Hand-Drawn Hero

Student Members: David Michel, James Royals

Faculty Advisors: Dr. Frank Witmer, Dr. Kenrick Mock

Introduction: For our project we created a 2D video game using Unreal Engine, a heavily 3D-focused game engine. More specifically, our goal was to create a short demo that includes a playable level. The game was planned to be a top-down action-adventure game akin to The Legend of Zelda. The game would have unique features to differentiate itself such as a shoulder charge attack, a dodge, and the ability to throw enemies at each other.

Background: Hand-Drawn Hero started development as a roguelike game. The original developers were
David Michel, Austin Edwards, and William Spear. David and James Royals would continue the project with a new vision.

Objectives:

• Create a playable character that can do more than the previous iteration.
• Create an entire level that the player can complete.
• Create a sort of overworld where the player can interact with non-player characters (NPCs).

Development Process:

• Changing Design: It was decided that we would change the levels of Hand-Drawn Hero from procedurally generated mazes to more linear dungeons designed by us.
• Designing a Dungeon: Involves conceptualization, sketching and prototyping, asset creation, implementation, testing and iteration, and polishing and optimization.
• Implementing Enemies: Enemies from the first version were almost complete, but we needed to port them over to be compatible with Pixel 2D.
• Implementing a Boss: The previous version did not have a proper boss at the end of the level. We managed to create a playable boss fight.