Time: 10 weeks
Role: Game Designer, Programmer
Software: Unreal Engine 5,
Date: Started in January 2026 and finished in March 2026
This is a prototype dungeon crawler based entirely around making decisions to make your dungeon crawl more difficult.
Decision System
In each room there is a collision box that brings up the decision menu. The decision menu allows players to choose which room they will be teleported to next. They can choose between Combat rooms, Encounter rooms, and Puzzle rooms.
I had to figure out the best way to have the player randomly go to a room of each type. I did this by making a waypoint object for each room type and then I placed them each into a different array. Then when the player hits the button that chooses the room type the level manager gets a random waypoint from the array, and teleports the player to that waypoints location.
My next issue was making sure that the player was able to choose the right array of decisions for each room type. I fixed this by making it so the widget that provides the decisions for what kind of room then spawns a widget dependent on the room type. So when the player chooses a puzzle room the puzzles decisions appear.
Each decision is in an array and when the decision is made a message is sent to the level manager which then uses a switch to determine what effect occurs in the level.
Combat system
The player has access to a swing attack, a dash attack, a block and a dodge.
Swing
Creates a sphere trace in front of the player. If it hits an enemy it sends a message to them and damages them.
Dash and Dodge
The dash and dodge both use the launch character node to send the player in the desired direction. The dash sends the player forwards and spawns in a line trace that damages enemies. The dodge sends the player backwards and gives them some invincibility.
Block
When the player blocks it makes them invincible for a short period of time.
Puzzles and Lights
Each puzzle has a door that does not open until the player interacts with at least one of the keys in the room. When a puzzle room is selected a timer is set that decrements an integer set to the max puzzle time. If the player does not complete the puzzle in time they die.
When the player interacts with a light it marks it as lit. When the player is standing in the sphere collider of a lit light it starts to heal them.
