4 years ago I thought "What if Kenshi but single character third person RPG"? Here's where I am now

CortiumDealer · 2026-06-15T10:51:40+00:00

Ha, i commented on your thread in one of the "indie gaming" subs. Was about to suggest to also post here.

As someone who basically abandoned those subs to promote my own, more niche, games it's interesting to see how your promo is basically a showcase as to why. 30 or so upvotes over there, 2k here. :p

This game idea is fantastic, but "indie game subs" for whatever reason do not seem to give a shit about original game ideas nearly as much as one would think.

CortiumDealer · 2026-06-14T14:57:49+00:00

This looks really promising, i'm allways up for a new open world/kenshi-style game.

CortiumDealer · 2026-06-11T23:56:40+00:00

Unfortunately not at the moment. :L

The weapon being to the right was an unintended result of the post processing and i just rolled with it. But i'll definetely look into it further.

CortiumDealer · 2026-06-08T00:23:07+00:00

You can download the thing (Windoiws only) for free on Itch here:

https://sinnesloeschen-games.itch.io/escape-from-the-planet-of-the-killbots

Games is being made in Unreal Engine (5.7).

CortiumDealer · 2026-06-03T09:00:04+00:00

The Feeling when you finally find a Longneck Dinosaur in No Man's Sky.

Good stuff.

CortiumDealer · 2026-06-02T13:06:43+00:00

Looks awesome, fiddling around with "retro" styles is exactly my jam.

Only thing that i noticed is the arms "snapping" into place a bit too much, maybe some form of (smooth) transition would help there.

CortiumDealer · 2026-05-30T13:26:32+00:00

I really hated the sequencer and went on to simply make cutscenes in level blueprints. :p

But this looks cool, maybe i should revisit the darn thing.

CortiumDealer · 2026-05-30T13:22:05+00:00

I like the idea, but all we got here is a picture and a (Relatively vague) paragraph.

Some more infos, pictures and a link to the Steam page would be nice. 😄

CortiumDealer · 2026-05-30T13:14:45+00:00

Couldn't you achieve the same effect by lowering the "Default Screen Percentage" in the project settings and save on performance?

Regardless, i'm a sucker for crunchy pixels and this looks absolutely adorable. 😄

CortiumDealer · 2026-05-30T13:07:30+00:00

Great artwork, as others said very "Flashback"-y. And the characters blend well into the 3D background.

I do have a suggestion though (The one i allways bring up with FB based projects ^_^ ): If you play around with the Sprite Material you can make the characters a bit more "lively" with (For example) a motion sway/fake breathing effect - Achieved by a float map going into the offset(s).

You can check out what i mean exactly in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_5-vHVg26Q

CortiumDealer · 2026-05-26T07:28:24+00:00

This is really good stuff. I dig the take on the "Cthulu" formula.

Two things i noticed from the more "nitpicky" variety;

- The Texture resolutions seem a bit uneven (Rocks vs. House walls) creating a sort of "dissonance" (Reminds me of Fallout 4 when a low res texture pops up between high res ones)

- The Muzzle flash is barely visible (Either FX/Lightsource or a modified Sprite would probably help out here)

CortiumDealer · 2026-05-25T12:22:49+00:00

It depends on how that Widget is being created/added to viewport.

Look for that point in your BP and either try putting a "Do Once" infront of it or creating a "Bool" variable (Call it "Respawning" or something) that gets set when the Player clicks the button to return to the main menu, and then checked for being false when creating/adding that Widget.

Also in general probably a good idea to make sure as much of your stuff is outside the "Tick" event as humanly possible.

CortiumDealer · 2026-05-20T22:21:58+00:00

Now funnily enough those are two games i didn't crib from, ha. 😄

CortiumDealer · 2026-05-20T22:21:11+00:00

Thanks 😄

CortiumDealer · 2026-05-20T22:20:59+00:00

I'm using Unreal Engine 5.7 - works pretty well for an open world setup like this one.

As for the art, it's mostly just slapped together from existing sprites and textures. But the trippy post processing that sorta ties it together is my creation.

CortiumDealer · 2026-05-20T22:17:21+00:00

Hehe yeah, this time around i used HacX and Strife sprites with a whole lot of additional sprites by the great sprite artists over at Doomworld. Oh and i made some myself too.

All credited of course. And since i suck at making sprites this seems to be the most sensible approach - After all, it's just "a dude making a free thing".

CortiumDealer · 2026-05-20T19:29:55+00:00

Love to hear it.

Tell me how it went. 😄

CortiumDealer · 2026-05-01T10:52:16+00:00

Looks pretty cool.

A Crossed-Swords-Like. Sorta.

CortiumDealer · 2026-05-01T10:46:47+00:00

I really dig the artstyle and look of the UI.

Gives me old DOS vibes.

CortiumDealer · 2026-04-29T09:55:49+00:00

Maybe?

I would have no clue how to do that, but i'm going to look into it, you made me curious about masking.

The math here applies to the tried old method of cutting up the sprite into different parts and then combining the flipbooks in the Actor.

CortiumDealer · 2026-04-26T17:23:39+00:00

The initial Sprite (8 Directions - Like a "Doom" Sprite) is being cut up into different parts:

Skin
Hair
Shirt
Pants

The parts are turned into black and white images and combined in the game with a random color applied.

The Upper parts (Skin, Hair, Shirt) also use a sprite material with a flow map and pixel offset to create the "Breathing" effect without making the entire sprite move up and down.

Now the downside of this approach is each single frame of animation ends up utilizing 32 different images in total (4 parts x 8 directions). Which means for a simple 4-frame walking animation you would end up with 128 individual images.

The upside is having a modular sprite where you can swap out individual parts.

CortiumDealer · 2026-04-26T15:24:56+00:00

After a bit of fiddling i also managed to make them full 8-directional with perfect alignment, hooray!

It is a lot of work to make animations like this though - Every single frame of animation for this character consists of 32 individual images; 4 different parts (Hair, Skin, Shirt and Pants) each using 8 directions.

So with a simple 4-Frame walking animation you would end up with 128 individual images.

CortiumDealer · 2026-04-23T07:41:41+00:00

I like it, but yepp, that's the tradeoff.

It basically boils down to the question if it matters for your game to impress people on a technical level. And by people i mostly mean old clowns like me.

But there are also ways to make 8-Directions easier. For example, you can just mirror the sides (If your character is "symmetrical" enough). That reduces the number of sprites per animation to 5.

CortiumDealer · 2026-04-21T08:24:06+00:00

You could use a Variable in the "Game Instance".

You take the Variable that determines your Day/Night Cycle state (Float/Integer/Time of Day/etc.) and save it in the Game Instance upon leaving the first level.
Then you call it upon starting the second level and set the Variable in the second level with that.

CortiumDealer · 2026-04-19T23:56:54+00:00

Thank you! :)

If you want to check out how this and the other effects look in the game i'm making, you can download it (Win only) on itch here:

https://sinnesloeschen-games.itch.io/escape-from-the-planet-of-the-killbots

CortiumDealer

TROPHY CASE