Pem's Code Blog

Revamped turn menu disables.  For example, disable turn menu when it

mepem37 :: 2022/02/09 (Wednesday, February 9, 2022) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »

Full playthrough of quest 1.  Did a lot of small improvements and fixes in the past few days.

HeroQuest 19: Quest 1 from Pem on Vimeo.

mepem37 :: 2021/12/04 (Saturday, December 4, 2021) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »

Revamped the the HUD buttons

mepem37 :: 2021/11/29 (Monday, November 29, 2021) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »

New desktop (Threadripper 3990X) is setup and working great for Unreal Engine.

I noticed UMG keyboard input had some kludge behavior such as losing focus, so I migrated from using Key On Down helper to using Action Mappings for more of this.  Though it

mepem37 :: 2021/11/23 (Tuesday, November 23, 2021) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »

Our current plans for HeroQuest UE4 are:
1) finish importing all assets and verify each heroscribe map loads as expected
2) complete the game enough that user can play through book 00 from quest 1 to 14

The next step after that would be:
3) complete support for quest books 01-07
4) polish the game with music, sound effects, maybe transition from board game art to something more like Gloomhaven on Steam

Given the effort and complexity to implement 3 & 4, our tentative plan is to just focus on 1 & 2.  But TBD.

If someone out there reads this and wants to contribute…  Maybe a hardcore game developer that’s a HeroQuest fan.  Or someone who wants to get some UE4 experience (even newbies welcome).  Let me know, and I’ll be glad to share the code and advise (or mentor) on contributions.  Click the contact me link.

Or contact me if you want to start a different UE4 project – that’s probably my next side project after HeroQuest.

mepem37 :: 2020/11/30 (Monday, November 30, 2020) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »

Recent changes include:
* Lua scripting from Spiffy
* Spiffy is working on importing expansion assets (and we’ve both done some related reorganizing of asset files)

After we complete importing assets, next on our list is:
* connect the assets via C++ to open each heroscribe map (for monsters this means with basic stats)

mepem37 :: 2020/11/29 (Sunday, November 29, 2020) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »

Hasbro is releasing what appears to be a reprint of the standard game with basic expansions (Kellar’s Keep, Return of the Witch Lord).  From the description, it appears to be a reprint except that they removed Games Workshop IP – renaming Chaos to Dread (Dread Warriors, Dread Spells).  Replacing Fimir with Abomination.  I’m curious whether there are any other differences such as rules clarifications or balance tweaks – though at this point I’ll assume not until we hear otherwise.

The funding started this morning and it’s already at $857,000 out of the target $1,000,000.  That’s 5733 to 8600 copies pre-ordered in ~12 hours.  So I think it shows there is real interest in HeroQuest.

https://hasbropulse.com/products/heroquest-game-system

mepem37 :: 2020/09/23 (Wednesday, September 23, 2020) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »

It’s been almost 3 months since my last update.  We haven’t made huge progress but still chipping away at it:
* update to latest LuaMachine
* incremental UMG tweaks (lots of them) for new UI
* fix bug: monster line of sight was spawning other monsters
* more Lua from Spiffy
* add to inventory gold – Lua support
* wandering monster – find closest spawn square with path to hero

Meanwhile, I’m working from home for lockdown, and Spiffy is continuing to contribute while he takes classes.

Here’s a screen shot spawning the wandering monster Orc – which searches for the closest path from an open square to a hero:

mepem37 :: 2020/09/22 (Tuesday, September 22, 2020) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »

With lockdown (and some recent vacation), we’ve continued progress on HeroQuest UE4 in the month of June.

some highlights
* specify map in map.txt; instead of having to recompile C++ to change maps for debug
* implement disarm traps: the last missing action
* support individual hero spawns in HeroScribe XML
* falling rock fixes (falling block) for corner cases
* migrate from vs2017 to vs2019, update to latest LuaMachine and UE 4.25.1
* start revamping the UI
* spiffy continues working on LUA transcribing for expansion quests (pending commit)
* banana (friend of spiffy) (college student) joined Discord chat; he’s setup and discussed some ideas for what he can work on

Here’s a preview of the new UI:

The big change is that instead of having an oversized horizontal menu that covers the center of the screen (that blocks WASD QE input), it’s a horizontal bar on the bottom middle of the screen. For controller input (tested with xbox 360 controller), you can use dpad to navigate.  Keyboard supports arrow keys or 1234567890 hotkeys.  We plan to replace the "1M" etc with icons for move, character sheet, end turn, attack, etc.

mepem37 :: 2020/06/29 (Monday, June 29, 2020) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »

In the past few weeks, Spiffy has done a lot of work implementing and testing a first pass of the per-quest Lua for 00-HQBase_US (the base 14 quests), and he’s started on 01-KellarsKeep_US and 02-ReturnOfTheWitchLord_US.  Spiffy has more of an art background, and he’s motivated to learn more code, so I’ve been working with him in Discord chat.  It’s also motivated me to do some review; for example I’ve started reading foundationsofgameenginedev.com volume 1.  Actually, I’ve sometimes missed having study partners like I did in college and as a new grad to talk about material I’m learning or reviewing.

Spiffy has also reported and helped motivate me to fix a few small bugs and missing features.  Letters can be in hallway; Letter is associated with a square (in addition to a room).  Fix nullptr crashes.  Implemented DoorIn and DoorOut for Kellar’s Keep and Witchlord.  And others.

We’re using git on bitbucket, and he’s working in a separate branch, so I’ve been doing sync/merge in bitbucket.

mepem37 :: 2020/05/27 (Wednesday, May 27, 2020) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »