Help with a low poly RPG, is it doable?

Hey guys,

hope to find some advice here. I’m an artist and i love drawing. But since years and years i wanted to create a video game. I have many ideas, but since i haven’t a whole team i have make the 3d models low poly and not photo realistic cause that will save me time. I have created simple tutorial games in unreal and it’s funny and i like it. But the problem is, i don’t know if it’s managable for one person to create a concept inside this engine.

  1. the time
  2. to get the neccessary know how (cause i don’t know if there is a tutorial for any of the features i like to implement, and I don’t expect to find one for any of these.
    The 3d models and textures are not the most time consuming thing. I’m relativly experienced in blender and environment is not the problem. characters will be a little struggle but i will get it.

To show that i have a concept, here is what i need:

-Third person camera (check)
-Lock on system (it works, but haven’t find a tutorial yet)
-Combat System similiar to Dark Souls/The Witcher 3 (but i don’t wanna compete with them or let it look exactly like this) Exact hit system is the important thing…
-Changeable weapons and armors (not many, not out of the inventory)
-Unarmed fight/Fight with weapon change
-I don’t need a quest log, but something like world events happening, influenced by the player
-I need an inventory, but only defined slots, one for item x, one for item y, one for item z. If they are blocked, no other item can be added and the player has to drop sth, or slots that can be used only for a single item in game, that is available only once.
-system that gives my player the ability to take weapons directly from the ground and start fighting with it.
-Vendor System, buy items for the inventory slots for x amount of Gold/whatever
-Looting System from chests like in Zelda

(Optional, i don’t know if it’s doable and if it’s not to much)
-Jumping/Climbing System
-Riding System

For the 3d models i’m doing concept arts right know but i don’t know if it is doable for me alone at all :frowning:

I know your answers: you can’t do it under 20 years. It’s frustrating.I got all this ideas but i can’t get them into a game. And no one can help cause the half of the community base don’t even know how to do all this things for themselves cause it seems so complicated to evolve all this “video game standards” from scratch.

But any tips? Any suggestions how it can be realized?
Is another egnine eventually better?
Are there tools to save time? I will be ready to spend money on this solutions cause i want to bring my ideas on screen!
If it is not doable, i will break down, cry, and begin to sell my models in the engine asset stores and hope that some other people can create something cool with it. XD

Thanks @ all people who can answer me :slight_smile:

Hi, and welcome to the community! So, to answer your question, is a low poly RPG doable? Absolutely. Will it be easy? Well based on your list of features you would like to implement, no it will not be easy.

To try and answer some of your questions:

-Third person camera (check)

I believe Unreal Engine comes with a 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] person template. I would suggest opening that up and investigating the code behind it to see how it works.

-Combat System similar to Dark Souls/The Witcher 3 (but i don’t wanna compete with them or let it look exactly like this) Exact hit system is the important thing…

This a lone will take you many hours of learning, implementation and testing. It will not be easy and it isn’t really something you can answer in a forum post.

I don’t really have an answer for all of the features you want to include in your game. I would consider taking a look at the Marketplace to see what they have. Make sure you read the reviews before buying any to ensure they work. It’s possible that as Unreal continues to update that some of the marketplace stuff you buy will stop working. That is a risk you take when buying marketplace stuff. Hopefully the developer updates there stuff. You can at the very least learn from them by analyzing the code/blueprints that drive them. I know some people on the forums like to do that.

My last bit of advice:

  1. Read through ALL of the Unreal Documentation. You may not understand everything at first, but you can ask questions on the forums for clarification.
  2. I personally use a service called Pluralsight (google it). They offer hundreds of online video courses in both making creative content and IT related content. They offer courses in 3D modeling, Sculpting and basic Art and Design Theory (and some Unreal Engine related content). They also have coding courses, which based on the features you are interested in, you will need to understand if you don’t already. Try out the free trial first and see if you think it is for you.

Edit: It’s rather difficult to answer “How to build a game” in a forum post. If somebody did, it would be very long. The best you can do ( I think anyway) , is give somebody the resources to get started. Hopefully this helps.