hello, so I am a university student and decided that in my free time I would like to develop a game. I have read alot in the last few days and decided that for my idea, UE4 might be the best, and now I’m looking to get some courses off of Udemy or some tutorials to start learning, but I don’t know which way to go : C++ or blueprints.

I know this questions has been asked and answered many times, but most of the answers are “what suit you”. So I would like for someone to tell me what suits me and the type of game I’m making? Here are some details:

-First of all I have some C experience ( not big projects, probably nothing over 1000 lines ) and some Java experience ( same as C, not big projects, but decent enough to understand OOP and Java concepts)

-I have no idea yet how the blueprint system works.

-I would like to finish the game in 2 years at most, as a solo developer.

-My game would be a 3D puzzle, where every level seems connected with each other ( like I’m in a room, I solve a puzzle and the door opens, I go through it and there is the next level), but I don’t think I could just put all the levels in the world at once cause that would probably cause some meory issues (?)

-If my levels aren’t all rendered at once, and let’s say I only render the level I am currently in and the next one, could I implement something like this with the blueprints: Let’s say I’m on level 1 and I write some steps on a piece of paper. Although level 4 is not yet existing in the world, once I get there I would like for an object in my level 4 to be spawned not at it’s original location, but at the position that I wrote on the piece of paper at level 1( which by now should not exist in my world anymore)

-How hard is to implement physics with blueprints. Not just general physics, but let’s say something like wind.

2

Blueprint and C++ work hand in hand so you will need to learn both at some point. You can make a game only knowing Blueprints but some things are going to become spaghetti. Especially math problems. Those you could create in C++ and expose to Blueprints. Even if you are really good at C++ it would take you a long time to understand the code base Epic has created. There is a lot of code to get your head around so avoiding Blueprints is also a poor idea since they let you do things rather quickly and is the ideal prototyping tool.

3

Have you ever make a complete game? If not, then before going all down the rabbit hole, you should try to make a few simple games in order to learn the engine and to establish your workflow. Otherwise, you may end up stuck so many times that you will start hating your project and probably give up.

All you the points you presented can be done in BP. General physics in BP is relatively easy. However, the wind physics depends of the caracteristics of the wind and on what exactly you want to achieve with it, that is, its effect in the world.

4

This statement may or may not apply. Because the game principle sounds pretty simple and makes it easy to close, and all the genres of relevant mechanics are natively integrated into UE4.
2 years for a game is a lot of time in which one can work very well on a game and grows with the challenge.
But to spend several months on a “little simple game” that is actually out of the game to test certain scenaries may not be worth the effort in all situations.
Anyway, this example does not sound as ambiguous as 70% self-development here in the forum.
The approach with the tutorials is very good, i do not do that either, definitely recommend Udemy for c ++ tuts, as new from Epic ones are in planning.
In the end it is possible to keep the entire game in BP’s, which differentiates depending on the application, but there are already some discussions about pros and cons, maybe just reading in there, can not make any more stupid.

5

Yes, I agree. But I wasn’t talking about little games that take months to make. A simple Invaders type of game, with blocky graphics and UI, would be more than sufficient. The important part, is to make it with everything: gameplay, UI, transitions, intro and end game, …

If he can’t finish even a simple little game like Invaders, then how can you expect him to finish a game that would take years to finish?

Appearances are deceiving. His game principles look simple, but so does the game principles of Portal.

6

Surely.
Nobody can relieve him of the decision, only learning by doing clears the answer.

7

Personel my first games there simply as possible. All playable throug the console shell win32.