Pet Simulator Game

This latest project I finished about a month ago. It’s a my first “proper” game development project. The game (demo, more fittingly) is titled Monster Island, and was made by me (game programming) and a partner (models and terrain). It’s a pet simulation game, except instead of “pets”, you have monsters, and instead of monsters, there is just one monster (but more can be added quite easily). If you would like to see an in depth demo and development process, please watch the video above! And don’t worry about watching the whole 30 minutes, it’s time-stamped so you can easily skip to parts that appeal to you. Or you can just watch in 2x speed since I talk a bit slow.

Links!

Itch.io Page: https://c-tor.itch.io/monster-island-demo

Source Code: https://github.com/C-Tor/Monster-Island-Code
*edit: Now that I’ve gotten more practice with game dev (as well as programming this prototype hastily), I realize this code is pretty nasty in some places!

Features

• State-Machine based Monster AI

  • Monster had “needs” that decrease over time.

  • The monster will fulfill those needs when it is able to.

  • The monster can remember where items are for the future (this feature was a bit unpredictable).

  • The monster features NavMesh AI movement so it can move all throughout the level, even in the water.

• Expandable food system that uses Scriptable Objects to store food data, making it easy to add more food types.

• Fishing mini-game, to catch food for your monster to eat.

• A ball that the monster will play with when it’s bored.

• Observational camera-system that can follow monsters and moves comfortable throughout the level.

• Interactable object pick up system that allows the player to pick up certain items and drop them.

• Custom dynamic ambient sound system that smoothly blends between 3 tracks depending on the players altitude.

• Practical UI and menu system, which features an audio volume mixer, camera options, and a fullscreen option.

• Saving and loading that is done both automatically and whenever the player quits to Main Menu or to Desktop.

Developer’s Note

The first game I did outside of tutorials was for a game jam, and it was a bit messy code wise. Certainly not the worst, but there was definitely things I could manage a lot better. But something I did learn was that learning just by doing is very effective. So that was my primary goal with this project. I wanted to build something that had systems that were easy to expand, and that I could learn a lot from. The first part I still could have done better. The second part was successful, as I learned a ton from this project. Especially about AI and animations and all that. It also gave me practice building systems that can be expanded. I won’t go too much into the whole process, as it is mostly covered in the video.

I did all the programming and game logic for this demo, while my partner did all the visuals. Unfortunately due to loss of communication, I am unable to give proper credit, but permission to share was secured.

The Next Thing

There is currently no intent to further work on this project. My next focus of interest in the Unreal Engine! I may be making a post on my first thoughts on Unreal soon, or even a project I will try in it. Though for now, I am still just learning it. I’m quite interested in the powerful visual features of the engine. Stay tuned CT fans.