Gameplay Mechanics

This project was made for my year 3 Gameplay Mechanics Development university module. It is a collection of gameplay mechanics designed for a spaceship shooter game. It features a powerup system with a variety of offensive and defensive abilities. Heavy inspiration for the theme of the project comes from the Sci-Fi scene, namely shows like Star Trek and games like Elite: Dangerous, which I am a huge fan of.

Mechanics developed for this project are appropriately encapsulated and all code follows object-oriented programming principles. The project has been made in Unreal Engine 4, and all mechanics are programmed in C++. Gameplay mechanics are designed to interact and work with each other providing emergent gameplay. Among features developed are:

• Movement System
  • The player's ship moves at a set velocity, which can be increased and decreased.
  • Steering is limited to the ship's turn rate which can be modified to simulate different ship size
• Weapons Targeting System
  • Weapons have a limited range
  • Automatic targeting and lock on the nearest enemy within range
• Powerups
  • Phaser Cannon
  • Phaser Beam
  • Torpedo Launcher
  • Boost
  • Decoy Clone
  • Cloaking

The report document dives into further detail on gameplay mechanics, how they work and interact, and how they were programmed.