Ducks VS Aliens

Engine/Language: Unreal Engine 5 | C++

Role: Engineering

Ducks vs Aliens is a fast-paced, action collection like game about dodging cows and collecting rubber ducks. This game was started as a Global Game Jam 2024 submission where I worked with a group consisting of one other programmer, a musician, and an artist. In the development of this game, I have:

• Set up the isometric camera to follow the player
• Created a generic powerup class that can be used to quickly develop new powerups
• Developed powerups to enhance gameplay like one that pauses the barrage of cow missiles for a few seconds.
• Created the rag-dolling effect when the player is hit by a cow
• Added functionality for a helicopter to fly around and drop powerups every so often
• Developed the system to have UFOs and an ally helicopter spawning in over time so that the gameplay ramps up in difficulty steadily

Weekend game jams like the GGJ are very fast-paced, and when making any game, there will be bugs. This means that bug fixing has to be done as fast as possible. One of the issues I ran into during the game jam was concerning the rag-dolling of the player character (one of the most important features to me). When the character was supposed to get up, it would usually get stuck in the floor. This was because the anchor point for the character object that is in the middle of the character was now on the ground, causing the engine to believe the midpoint of the character should stay on the ground. I fixed this by raising that anchor point right before un-rag-dolling the character. I’m so glad I was able to fix that bug because I really love a good rag-doll effect in a game.