Hello! Thanks for reading.
Now, first things first. I think I made it pretty clear in the title, but when it comes to game development, I really am a rank amateur. I’ve done a bit of messing about with UE4, but only recently have I started making an effort to learn Blueprints and the basics of creating actual game elements, so the whole thing is a learning experience for me. I’m hesitant to create a thread here amongst so many others by talented, accomplished programmers and artists (I see Lost Soul Aside has a thread… that thing looks amazing), but I figured this might be a good way to track my progress and to motivate myself to keep at it. Also, it might be a good way to get advice and feedback, and perhaps to encourage noobs like me to give this game dev thing a go.
Anyway! Here’s a video of what I’ve got so far.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ueELFkKuKk
The character models are just placeholders taken from Fuse and animated with Mixamo. Character design is definitely the thing I’m worst at, so it’s not my priority at this point. Mainly I just wanted to figure out how to import models and handle basic animations. One of the appeals of the turn-based RPG style is the fact that animations can be pretty basic - nothing really has to interact in complex ways.
The static meshes are mainly taken from free sample projects on the UE4 marketplace - I’m sure people will recognise the Infinity Blades and Kite Demo assets. The textures come from a variety of free sources.
Obviously I have not yet paid any attention to the appearance of the menus - I’ve only started working on getting them functional in the last few days, and I’m still very much in the process of learning how they should work. The battle system has just been cobbled together in the best way I could figure out, but the more I learn the more I’m realising that I’ve gone about it in totally the wrong way and it’ll probably need completely changing.
Oh, and there’s no music or sound - that’s something I’m not even close to thinking about at this point!
My goal at the moment is to have the core battle, inventory and character stats systems fundamentally working within the next few months. Honestly, I think even that may be optimistic - I have soooo much to learn, and learning for me is a slow business. A longer term goal is to have a small but polished playable section of the game up and running by the end of the year. And from there? Not sure, but I guess I’ll have to decide if I want to keep working on this, or start again on something new using the skills and knowledge I’ll (hopefully) pick up while working on this. But who knows…
Well, thanks again for reading. Hopefully I’ll update once or twice a month, but my motivation is always fragile at best. Regardless, any and all constructive feedback is appreciated. Just… remember that I’m a noob 
I’ll definitely need luck, but I’m also having fun, so… it’s all good!