GIKO: Get In - Keep Out
Overview
GIKO is an asymmetrical, three-player game, where players jump into the roles of an agent,
a hacker and a guard as part of the GIKO Company. The agent and hacker must work together to navigate
through the level, while the guard and the drones they control, try to stop them.
The
The
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While initially starting as a uni project, we have plans to pursue this game idea further in the
future, expanding it to a fully flesh-out game which will eventually get released.
Since this includes major reworks of the prototype we created so far, we decided to no longer have
the demo freely available to play for the time being.
Technical Aspects
The primary goal of our project was to create a functional multiplayer game in Unreal, including
the networking of multiple computers, a lobby functionality, as well as a host-client setup using
a Steam API.
For our secondary goal, we implemented a level generation system, utilising a
grid based, procedural generation of rooms and walls. We additionally increased the randomness of
our game further with generated tasks for the agent and hacker to complete.
My responsibilities in this project were primarily the implementation of the NPCs, and any aspects
that were related to them. This included, for example, the setup of the dynamic NavMesh,
to enable the drones to move around the level, while reacting to the changing layout of the locked
and unlocked doors.
Additionally, the NPCs had to be controllable by the Guard player via a map UI. This map
not only had to display the real-time location of all NPCs in the scene, it also had to be interactable,
to allow the Guard to select any drone and give it instructions.
The available commands have been seperated into 3 different NPC states: while in the GUARD state, the
player can click on any spot on the map to specify a location for the bot to walk to and stay at.
CLicking on the map again, deletes the old location and replaces it with the new position. The
PATROL state allows the Guard to define a patrol route which the drone with walk along, by placing
multiple position markers on the map. Finally, STANDBY can be used to delete all previous commands,
causing the drone to freeze in place.
To be able to detect the Agent, running around the level, I fitted the droids with both sight and
sound based sensors. This way, they are not only reacting to visual contact, but are also able
to detect the player's footsteps, even if they are out of sight. Additionally, I added different
sound levels that are emitted when the player runs or sneaks around.
As soon as a bot detects the Agent, their current state are being overwritten, and
replaced with a new CHASE state. For as long as the drone is in pursuit, all previous and new
instructions are being ignored, and instead the player is being followed. Whenever the bot looses track of
them however, it will continue towards the Agents last known location, which had been determined
either by sight or sound. Having reached this position, and still being unable to locate them again,
the drone will return to its previous, controllable state again after a few seconds.
Besides being able to see the position of the NPCs on the map, the bots' visual inputs are also
streamed to a RenderTarget texture, so that it can be displayed on the screens in the Guard office,
allowing the Guard player to see more of level.
and the current view of the individual drones on the smaller screen below
Finally, while we did not make the 3D model and animations ourselves, I was still responsible for
implementing ou assets, and making sure they work together and fit our game's aesthetic.
This required wrangling the Unreal Animation Retargeter, to correctly apply the animations to our
droid model, as well as reworking the model's materials to allow for matching recoloration and
displaying of our logo.
