Oh, How Far It’s Come!
I’ll be honest, after abandoning this map out of frustration (it was the first map I started building in the UDK) I never really imagined the day when I’d be revisiting it again. I remember being blown away at the time by how it looked but comparing the two now is kind of like looking at an old photo of yourself in Highschool and just chuckling at the hairstyle you used to have and the way you use to dress, even though at the time you thought it looked AWESOME! What a contrast.
It took just a little longer than I anticipated but it’s done now. There are still a lot of details missing in the washroom areas and elsewhere but I’ll polish them up later with more garbage, grime and graffiti (especially in the washrooms)
I ran into a small problem and I’d love it if someone posted an opinion or solution for this but I was thinking of taking out the “jump” function and adding in a “vault” system instead.
This is to get around the problem of being able to walk or stand on thin, unwalkable things such at the top of a fence, a thin railing or jumping onto and standing on say, a fire hydrant. I can’t really think of another way around it so instead of being able to jump, perhaps have the player be able to vault over low walls, hand rails etc. with the push of a button instead?
I thought about adding in some function to maybe force a player off of an unwalkable object by pushing them one direction or another but it seems like it could create all sorts of movement glitches down the road. What do you think? Let me know!
Comments are closed.
LONG NGUYEN | Digital Artist & Game Designer 
I think a vaulting system would be a a good mechanic to replace jumping, this is a survival horror game after all, plenty of survival games don’t feature it and even something action oriented like BulletStorm turned out ok despite not having any functional jump option.
It’s also not uncanny to the point that it affects your suspension of disbelief considering the grounded and grim setting which I think was what bothered people in the case of Bullestorm which was extremely fantastical.
You’re a Police Officer carrying plenty of equipment, I think it’s pretty logical
Only issue I see with this is how it will affect exploration of the maps and potential secrets
I was afraid that removing a jump function would make the movement seem bland but the more I think about it, it was never really important to this game. Exploration isn’t of the platforming or parkour style and outside of getting onto crates and vehicles like in the original (which the vaulting system could take care of) I don’t think it is needed.
There are areas in the game where you may need to climb up a ladder, a fallen tree or large rock to get to higher ground but those have a prompt such as “Press X to climb” with a small stamina point cost.
In this type of slow paced game I don’t think people will see it as bland, plenty of games limit or downright stop you from jumping and they are still well received.
As long as you can move at a decent pace and there’s verticality it will be fine.
Dark Souls, Resident Evil, Silent Hill are good examples and even in games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R and the 3D Fallout games the ability to jump is barely utilized.
Environmental interactivity I feel is much more important
By the way, how will “press X to climb” function?
Input gets you stuck to the ladder and you’ll move up and down on it, or will it teleport you to the top/bottom like in the mod?
Teleported, the same as movement through doors. Even though you can easily pass through doors I was hoping this provides more of an oldschool feel. Though I haven’t played it, the team who made Alchemilla did it nicely https://youtu.be/eLussI524m0?t=510
So it would be 1: Approach object, Press X 2: Fade to black, play sound effect of climbing ladder, climbing fence, opening door etc. 3: Fade in.
The sound effect and paused fade in is what will make a big difference compared to Out of Hell UT2K4.
I think the example you showed is just perfect, not slow enough to be tedious, not fast enough to feel jarring.