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Is it possible?

Community General Discussion
#1

Hello!

I downloaded UE4 because I’ve always been somewhat interested in game development, but never seriously. It’s not my field of study, or anything to do with my current career.

I don’t know any programming languages, or how to code at all, or texture, or animate, or model. Basically I am useless at this point in time.

HOWEVER. There’s an old game called Black & White which I absolutely LOVE. This game blew my mind when I was a kid and has always had a place in my heart.

There has never been a game quite like it.

I would love to make a game similar to this myself.

For those unfamiliar with the game, you are a God and you play as a floating camera basically. You get a creature which grows over time, as well as learns over time through a reward / punish system. The creature has a mind of its own and will wander around and do whatever. It might eat a villager. It might notice they are building and try to help somehow. It might break houses, or eat people, or throw its own feces into the village store, poisoning everyone.

You can reward or punish these actions, as well as directly try to teach the creature how to do things with a type of learning leash. It learns and remembers over time to shape into the creature you’d like it to become.

Is it possible to create a complex entity like this within UE4 without any manual c++ (or whatever) programming? I have only just scratched the surface of the UE4 Learning Centre and have only just had a brief introduction to the Actors programming through that sort of visual hierarchy looking system. The one you use to create a glowing torch Actor in the tutorials.

I don’t know if I would be able to learn that kind of programming in my spare time if I wanted to undertake a project on my own like this. It’d take me a decade lol.

If I wouldn’t be able to make the game using some sort of visual, block, component type of programming then I might as well just let go of my ideas right here and now :frowning:

Any input

Thanks!

#2

Of course it’s possible, but if you have no development experience then you’re not going to be able to do it, if you want to do a project you’re going to have to do something much smaller.

#3

I was planning on continuing to learn in small steps as I go along. I just wanted to know if it’s possible to make complex things in UE4’s blueprints visual scripting system :slight_smile:

#4

It’s impossible to make any game in any “engine” without performing some level of programming.
You will be programming instructions in a way or another if you want your game done.

When you learn art, you must be familiar with “Art Fundamentals”.
Programming is the same, you cannot skip the fundamentals, won’t work; You have to learn all the principles, what a variable is, what is a function, what is a class, etc etc, and you must learn how to think like a computer at least superficially if you want to make a game all by yourself.

#5

Its POSSIBLE…

If you can find a working creature from the marketplace that you like… Along with enough custom animations for what you need… Then, if you pair the creature with a Kit such as the ABK from @CoquiGames, you could be off to a strong start. Jorge may even be open to any future suggestions you have to tweak ABK etc.

But the moment you say…

No, I don’t like any of those creatures, I want to design my own from zero. Or, I don’t like that behavior system, I want to design something completely different, then you’re into a whole world of hurt. Not C++ torture, but still Drag & Drop programming and 3D design. However, there are lots of projects floating around from the Marketplace to Community Tools that will help. Working from a top-down perspective will definitely help (since you don’t have a background in game dev).

BTW:
B&W was another of Peter Molyneux’s lies… He sold it as if it was was some kind AI Pet today. For sure the game was pretty, but it was hardly revolutionary. Did that stop Molyneux overselling it? Of course not… :stuck_out_tongue: