In between all the turmoil that life brings you, there is at least a bit of time to do the things you want to do. I’ve had my good times on my main Twitch channel playing Dave the Diver. And so far it is becoming more and more one of those hidden gems that everyone should have a go at. I’ll probably make a video review/essay about that game when I’ve fully completed it. That game makes so many good design decisions that makes the game really enjoyable.
On another note I’ve also finally started my second twitch channel where I’ve started to livestream when I’m doing my side project stuff regarding game development. It will also be used for some gaming content, but will be way more relaxed and sometimes used for documentation for game review. But the main purpose will of course be the documentation and sharing of my game dev journey. The reason why I decided to do it like this is so that I can be less bothered about having huge video files pile up with the risk to clog my hard drives with material that I might not even use. Now I can instead do some snippets in a web browser and hand pick moments to download for later use of the material.
As of now I’m currently following a very new tutorial that I’m so happy that it was finally made. When you think of card games and Unreal combined, you will probably come to resources that mentions an asset that exists on Epics Asset Store. And it was on the Free Month section for some years ago. But really no other tutorial or mention of how to make card games inside of Unreal. Which has always been a bummer, because I do have the impression that Unreal can handle data assets WAY better than Unity. And lo and behold! My savior comes with a nice series of videos to create a full fledged Card Widget. I’m only 2 videos in so far but I can already feel that I can start working and adapt this with the help of other helpful tutorials and materials so that I can create the prototype that I really want! For anyone that stumbles upon this blog, here is credit where it’s due: https://www.youtube.com/@LeafBranchGames
Prior to this me and my friend that is knowledgeable in Unreal and works with game development sat down together in a Discord call with the agenda to help me move in the right direction and land down on the right mindset. I told him about my dream project, that’s inspired and based on Baten Kaitos battle system, that I would like to make into a prototype project. We came to the conclusion with a very simple and generic step by step plan for me to get back to to check off as I finish the steps.
My first step was actually to “Make 2 Cubes that has health system and with the push of buttons can damage each other”. So my first thought process was to see if there was any resources of UI based combat system for Unreal Engine. But my search terms was a bit simplistic, so I ended up with a bunch of resources for floating damage numbers and general health bar systems. So instead I went ahead and started of with the card widget tutorial to kick of my working process instead of researching too much into a proper tutorial. But luckily I’ve found some good resources that I’ll be relying on at a later stage. Which I think I can combine pretty well with what I’ve already made so far!