Art

Hello again! Laurens here, Welcome to the art part of this weeks dev-log, I have been almost exclusively working on getting our cards to look all nice and re-vamped, (with actual imagery on there now, yay!) Different effects the loser of the current point count can activate to gain the upper hand in the round which follows. Here are a few examples!

Short and sweet on my end, onto Mathis!

Once again, hard to fill such big shoes. However, I'll try my best ;)

This week I worked on VFX: Abilities, Chaos factors and guns.

First I worked on the dash and gave it a simple effect:

After that I also worked on 2 Chaos factor effects: Self buff round start effect and also the flame hands for mighty mauler.

Once those were done I moved on to the weapon RFX.

Now remember how last week I presented this:

This week I decided it wasn't really what our game needed, and didn't align with Art Bible.

So I overhauled it and went for a Niagara based RFX instead.

I redid all the previously made ones, but also made new ones. Some were sprite based, like the muzzle flashes, but some were also just fully Niagara based.

RFX was (re)made for:

• Pistol
• Uzi
• AK
• Shotgun
• Baseball bat & Frying Pan
• Plasma Pistol
• Bouncy Gun
• Mini Gun
• Thunder Gun
• Golden Gun

Here's a quick overview of all of them:

I've also started on the meteors for Meteor Mayhem, but that wont be done before next week. However, here's a teaser:

That's all for me, on to technical!

Technical

you know what time it is, Techinial mumbo jumbo! 

Dylan

What did I work on this week? Following last week's pattern: new additions, more polish, and bug fixes. Here are the

Highlights:

• Tracing  animations and improvements

• Fixed players spawning on top of each other

• Knockback was resetting player velocity

• Ragdoll overhaul

• Podium teleport inconsistencies

• Delay added on unarmed attacks

• Point system completely revamped

• Adjusted weapon spawn rates

• Melee weapon improvements

  • Players can now move while attacking

  • Adjusted swing animations

  • Melee can now turn other weapons into projectiles

• New weapons:

  • Minigun

  • Uzi

  • Grenades

• Non-lethal ragdolling

• Final pass on the joining menu

• Lighting pass for level transition doors

That’s quite a bit so let’s break it down!

Level Transitions

You may remember from last time that transitions were almost seamless, except for one thing: lighting.

I tackled this by using light channels to have specific lights affect only the doors. This turned out to be far harder than anticipated, especially because the Card Selection level has an entirely different camera setup (position, rotation, FOV, and aspect ratio). Getting the lighting and doors to align properly across levels was a real challenge.

The fix? I switched to a Directional Light paired with an atmosphere volume to mimic the correct look. Ad after some tweaking, success!

This is as close to seamless as it gets. If time permits, I’ll further improve it by disabling outlines and point lights with precise timing.

Joining Menu

Last devlog, the joining menu got a full visual overhaul. This week, it got its final technical pass.

• The Ready button now functions properly and looks the way it should

• All player controls (emotes, jump, dash, attack) work right from the menu

• Functional navigation for up to four players

Players can now experiment with the controls before the chaos begins.

Weapons!

This week I added 3 new weapons and reworked the two melee weapons a bit

Minigun

This thing does not hold back.

• High fire rate

• High knockback

• Big weapon kick

• Moderate damage

There’s a small wind-up before it starts firing, but once it does, pure destruction.

Uzi

The Uzi is the Minigun’s opposite.

• Small and quick

• High fire rate

• Low damage

• No knockback or weapon kick

It’s a straight laser, accurate and satisfying.

Grenades

Because what’s a chaotic brawler without grenades?

Grenade use is split into two stages:

1. Pressing the attack activates the grenade

2. Releasing the button throws it

That means you can cook it… or accidentally blow yourself up. You can even pick it up and throw it again before it explodes. A blinking indicator shows how close it is to going off.

Baseball Bat & Frying Pan

These melee weapons needed some serious love. Originally, they felt weak due to:

• Short swings

• Limited movement

• Slower animations

Now they’ve been rebalanced:

• Faster and wider swings animations

• Players can move while attacking

• New feature: melee hits can send other weapons flying as deadly projectiles

Non-Lethal Ragdoll

What's funnier than killing your friends? Blasting them in the face sending them flying on the other side of the map (in game!).

With the addition of non lethal ragdoll and recovery from ragdoll we can now blow up or ragdoll the other players with special weapons for a good laugh!

