Hi guys
My name is Mike, I am primarily a 3d artist, but want to take on an actual gamedev project in Unreal and learn a little bit of blueprints along the way. I’ve decided on something I THINK should be relatively achievable.
I want to recreate the 1990’s handheld Barcode Battler handheld system as a mobile game. It was a flawed device but with a good premise. It was marketed as a gaming handheld, but was really more like a tabletop RPG, complete with monster manual, and an electronic device to handle the numbers. It was clunky and hard to operate. I want to recreate it as close as possible, but in a modernised, more playable form on mobile.
MY EXPERIENCE LEVEL
I am primarily an artist – 2d, 3d, and making environments in Unreal. I have a teeny bit of coding experience – I made a few very simple c# games in unity years ago, and a simple clicker game in Unreal blueprints recently. I understand basic concepts like variables, branches, functions.
What am I trying to create:
A MENU BASED GAME
No 3d models or anything like that. It will mostly be like a very simple, menu driven turn based combat system. One player versus one enemy. Player stats improve as you win battles. There will be player stats, inventories, bestiarys etc too.
A DATABASE (?) OF ONE TIME ENEMIES
The original game had you fight a series of 120 enemies divided across 4 zones. Once you killed an enemy, they were dead. Random enemies held keys – collect 3, and you could head to the next zone (whether all remaining enemies were defeated or not).
A BARCODE SCANNING MECHANIC
The big selling point of the original machine – it allowed you to swipe barcodes from products, which would then have an algorithm determine if they were weapons, items, new characters or even new monsters to fight.
WHAT I NEED HELP WITH:
Basically everything lol, but specifically -
MONSTER DATABASE
– I plan to make a struct and data table with monsters and their stats. Is that the best approach? Data tables are Read Only, correct? So I cant have an ‘Is Dead’ boolean in the data table to just toggle after a fight. How do I then track and save which enemies are alive? And how do I assign 3 random enemies per world to have keys?
- Do I make a modular ‘enemy’ blueprint that loads for every fight, but takes its stats from the appropriate line in the data table?
- I plan to have a widget UI grid where you pick the enemies you fight, which then grey out when the enemy is defeated. Again – whats my best way to set up and track that?
BARCODES
– I don’t necessarily need an actual camera based Barcode scanner. (Is there any such plugin?)
But can I have it that player enters a random 12 digit number into a text box, and run algorithms on that?
So for example, take the first few digits to determine if its a weapon/character/monster, then the next few digits to determine stats, etc.
Can I separate out digits, combine them, reverse the order, etc? If so – how?
INVENTORY
- There is a set list of weapons and items from the original game. These adjust attack stats, heal hp etc. – again, do I use a data table and draw on these values during combat?
- New items/weapons from the barcode system – how do I store these? Best to use a separate table than the default items?
I’m sure I will have many other questions as development progresses, but these are the first things I think I need to solve, and cant seem to find any relevant youtube videos. I appreciate any help you guys can offer!
Mike.