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Game Engine Rebuild Progress

Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:15 pm
by Wolfschadowe
EDIT - Check the BEW Discord for additional info and dev images: https://discordapp.com/channels/2253380 ... 5204561940

I decided to create a separate thread for this discussion as I've decided it is feasible to re-create the game in Unreal, using real-time rendering. This will allow me to easily add features that aren't compatible with a pure web based game. I'm planning on generating Andriod, IOS, MAC, Linux, Windows and HTML5 builds at this time, but that's subject to change.

In spoiler is a screenshot of the current progress. Looking closely, one of the new features is already implemented. This is very early, and many things like skin and clothes textures are simple somewhat ugly placeholders. It is also a "buildmode" screenshot so you can see hotspots and my XYZW hotspot helper onscreen. Can anyone spot the new feature?
spoiler: show
Keep in mind, everything is in "make it work" status at this point. Later I'll get to the "make it pretty" stage. Kexter did amazing work on making the game look good, and I'm going to try and keep as many of his ideas as possible as I really like the look/feel of the original.

Here are some of my future plans for extra features.
  • Achievements: Sorted and filtered by scene with better understanding of how they relate to each other, especially for Activity and Ending subachievements
  • Save games searchable and filterable by name, Active scene, and active path.
  • Savegame replay (play a save as a kind of mini-movie, or more like auto-drive slideshow)
  • ---hidden, can you spot it---
  • Additional options for displaying info (ie, current path, Show/hide scores)
  • Significantly easier localization (translation) ability using the free POEdit from https://poedit.net/ with a provided file extract. This means new text, or text changes will be automatically found in the tool and presented for translation.
  • Toggle first person/third person view (with one as primary for gameplay and one as secondary option but would have to return to primary for hotspot selections <- this is a maybe)
  • FreeCam option to look around (Maybe... Think go to free-cam, look around, return to game cam to continue)
This list will grow. Feature requests are welcome and I'll see about keeping this post and a reserved post below with information as I progress.

Here is what is working in early stages:
  • Main game UI
  • New game menu UI
  • All Wednesday Office text and game logic
  • Dialogue button and hotspot basic functionality
  • Scorekeeping
  • Camera moves linked to player choice and game logic
  • Scene loading and unloading
Here are major steps that still need to be done from a base functionality standpoint:
  • Main menu full functionality
  • Debug UI
  • Save game UI
  • Load game UI
  • Achievements UI
  • In-Game Menu UI
  • Character move and posing based on player choice and game logic
  • Savegame system
  • Options UI
  • Options save/load
  • Achievement state Save/Load (import/export)
There's a lot more to it, but it's coming along well and I'm having fun with it.

Re: Game Engine Rebuild Progress

Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:16 pm
by Wolfschadowe
Reserved for better info later on whatever...or I may end up deleting this. Also, would It be cheating to say first!?

Re: Game Engine Rebuild Progress

Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2020 1:27 pm
by palinathas
Is that a QuickSave and QuickLoad you are referring to as your new additions??

Re: Game Engine Rebuild Progress

Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2020 3:55 pm
by Wolfschadowe
palinathas wrote:
Sat Apr 04, 2020 1:27 pm
Is that a QuickSave and QuickLoad you are referring to as your new additions??
Nope, those are in the original. I just have placeholder text instead of the current icons. You might have to right-click the image and say "view image in new tab" or download it and view it full-screen to see it.

Re: Game Engine Rebuild Progress

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 1:09 am
by Valerielychee
Is it
spoiler: show
, only visible in a new tab?

Re: Game Engine Rebuild Progress

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 1:11 am
by Valerielychee
Also, isn't the "save draft" feature new in this forum?

P.S.: I wanted to post this message right after the first one, but was unable to because "you cannot make another post so soon after your last". Why is that?

Re: Game Engine Rebuild Progress

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 1:13 am
by Valerielychee
It seems that 2 minutes is considered a long enough time, so... I guess I can wait 8-)

Re: Game Engine Rebuild Progress

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 3:08 pm
by Solent
progress bar or some status indication in a circle around the portrait pictures of the character on top of the screen.

Re: Game Engine Rebuild Progress

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 3:28 pm
by d22249
The circle around the girls at the top of the page shows how many points you have with a girl for that scene and how many you can get in that scene. Nice to see you working on the game again!

