Jacob "SaltedSquid" Howe
Technical Game Designer
Empress
Project Status: Finished/Released
Platform: PC
Project Duration: ~5 Months
Tech: Unreal, C++, Blueprints
Primary Role(s): Programmer/Designer
Link: Itch.IO Link
Empress is a turn-based RPG taking influence from traditional Chinese legends and folklore where the player takes control of a small child empress on her way to conquer the spirit world with the help of a flaming magical butterfly. The player must traverse these magical lands and defeat the guardians using magical spells.
For this project I was a programmer focused on creating a functioning turn-based combat system. I created a system that would take in player input and compute the enemies moves each turn until a victor was decided. I also managed the player controls which includes Xbox 360 controller integration and mouse and keyboard controls.

Turn-based Combat System
My major task for this project was to develop a turn-based combat system. The style of the system is reminiscent of traditional RPG games where the player and enemies take turns making their moves. The player can choose between a standard attack, using an item, or escaping from the battle. The system will wait until it receives an action chosen by the player and then process the action and then hand control over to the enemy AI where they will make their move. The loop will continue until the player either wins by defeating all the enemies, lose by running out of health, or draw by escaping battle. If defeated, the player is ejected from battle losing any used attack and support items but allowed to continue from there. On victory, the player is rewarded with a variety of attack and support items, equipment, and experience.

Enemy AI
The enemy AI was very simple due to the limitation of abilities the enemies had. They would randomly choose their next move based on a chance percentage that rolled each time they made an action. This could range from an attack, super attack, debuff, and buff moves.


Other
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Player Controls
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Item Implementation
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Experience System
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Player Equipment
