Topic: Castlevania UE4 (Metroidvania)

[Corpsecrank]

Current Status 11/13/2017

So a lot has been happening. I haven't gotten around to posting any updates in a while now sorry...

I am putting together a website to house this project and all my other projects. Once the site is up it will be a permanent home for all my projects moving forward.

The game is coming along damn swell. Progress has been slow on the game it's self recently. During that time I have been working on other parts of this including the site. I had to migrate unreal versions more than once also. Currently the project is fully upgraded to unreal 4.18 which I plan to stick with at least for a while. 4.18 Comes with some major new features in it. I still need to learn how all of the new stuff works. The audio engine from 4.16 to 4.18 is completely different. 4.17 had a preview of the new audio engine. 4.18 contains the new audio engine in full. You can still use the legacy audio engine but they plan to phase that out over upcoming releases. So I need to learn how audio is handled in the new engine. I also need to learn about the new media framework which was completely redone I guess.

Ok so with the project finally sitting in 4.18 error free I can potentially start making real progress again soon. I want to get this site up so I can begin managing this project from there. I also need to really weed out the project files and just do some house cleaning on it. I don't want the demo to contain all kinds of garbage. I also don't want the game to run like ass either so I will be going over the project a couple times to strip it all down and create some organization conventions and also to comb over all the stuff that is scripted out so far so it is all light weight, tidy, and optimal.

The web page is going to allow me to post way more information way more often than I can here. I plan to post frequent small bits on the site but it also allows me to use all types of media etc so I can just plain do way more. So look for a link to that in my next update here.

Backstory on why I migrated unreal versions:

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I originally had some issues in unreal 4.16 I had started the project in 4.16 planning to stay with that engine version all the way through this project. I ended up just having problem after problem at one point and I looked at the release notes for 4.17 and most of my problems were just bugs they patched up. So after no more than finishing getting the game to run in 4.17 they release 4.18 and since it basically has the finished version of most of the big new features I just said fuck it and went and migrated again. I hadn't done anything in 4.17 anyhow I no more than got it to start up error free so migrating again just to get the added features was worth it.

Older Posts:

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Current Status 3/6/2017

You can keep up with what I am doing pretty much in real time daily right now if you are in the bloodstained discord from this thread: http://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php/topic,9025.0.html I am always posting images and answering questions as well as gathering opinions about my project pretty much every day. This might be the easiest way to keep up on what I am doing right now since I spend a whole lot of time working on this and talking in the discord in between doing stuff.

Attached is a sample of random stuff I been working on since starting this thing. Not all of it is for this project. Some has been scaled up for better viewing some has not.

Now also have a youtube for posting clips to. The channel is just for the purpose of sharing bits of stuff I am working on. Currently there is only one short video that I used while setting it up today but there should be plenty of regular posts to that channel. Videos are unlisted so you won't be able to find them without going directly to the channel. I did that to filter out random youtube viewers.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9mrLUZ9rWsnyJk9XxfJwFQ

[X]

Hey Corpscrank, welcome back!

Nice idea you have here. If you're having trouble with making the original CV into a non-linear one you could always take a look at the maps for Vampire Killer. VK was as non-linear as the original CV got. It could help you on how to make the areas larger without sacrificing the look of the original game.

[Corpsecrank]

Yeah I haven't decided yet how far to stray from the original level design. I want to attempt to keep quite a bit of familiarity though because I think if I go to far it will no longer feel like cv1 anymore.

The excellent news from today is that this whole thing is going to be SO much easier than I originally thought. As it turns out making all of this happen in ue4 is as easy as it can get. Hell I doubt I could do this any easier with any other tool which is a great relief for me. I had fully planned on this entire thing being a lot more work and learning than what it is turning out to be. I bet if I hammered down on this really good one day this week I could have almost all if not all of the initial functionality I need. Because of the way ue4 works I will be able to focus almost all of my efforts on design and other fun stuff. Blueprints are so powerful and easy to use and so much of what you would need for a project like this is already just there in the tools already done. I think there is very little I will have a hard time getting to work the way I want.

So after really fooling around today with a lot of this stuff I think like 90% of it is basically no work. I may have to do some tinkering to figure out how to do stairs. I thought about stairs a bit today and I really think I am going to have to lock the character to them old school style vs allowing the character to freely traverse them. I don't really want the character to become solidly locked like the original games but kind of hybrid locked like in scv4 where you could jump on to them and move relatively freely in a sense. I think rondo did this also didn't it? I can't quite remember now cuz it's been a while since I played it. At any rate I don't want to have to initiate the stairs from the top/bottom like the old games because it goes right back to making the controls stiff. I also feel like doing that would be such a harsh contrast to the rest of the way the character handles. So it has to be something in the middle.

If I can manage to put this thing together quickly enough I might be able to spend a ton of time adding to and polishing it. I will have to get this out there so you guys can check it out once the main stuff is done because I think a lot of cool stuff could be done and I am sure people here would have great suggestions I wouldn't come up with on my own. I know I have plenty of ideas myself so when the time comes maybe we can discuss additions/changes and compile a list of things to do next with it.

I am probably going to share my final project source too so that people here have a very easy to work with template game for classic cv remakes using ue4. I might also hand out a whole bunch of additional assets I have that don't get used in this one on top of it.

