Fallen Crown
Gameplay Engineer & Lead Programmer
Unreal Engine 5 · C++ · Blueprints
Team of 5 · 2024
A third-person action-adventure game featuring melee combat, enemy AI, environmental interactions, and narrative-driven exploration.
Game Overview
Fallen Crown is a third-person action-adventure game developed by a five-person team in Unreal Engine 5. The project combines exploration and narrative interactions with player combat, enemy encounters, environmental triggers, and responsive UI.
As Gameplay Engineer and Lead Programmer, I focused on developing and integrating gameplay systems including player movement and combat, enemy AI, interactions, dialogue and level events, UI/HUD, VFX, and audio.
My Role and Contributions
Systems Worked On:
Enemy AI · Combat Systems · Player Movement · Damage Systems · Dialogue & Level Events · Interactions · UI/HUD · Audio
- Developed and iterated on enemy AI and combat systems, including ranged-enemy behaviors, player movement, damage mechanics, projectiles, and AOE attacks.
- Implemented dialogue and level-event triggers for approximately half of the rooms, collaborating with another engineer on dialogue and interaction systems.
- Programmed interactable objects and integrated them with gameplay and event systems.
- Implemented and polished the player HUD, menus, screens, and UI interactions.
- Designed, edited, and integrated audio for enemy attacks, environments, UI, and dialogue.
- Unit tested and debugged gameplay systems while collaborating in an Agile/Scrum workflow using Jira, Perforce, and Git.
Technical Highlights
A. Enemy AI & Combat Systems
Developed enemy AI and combat systems in Unreal Engine 5, including ranged-enemy behaviors, projectiles, AOE attacks, player movement, and damage mechanics. Unit tested and debugged these systems while refining enemy behavior and combat encounters through iterative playtesting.
B. Dialogue & Level Events
Implemented dialogue events and level triggers for approximately half of the game’s rooms, connecting player progression with dialogue, interactions, and audio. Collaborated with another engineer on dialogue and interaction systems, adapting existing code for gameplay and audio integration.
Challenges and Solutions
A. Creating Varied Enemy Combat Behavior:
Challenge: Ranged enemies needed varied combat behaviors that worked consistently with the game’s movement and damage systems.
Solution: Implemented ranged-enemy behaviors using projectiles and AOE attacks, then refined their interactions with player movement and damage systems through testing and iteration.
B. Integrating Dialogue and Level Events:
Challenge: Dialogue and level events needed to trigger reliably across different rooms while coordinating with interactions and audio.
Solution: Implemented dialogue events and level triggers for approximately half of the game’s rooms, collaborating with another engineer and adapting existing code to integrate dialogue, interactions, and audio.
Development Team
Team Size: 5
University of Utah