Re: Game Engine Rebuild Progress

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 3:37 pm
by Wolfschadowe
Valerielychee wrote:
Sun Apr 05, 2020 1:09 am
the magnifying glass unabling to look closer at a particular spot and then returning to general view
Nope, but that may be a feature I could add.
Valerielychee wrote:
Sun Apr 05, 2020 1:11 am
Also, isn't the "save draft" feature new in this forum?
I haven't made any changes to the forum for a couple years, so whatever is there has been there for some time.
Valerielychee wrote:
Sun Apr 05, 2020 1:11 am
P.S.: I wanted to post this message right after the first one, but was unable to because "you cannot make another post so soon after your last". Why is that?
It's to prevent spammer bot's from posting 200 spam messages in 10 seconds. :)
Solent wrote:
Sun Apr 05, 2020 3:08 pm
progress bar or some status indication in a circle around the portrait pictures of the character on top of the screen.
You got it Solent! The ovals are progress bars.
d22249 wrote:
Sun Apr 05, 2020 3:28 pm
The circle around the girls at the top of the page shows how many points you have with a girl for that scene and how many you can get in that scene. Nice to see you working on the game again!
And d22249 comes in with the detail. The points are based on scene and current path. To avoid confusion I'll likely need to pair the feature with a path indicator. The Wednesday Office scene has the following possibilities for showing points for Emily:
  • Brad Path - Deadbeat - 0 Max
  • Brad Path - Gentleman - 5 Max
  • Emily Path - Emily Main - 10 Max (Canon path)
  • Emily Path - Emily Only - 6 Max
  • Faith Path - FN Main - 3 Max

Re: Game Engine Rebuild Progress

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 8:05 pm
by Valerielychee
What is FN?

Re: Game Engine Rebuild Progress

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 9:45 pm
by JFR
Valerielychee wrote:
Sun Apr 05, 2020 8:05 pm
What is FN?
Faith/Natalie

Re: Game Engine Rebuild Progress

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2020 5:00 am
by palinathas
Wolfschadowe wrote:
Sat Apr 04, 2020 3:55 pm
palinathas wrote:
Sat Apr 04, 2020 1:27 pm
Is that a QuickSave and QuickLoad you are referring to as your new additions??
Nope, those are in the original. I just have placeholder text instead of the current icons. You might have to right-click the image and say "view image in new tab" or download it and view it full-screen to see it.
Well now I feel silly, NEVER noticed them before......

Re: Game Engine Rebuild Progress

Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2020 2:35 pm
by az89
Wolfschadowe wrote:
Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:15 pm
I decided to create a separate thread for this discussion as I've decided it is feasible to re-create the game in Unreal, using real-time rendering. This will allow me to easily add features that aren't compatible with a pure web based game. I'm planning on generating Andriod, IOS, MAC, Linux, Windows and HTML5 builds at this time, but that's subject to change.

In spoiler is a screenshot of the current progress. Looking closely, one of the new features is already implemented. This is very early, and many things like skin and clothes textures are simple somewhat ugly placeholders. It is also a "buildmode" screenshot so you can see hotspots and my XYZW hotspot helper onscreen. Can anyone spot the new feature?
spoiler: show
Keep in mind, everything is in "make it work" status at this point. Later I'll get to the "make it pretty" stage. Kexter did amazing work on making the game look good, and I'm going to try and keep as many of his ideas as possible as I really like the look/feel of the original.

Here are some of my future plans for extra features.
  • Achievements: Sorted and filtered by scene with better understanding of how they relate to each other, especially for Activity and Ending subachievements
  • Save games searchable and filterable by name, Active scene, and active path.
  • Savegame replay (play a save as a kind of mini-movie, or more like auto-drive slideshow)
  • ---hidden, can you spot it---
  • Additional options for displaying info (ie, current path, Show/hide scores)
  • Significantly easier localization (translation) ability using the free POEdit from https://poedit.net/ with a provided file extract. This means new text, or text changes will be automatically found in the tool and presented for translation.
  • Toggle first person/third person view (with one as primary for gameplay and one as secondary option but would have to return to primary for hotspot selections <- this is a maybe)
  • FreeCam option to look around (Maybe... Think go to free-cam, look around, return to game cam to continue)
This list will grow. Feature requests are welcome and I'll see about keeping this post and a reserved post below with information as I progress.

Here is what is working in early stages:
  • Main game UI
  • New game menu UI
  • All Wednesday Office text and game logic
  • Dialogue button and hotspot basic functionality
  • Scorekeeping
  • Camera moves linked to player choice and game logic
  • Scene loading and unloading
Here are major steps that still need to be done from a base functionality standpoint:
  • Main menu full functionality
  • Debug UI
  • Save game UI
  • Load game UI
  • Achievements UI
  • In-Game Menu UI
  • Character move and posing based on player choice and game logic
  • Savegame system
  • Options UI
  • Options save/load
  • Achievement state Save/Load (import/export)
There's a lot more to it, but it's coming along well and I'm having fun with it.

somehow, the office looks much more bigger

Re: Game Engine Rebuild Progress

Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2020 2:54 pm
by Wolfschadowe
az89 wrote:
Thu Apr 09, 2020 2:35 pm
somehow, the office looks much more bigger
Two things probably contribute. First, I haven't got all the furniture in. Second, the Field of View of the Editor that I took the screenshots of is 90 degrees, where the game camera is a 60 degree Field of View.