Super Hamster Havoc | Developer Blog #2

Good to all the peoples reading this,

Welcome to Update #2 on the progress of Super Hamster Havoc. We are well aware that it has been a minute since we have filled you in on what is up with the game but we have been at work on it and hope this update does not disappoint.

Allow me to reintroduce myself

What is Super Hamster Havoc About now?

Lead the Havoc, an Elite Hamster Strike Squad through a world where humans are no longer. You and your comrades in arms will have to battle against the forces of the evil Rat Menace who’ve overtaken Old Earth.

Ok same flavor text as before but what is it really?

Super Hamster Havoc is still a Top Down Twin-Stick Arena Shooter.

Me play game when?

Rather then putting a date out in the universe, we’ll make a formal post when we are READY ready to drop

The Great Refactor, Pt 3

For those who may recall, Super Hamster Havoc was a 2.5D twin stick shooter running on Game Maker Studio 2. To give the illusion of depth, Nabil bent over backwards (To the protest of Chris and Macro) to convert the game from just handling collisions with 2 dimensions in mind, but 3. This over time became a bit untenable as Gamemaker is not a 3D engine at heart and doing things like level design for a 3Dish game in a 2D engine is not as fun as it sounds. So, to not be about done by the first great refactor, and after giving up on the second (blog post coming eventually on me switching the project to Gamemaker Studio 2.3), Nabil migrated the entire project to Unreal Engine 4. Despite the horror of nuking our entire Gamemaker codebase, this did allow us to default on all the technical debt that we have accumulated so far, and for Nabil to try out a multitude of things learned from other projects on Super Hamster Havoc.

Super Hamster Havoc is 3D?

The short answer is yes, the game is truly rendered in 3D but we still have a fixed perspective camera. Making the move to 3D broadens the horizons for both map layout and general visual design.

Data Tables Galore

For those familiar with Unreal, we have embraced the Gospel of Data Tables, as it allows us to centralize data in a way that multiple classes can reference easily. We use this for levels, weapons, and characters and it’s been a blessing as it makes tweaking values very easy for designers, and adding characters very easy for artists.

Multiplayer has been reworked

The framework for multiplayer in Super Hamster Havoc was weak before to put it lightly, and with the move to Unreal, we are taking advantage of all the features that suit the game

• Unreal’s damage system, particularly the usage of instigators in keeping track of who killed who
• Gamemodes for dictating rules in game sessions
• Unreal’s replication system
• Integrating Steam Networking

This has not only helped keep things clean as a whistle but has allowed us to add ONLINE MULTIPLAYER to the game!