What’s going on?
I’m regaining my health slowly. we need to restart our game dev biz, and we decided as a team we are doing unreal engine and an rpg action role play multiplayer game. Yes, that’s a bit of a mouthful, but we are going to do it in parts and stages so it’s manageable. We want to build a frame work with all the features we’ve loved from other games, but done our way, and we want the assets to be swap-able. Our goal is to feel a small niche where we keep finding we want to play, but can’t because what we want doesn’t really exist. We want to make it an easy to setup role-play servers that are easy for non developers and no coders to customize and manage. We want the clients to be able to connect and play without difficulty. There’s been a few examples we’ve looked at but in the end they didn’t really meet our needs, or they just didn’t work. So we’ve decided after two years of research, and frustration at not having the games we want to play, we are going to start building our own.
Where have we been?
I’ve been sick for the last 4 years and I’m starting to hit my stride in my recovery. I’ve reached a point where I’m having more healthy days with at least a mid level of energy than bad days. This is a huge change in the quality of life, and brain functions. So with my health on the mend, we are going to start moving forward.
What does moving forward look like?
Well between 4 years of inactivity and illness, I will need a refresher course in all things Unreal. Yes I made 6 different prototype beginner games, and 2 intermediate skill games, before 2020 but really I’m 4 years out of practice, and a full version change has occurred with the engine. It will be faster to purchase a few tutorials and follow them to get moving forward. My partner hasn’t used Unreal and is new to C++ so they will be starting with tutorials as well. In terms of speeding up our learning it’s a good financial and time choice.
What tutorials are you going to be completing?
We will be both be taking the below courses from GameDev.tv. Yes, you can find all the concepts on YouTube for free but you will find that the quality of videos is better over at GameDev.tv. One of my pet peeves with youtube videos, is that they leave steps out, assume you know something, or they don’t zoom in on something you need to see to be able to understand. With GameDev.Tv you don’t have that problem, and there’s a whole community where if you get stuck you can ask for help. They have a great discord server too. Also, GameDev.tv has great Bundles, check those out before you buy individual courses. The bundles are a great price.
Unreal Engine 5 C++ Multiplayer: Make Your Own Co-Op Game
UE5 Action Adventure: Make Your Own Action Adventure Game In Unreal
UE5 Blueprint FPS: Make Your Own First Person Shooter In Unreal!
Unreal Blueprints: Make Epic Games With No Coding
Unreal 5 Stealth Combat: Make Stealth Games in UE5 Blueprint
In the category of a refresher of the language and for my partner starting from scratch we have this course.
UE5 C++ Developer: Code Your Own Unreal Games
C++ Fundamentals: Learn Game Programming For Beginners
On the project management side of things we are taking.
Indie Game Success Roadmap Course
Finish It! – Tools & Techniques For Staying Motivated & Productive With Game Dev
Most of these courses if you dedicate 2 hours a day to it, you can finish a course in a week. We will likely be skipping around as we are building smaller prototypes of our dream game, so we can learn more about the mechanics, and the engine. I’m building the multiplayer rpg version. My partner is building the multiplayer first person prototype. In 3 months we will publish what we have completed. Then in the next 3 months we will combine those two games together, and add in the stealth combat features. Then publish that version. Then from there we will take 3 months to build any additional features we want to add for the role play supports. Examples features are running your own stores, crafting, farming, etc.
If you want to join us on our projects journey we will be streaming on twitch, discord, and youtube. We will be publishing blog updates, and posting to social media pages.
Enjoy! Happy Gaming.