User:Mpark92/sandbox

Maze Shooter

Designers	Michael Park
Publication	October 16, 2016 (2016-10-16)
Genres	Third-person shooter Strategy game Racing game
Languages	English
Players	1
Playing time	5-20 minutes per game
Website	Alpha_v0.01

Maze Shooter

Maze shooter is a science fiction third-person shooter(TPS) videos game developed by a university student named Michael Park. The game is powered by Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4 and developed by using both Unreal Editor and Visual Studio. The game was announced during Hack Western 3, which it describes that the game's total development time is less than 36 hours. The game takes place in-near future where violence becomes a new trend in the entertainment business. In the game, randomly selected criminals are sent to a maze with deadly traps waiting for them.

The game's main core style and design is based on the film The Maze Runner (film), which is based on James Dashner's The Maze Runner. The game similarly follows the first movie's set up, where in the beginning the main lead character shows up in the middle of the maze and tries to escape it. During the escape, the lead character encounters hostile robots and must eliminate them in-order to advance.

Game play

Maze Shooter has three available gameplay modes. Based on "third-person shooter" and "racing game" genre, the gamplay can be experience in either elimination, escape, or hybrid mode.

The game uses the general third-person shooter control method. The character can be controlled by using the WASD keys from the keyboard to move around, and by moving the computer mouse around it rotates the view camera. The game character also has the shooting capability by clicking the left mouse button.

Elimination

One of two gameplay modes available in the game. Once player is spawned in the maze, the player must eliminate all the enemies or as many as possible within given time or set a record. The core key concept of this gameplay was taken from Hunger Games (film), which is based on the novel Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Escape

Another gameplay mode available to play in the game. Once player is spawned in the maze, the player must find the escape route to escape the maze. There are many obstacles such as AI machine programmed to terminate the player and prevent them from escaping the maze. The core key concept of this gameplay was taken from The Maze Runner (film), which is based on the novel The Maze Runner by James Dashner.

Hybrid

Combination of both elimination and escape gameplay. The player can win the game by either eliminate every threat in the maze or escape the maze first.

Synopsis

Setting

Maze Shooter sets in a science fiction universe created by Michael Park. In the year 2095, humanity demands shocking entertainment to lead a new trend. As a result, the entertainment industry has created a survival death race in the maze to create a new trend in the entertainment business. To minimize the ethical issues due to its extreme violence, the life sentence prisoners were selected as contenders. As a prize, a freedom with no criminal record.

Character

As of March 2018, current playable character is a default mannequin character provided in Unreal Engine 4. Which it has no gender nor a unique look to identify its sexuality.

Development

Unreal Engine 4

Unreal Engine 4 is a game engine developed by Epic Games. It has its reputation known for high quality graphic game engine for AAA+ titles. Its core programming language is C++ and its internally develop script language called Blueprint, which is developed to reduce the development difficulty for new learners.

Blueprint

Blueprint is a visual scripting system developed by Epic Games, used on Unreal Engine 4. It is a complete gameplay scripting system based on the concept of node-based interface for developers to work within Unreal Editor. Because of Blueprint's simple user interface, a lot of major components of Maze Shooter were made by using Blueprint, which it shorten the development time by significantly to meet Hack Western 3's project submission deadline.

C++

C++ (Cee-Plus-Plus), is a programming language used on Unreal Engine 4, which is also used on developing Maze Shooter. However, due to the limited amount of time given from the hackathon, C++ was only used on minor components of the game such as character's functionality setting.

#include <iostream>

int main() {
    std::cout << "Hello, world!\n";
    return 0;
}

Hack Western

Hack Western is a hackathon organized by the team of students from the University of Western Ontario, located in London, Ontario, Canada. It is a free computer and software related event that features various prizes and awards. Students can participate the event either individually or in groups up to 4 members. It is a 36 hour non-stop event held annually with more than 500 students across the province participates.

Hack Western 3

Maze Shooter was developed during Hack Western 3 on October 16, 2016. The event was held in the University Community Centre (UCC) building at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. The event began on Friday October 14, 2016, and lasted until Sunday October 16, 2016. More than 500 student across the province of Ontario, Canada, have participated.

Hackathon

Hackathon is a portmanteau of words Hack and Marathon, where hack is used to express the word coding than cyber crime. The term hackathon is used by computer programmers as a programming event, where designers, programmers, marketers and more are either competing in groups or individually to work on a software project within given time.

The main objective of a hackathon is to make a usable and unique software. There is no limit on topic selection. However, to be considered as a prize contestant, the project topic has to meet the topic requirement such as game, Internet of Things (IoT), AI, Blockchain and etc.

Depends on the organizer/university, the prize pool varies from as big as internship/job offer and Playstation 4, to as small as $25 gift card.

References

External Links

Devpost on Devpost

Michael Park's Personal Web Portfolio on Web

Maze Shooter Github Repository on Github