Platform Fighter -- Too ambitious for a first game? (Blueprint)

Development Programming & Scripting Blueprint
1

I’ve been playing around with UE4 for a few weeks now, and I think I’m ready to toy around with the game I would like to make. I have a few ideas that I’m working on, but I want the gameplay to be a Side-Scroller/Fighter game (Think “Super Smash Brothers”.)

So far I’ve managed to do a few neat things like:

  • Building a default starting level
  • Adjusting the jumping the way I’d like
  • Adding a double jump
  • Making platforms that disable collision while jumping through them
  • Making an extremely basic AI (make another character chase my character. No jumping yet)

With those complete, I have a few questions about where I should go from here (difficulty-wise):

■ Combat / Health System:

  • Are there any good tutorials out there that explain decent melee/ranged combat for sidescrollers?

■ UI:

  • I’ve found a few tutorials for making menu’s, although they seem to be a little outdated. Any suggestions?

■ Console Controllers(PC):

  • I haven’t seen any mention of support for gaming controllers on PC games. Is this a possibility?

■ Platforms:

  • Is there anything that I should keep in mind when making my game to be platform specific? I was aiming for (some/all) of these: PC, Xbox, PS4, Android.

■ Multiplayer:

  • I imagine this part is going to be the most difficult, but is there any reason why local (1 computer/console, 2 controllers) or internet multiplayer would be unrealistic for a single developer?

Any other suggestions woulds be appreciated. Thanks!

2

fighters are pretty complex actually, so might be a tough first project depending on how picky you are about things. but I wish you good luck in your project. Take it step by step and be patient.

3

I’m fairly new myself to EU4 so I can only confirm controllers work nicely on the pc, I have personally used a xbox 360 controller without issues

4

It is a pretty tall order for a first game. Like Lars said, fighters are more complex then they seem, aside from that, they require a lot of animations, which can get costly if you can’t do it yourself.
Assuming you have an infinite wallet, then your biggest obstacle will be the fighting mechanics, which you may not be able to fully do in just blueprint.

5

Thanks for the replies. I’ve begun working on the game and I agree with the combat being the most difficult part so far. I’m hoping that the UE4 marketplace platformer will be released soon so that I can get some advice from that. I’m not looking for mortal-kombat style attacks, so basic punch, kick, and projectile would be more than enough to satisfy me right now.

For anyone else that might come across this post looking for similar information, I’ve found that:

  • The health system will likely be a lot easier using the new UMG feature in 4.4 than it would be to handle with HUDs.
  • UI - Same as above. There’s a pretty good tutorial video available, plus documentation on using UMG.
  • Console controllers - Pretty easy if you started with a template. See (Edit > Project Settings > Input. And assign gamepad related inputs)
  • Platforms - No idea still, but I’m building around PC mainly, and hoping that I can convert later if it comes to that.
  • Multiplayer - I started playing around with this a bit. I have it to the point that I can spawn and control multiplayer characters at the same time, but there’s still a lot of issues that I haven’t worked out.