Bug Fixes

Lots of cleanup this week:

• Kick Tracing: Improved hit detection and melee cooldown

• Spawn Overlap: Players no longer spawn in the same spot

• Knockback Logic: Fixed velocity resets and infinite stuns

• Ragdoll System: Now works properly for non-lethal effects

• Podium Teleport: Fixed inconsistent teleportation

• Point System: Refactored and made reliable

• Weapon Spawn Rates: Now better balanced across matches

And probably more that may be slipping my mind right now! Gameplay feels significantly smoother after these adjustments.

Closing Thoughts

I’m really happy with this week’s progress. From fixing issues to adding some fun new content made for a productive and exciting sprint.

It’s great seeing the game we envisioned actually take shape, piece by piece.

What’s Coming Next?

Next week marks the final week of Sprint 2. That means:

• Final feature additions

• Final mechanical implementations

• After that: two full weeks of polishing

We’ll focus on final additions to make sure every system and feature works as intended.

That wraps up this week’s devlog! But as promised last week stay tuned below for a technical deep dive about this week. 

Otherwise, see you next week!

Technical Deep-Dive

Dylan

Welcome back to the Technical Deep-Dive! Lot's of things to break down so let's get into it.

Level Transitions

To fix the transitions, I used light channels, a feature in Unreal that allows specific lights to only affect selected actors. By setting both the light and the door on the same channel (separate from the rest of the level), I achieved custom lighting specifically for the doors.

This worked well except on the Card Selection level. That scene has a completely different camera setup (position, FOV, rotation, aspect ratio), so the transition doors needed to be resized to match. Because the doors aren’t flat, this introduced lighting inconsistencies. Placing the light at the same distance caused incorrect shadows, while moving it closer made things too bright.

The solution? Directional light. Since it's treated as coming from very far away, it gave me consistent shadow data and a stable look across levels.

Joining Menu

From a technical standpoint, not much to show here outside some custom overlap logic.

Using sprites would’ve made things simpler, but I couldn’t find a reliable way to render sprites on top of the HUD. A missed opportunity, but the solution still works.

Weapons!

Now this is where it gets intersting.

Minigun

The Minigun needed custom logic, but nothing too complex thanks to our solid base weapon class. I added:

• A charge-up delay before firing begins

I considered adding a spinning barrel to indicate the charge state, but it wasn’t clearly visible from the side or at a distance, so I scrapped it.

Uzi

The Uzi used the base automatic weapon class. No new logic was needed, just value tweaking. Easy and effective.

Grenades

The grenade required a brand new weapon class. I split the attack input into Start and Stop:

• Start: Activates the grenade (starts its fuse)

• Stop: Triggers the throw animation and launches the grenade

As our weapons are already coupled to the players I chose to call the player code directly for speed and simplicity, rather than use an event-based system. It’s not ideal long-term, but it saved time.

With a notify inside the throw animation, the grenade is launched exactly when needed using the existing throw system.

As for the explosion itself:

1. A VFX system plays the explosion effect

2. A custom Explosion Actor is spawned

The explosion actor acts like a growing static projectile. It scales over time, checks for overlaps, and “blows up” anything it hits. Done!

Baseball Bat & Frying Pan

Both melee weapons and regular weapons generate hit events, so I simply caught those and applied launch velocity when struck. This turns them into deadly projectiles if batted around!

• New feature: melee hits can send other weapons flying as deadly projectiles

Bug Fixes

Kick Tracing

Kick animations now use notifies to delay the actual hitbox until the correct moment, making hits feel fairer and avoiding instant hits. Also added a cooldown between kicks.

Spawn Overlap

Players were spawning on top of each other. Now, spawns only occur if there’s no collision at the spawn point.

Knockback Logic

Using LaunchCharacter() was resetting player velocity to 0, making repeated shots stun-lock players. Switched to using AddForce(), which works much better.

Ragdoll System

Fixed and tweaked ragdoll settings to support non-lethal knockdowns cleanly. This included animation and physics tweaks.

Podium Teleport

This one was tricky:

• Players sometimes didn’t spawn

• Points were reset too early

The fix? Small delays to make sure players were fully spawned before resetting points.

Point System

This was just… broken. It’s been refactored, and while it’s more consistent now, the weekend playtest showed it still needs work. More to come here.

Weapon Spawn Rates

Added simple probability checks to better balance weapon spawns during matches. It feels better already.

Final Words

That wrap up this week’s deep-dive. I hope you enjoyed it.

If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, let us know!

See you next week! 🎮