Who Am I? What Did I Do?

I'm Vincent Ridpath, and I was the programmer for this project. We used Unreal 5.5, and I programmed with Blueprints. My biggest jobs were to design and implement a player character that felt punchy and powerful, and to create two different enemy types with different behavior. It was also my job to put the sprites provided by our artist into the game. This meant creating a working user interface, and programming the sprites to work correctly for the player and enemies. I didn't keep track of exactly how long I spent working, but I estimate that I spent 30-40 hours working on this project in total.

The Most Difficult Part of the Project

The most difficult part for me was trying to get the player and the enemies to behave how I wanted them to. Specifically, I wanted the combat to make the player feel very powerful, like they're slashing through enemies with a breeze. This was really hard to capture, and I think the finished product is okay, but I would still spend more time on it if this were a longer project.
Another difficult part of this project was being the only programmer. When we started, I was confident in myself and excited about the experience I would get, but after 4 weeks of work, it was admittedly exhausting to not have someone else who could over my work. I believe my programming would have been better if I had another set of eyes on it from time to time. This is not the fault of my team, as they each had their own different roles on the project, and there were only 3 of us. 

What Have I Learned?

I learned more about the importance of team communication. Even for a seemingly small project like this, I think we would have benefitted from further team discussions and check-ins. This would have been a good way to make sure everyone was working towards the same common goal, and that our time was being used effectively. In one particular instance, our team had a miscommunication regarding the level design that wasn't really discussed until the very end of the project. I tried to stay on top of team communication by sending updates and reminders from time to time, but next time I plan on being even more engaged with my team by suggesting further discussions and making sure we each know what is expected from each other. 

What Am I Most Proud of?

It's hard to pick one thing I was most proud of. Despite how it felt exhausting at times to be the only programmer on my team, I am still proud of all that I was able to accomplish on my own. I'm also very proud of what my team was able to accomplish as a whole. I really like how our vision for a PS1-style horror-inspired game ended up coming through in the end.