A long time ago I used to animate not make games. When I was animating I created tons of cv artwork from sprite sheets and some custom also. Almost all of it has been edited in some way though. Mostly better color since 8bit palette was really limited. Anyhow all the stuff I made for those old animations is perfect for a game as well so I have an enormous pool of pre-made assets on hand. This not only saves even more time now but makes for a massive library I can share so others can do the same and build great quality cv games fast and easy.

[X]

I think rondo did this also didn't it?

Stair jumping was done in SCV4, CV Bloodlines, and Rondo/CV Dracula X/Dracula XX/Vampire's Kiss.

[Corpsecrank]

Yeah that's what I thought stair jumping was from scv4 up to about the metroidvania at which point you no longer lock on to a set of stairs they act as a slope.



So today's goal is to get basic character functionality into the game and at least some tiles. I can probably squeeze in the hud and a working hp bar if I try hard enough too.

I don't have a name for this one other than just calling it Castlevania UE4 lol. Any suggestions on naming this thing with a better title or should I just stick with that?

[X]

Can't exactly call it Simon's Quest. That's already been done, lol.

At the moment I have nothing floating around in my head. Do some internet sleuthing. You might just find something that works for a title.

[Corpsecrank]

Can't exactly call it Simon's Quest. That's already been done, lol.

At the moment I have nothing floating around in my head. Do some internet sleuthing. You might just find something that works for a title.

Lol yeah I don't think simon's quest is going to work but that is pretty funny.

I don't want to call it something fancy because at the core of this it is literally JUST castlevania in a sense I mean the first game was only called castlevania and this isn't an entirely new design it is intended to be mostly influenced by cv1 right? So naming became a bit of a trick. I can't exactly call it castlevania on it's own either lol. So I just been calling it castlevania ue4 since that really is what this is I guess. I mean while this isn't a direct clone of the original game using ue4 it really is just a retelling of it in that engine. I mean I could call it castlevania chapter one or castlevania extended edition or some other generic name I just don't like any of that stuff that comes to mind. I'll keep kicking some ideas around while I work maybe I can come up with something that fits.

[chainsawmidget]

Castlevania Reborn? 
Return to Castlevania?



Maybe something a bit more Hammer of Universal style? 
Blood for Castlevania
Curse of Castlevania

[Inccubus]

My project from back in the day had a similar basic idea of being a CV1 remake that was somewhat non-linear in a similar way to Rondo. What I did was adapt the maps from all previous remakes into a single coherent layout.

I look forward to seeing how your project develops.

[X]

Maybe 'Castle of Chaos'? That's essentially what Castlevania is.

[KaZudra]

I was thinking along the lines of just combining the meta Cv1 for one big game, or combine that with Cv2 for a competent Metroidvania.

[Corpsecrank]

Some not so bad ideas for names. Still undecided yet but I can keep pondering that while I am stuck in photoshop hell since it looks like that is where I will be for a moment.

I got stuck in photoshop all day today and I am currently still there with a whole lot of work in front of me. I decided to use the cv2 simon sprites with a whole lot of work on them cuz they bad af out of the box by comparison the cv1 sprites look fantastic which is sad when you think about it. If you look at the trevor sprites they are the best of the 3 but cv3 is a huge bump up in quality in all areas. I don't know what they did in cv3 but it is wildly different than the previous ones and it shows. Anyhow yeah cv2 simon he needs serious work but I dig the armor a lot. I am trying to go for the classic red armor blond hair simon look that was changed in chronicles where he goes all black and red with pinkish red hair. I don't care for the look they gave him from chronicles on it looks bizarre and out of place almost.

Making progress though. Soon as I get this sheet wrapped up I can probably get back to ue and start working on actual functionality a bit. I am really itching to get something playable so I can see how some things work. Thank god I already have plenty of sweet tiles to work with or I would have to do that too. I'd like to get basic movement in and some tiles down and maybe get the HUD started too so that I can at least see how some of the stuff handles. As it stands I don't know how the old 8bit cv character will handle I may need to add frames to smooth it out and I can't help but feel like I will need a run animation. Maybe not but backtracking will suck if you move as slow as you did in the original so I need to see if I can bump up the character speed without it looks bad or handling strange. If it works the way it is awesome if need be though I might add a run animation and make a double tap run style control since it seems to work well.

[chainsawmidget]

If you're expanding the areas, are you adding more bosses?  If so, are you taking ones from the other NES Castlevania or trying to come up with some new stuff?

[X]

Yeah I don't like the Simon chronicles look either. It's just not Simon, especially with that over-the-top pretty boy look he was given--A travesty to one of the most manliest Belmonts of the entire series.

I've dealt with both sprites before and I do find that CVII Simon is an improvement over CVI Simon. You can tell because of his movements on-screen. The CVI simon is rather stiff and slightly disjointed in some parts whereas the CVII Simon carries itself very smoothly.

[Dracula9]

I've dealt with both sprites before and I do find that CVII Simon is an improvement over CVI Simon. You can tell because of his movements on-screen. The CVI simon is rather stiff and slightly disjointed in some parts whereas the CVII Simon carries itself very smoothly.

Er, hate to be the bearer of ill news, but it's literally just an edit with only a few pixels' difference in general outlining and shaping.