This project was meant to be a week long, it's now week 7, it ballooned like crazy, and I didn't really add that much to it. I severely underestimated how hard it was to do cutscenes, I have gained massive respect for all those in the industry whose job is solely cutscenes. There are so many unforeseen edge cases that I realistically couldn't fix them all and it's only 4 cutscenes in the game.

What went right. I think from conception to execution I stayed on track and made what was in the original storyboard. I wanted this game to be a quick practice game for telling a story. I was inspired by The Last of Us and God of War. I had a story that was short and doable and I had no real attachment to so I could easily knock it out. This let me adapt quickly to changes to the story that had to be made because of limitations, almost everything in the game comes from the Epic store for free.

Originally the final scene was meant to be with a zombie but I couldn't find or make a zombie model good enough to fit with the style of the scene. Luckily, I had a model of a robot that could easily be shoehorned in. Overall for a hodgepodge of free assets I feel I managed to make a consistent and cohesive game world which I’m quite proud of.

What went wrong. Where do I start? Every decision I had made was met with challenges, the fox was meant to be a cat, the robot a zombie, and the ending scene was changed because I didn't have jump animations. The story is far too short to have any emotional connection, but the thing that gave me the most heartache was the cutscenes. There isn't much information on the internet about using sequencer for making cutscenes, no standardised practices, I basically made it up as I went along, a spaghetti code of consistently breaking triggers and references to player models.

Then there is the actual skill of making these things, having a constant movement in the camera that doesn't feel choppy is a skill in itself, I guess that's why cameramen exist. The fact that you can’t reference the actual player controller in a sequencer the way you expect is quite troublesome. I had to have a separate model for the characters that would slide under the floor when the camera was pointed away, it was a massive mess, but I'm glad I did because I know what I would do differently for my next game, DON'T HAVE CUTSCENES.

Overall it's been quite a humbling experience that I’m happy is completed and behind me now, I still see bugs and mistakes but I have worked long enough on it. I guess the old saying is true, “Art is never truly finished, just abandoned ”. Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts,

See you on the next one.