Pem's Code Blog

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 »

When I was chatting (in our Discord channel) to Spiffy about working on the Lua code, I noticed that in Quest 3, to find Ulag’s position (left top), is kind of kludge.  HeroScribe GUi doesn’t show it, so you have to count the squares in the GUI and/or search the XML to figure it out.  So I added it in the GUI.  It’s a small update, but it’s a great example where updating HeroScribe GUI is useful for writing the Lua code.  This will be used in HQBase-03-LairoftheOrcWarlord_US.xml’s function monster_dies(left, top) to determine whether the spawned monster is Ulag, and also for monster_dies(left, top).

mepem37 :: 2020/04/14 (Tuesday, April 14, 2020) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »

Spiffy has joined (he emailed me from this blog).  I created a Discord channel that we’ve been using, and also wrote some new user wiki doc in the project’s bitbucket on how to setup the project (build/run), and how to use the git/bicketbucket flow (ie he will work in a separate git branch, then create a bitbucket pull request).

It’s been a while since I did any updates on HeroQuest UE4 (distractions from day job and personal life), but Spiffy has inspired me to do some more work this past week (amidst COVID-19 WFH), and also to help him to ramp up on implementing Lua code for quest-specific game rules/logic.  My recent changes include.  Fix crash when UMD is not plugged in.  Improve Lua support for _on_exit().  And Spiffy will implement more Quest-specific game logic using Lua.

Spiffy

mepem37 :: 2020/04/12 (Sunday, April 12, 2020) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »

One of the big missing pieces to make the game truly playable (instead of just a prototype) is quest specific game logic.  Quests are defined by HeroScribe XML, which lacks quest text (including specific game rules).  Here

mepem37 :: 2019/05/26 (Sunday, May 26, 2019) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »

Most of the basic functionality is there, but it’s missing:
1) Ability to complete a quest, carry on to the next quest, maintain state cross-quest, save/load progress, related menu system.
2) Quest-specific logic.  I plan to implement a scripting interface as an extension to HeroScribe XML.
3) Quest-specific monsters, monster spells
4) AI has much room for improvement.
5) Sound effects.

So it

mepem37 :: 2019/04/18 (Thursday, April 18, 2019) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »

I made some time (during the holiday weekend) to work on VR mode.

I added dragging drag camera based on this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgGGBQc6fVM&feature=youtu.be -> https://imgur.com/a/L2Ild

I also added prototype motion controller input support.

mepem37 :: 2018/11/24 (Saturday, November 24, 2018) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »

I noticed the board/pieces in VR were too big, so I shrunk everything by 10x.  Under map > Settings > World Settings > VR > World to Meters: changed from 100 to 1000.  This looks/feels a lot more practical.  To go a step further, I compared the Elf to the motion controller at 10x (real vs. virtual):

While my 10x wild guess was surprisingly close (to real world object physical size), I found that 9x is even closer:

In terms of the 80/20 rule (Pareto principle), 9x looks very accurate.

mepem37 :: 2018/11/23 (Friday, November 23, 2018) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »

There are many times when

mepem37 :: 2018/09/16 (Sunday, September 16, 2018) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »

Expansion maps starting with Kellar

mepem37 :: 2018/09/01 (Saturday, September 1, 2018) :: HeroQuest, Unreal Engine :: No Comments »