Week 1 & 2 - Devlog

Week 1 & 2 Devlog

Hey there! Welcome to our devlog for BeachBlast, a student game for the course Game Projects at Howest DAE.

We are a team of 2 developers ( Anael and Athan ) and 4 artists ( Alison, Jasper, Jana, Finn ).  

BeachBlast

Beachblast is a game where 2 pirate ships arrive on an island. Since they both want the resources, they start fighting eachother. This island is home to bomb plants, players can bring these bombs back to the ship, with a cannon they can shoot the enemy team, but they can also throw the bomb at enemy players. First to destroy the enemy boat wins! Ahoy!

Technical Foundations & Documentation
This week, we laid groundwork to keep our project organized and accessible for current and future team members. We created a technical documentation, discussed naming conventions, application guidelines, and other key technicalities. This is to ensure anyone joining the team can get up to speed quickly. For the rest this week is mainly about research and prototyping.

Art Style & Gameplay Research

• Camera & Gameplay Readability: We prototyped camera perspectives and tested the clarity of bomb-carrying mechanics by integrating a prototype character into Unreal’s third-person setup.
• Art Bible Initiation: Research was a key focus this week. We explored art styles, engine capabilities, and the technical specifications required for our game, covering aspects like scale, proportions, and shader requirements. This led to the beginning of an Art Bible, where foundational elements are documented.

Shader Experimentation & Project Setup

• Water & Leaf Shaders: We revisited a water shader from a previous project, tweaking it into a prototype for our game. Although it fits well for now, it will receive further art direction to better align with our visual style. We also began experimenting with a leaf shader for our trees, while it’s not quite there yet, it’s set as a work-in-progress for future refinement.
• Project Environments: To support our prototyping phase, we set up project files in both UE5 and Unity, giving the team flexible environments to iterate on various ideas.

Lighting, Color, & UI Inspiration

• We dived deep into lighting and color research to strike a balance between visual appeal and clarity. By examining how other artists solve these design challenges, and drawing inspiration from other games’ UI and realtime FX, we’re building a solid visual framework for the project.

Development Prototypes

• Our developers spent this week learning about Unreal Cpp classes, which was not that simple. Luckily lots of research and testing lead to us having a working cannon prototype.

Character Exploration

• We explored many types of characters, currently this is our favourite, but this is definetely still subject to change!