The enemy AI is a very basic setup of a Wandering, Chasing, and Attacking state. If given a patrol path spline the AI will follow that path indefinitely until it finds a target to pursue.
When attacking/chasing, the AI will gauge the distance to its target before consulting its valid attack combos, a system I will cover in a subsequent section (to the right). The AI will attack its target until the target dies, the AI itself dies, or the target evades detection by breaking line of sight for an extended period.
Going forward I'd like to flesh out the intricacies of combat and allow the AI more options in engagement. I've implemented basic communication between allied AI to allow coordination. While one attacks, others will recover if needed or flank and attempt to surround the player. Adding individual "skill" levels to the AI will help dictate their ability to block or parry incoming player attacks is something I hope to incorporate as well to make enemies feel more alive and unique.
Systems were a joy to make being a solo designer because I got to expose everything I needed to. System design and implementation took up most of the project time to allow experimentation and refactoring, but I am very happy with how it turned out in the end.
The interface above is the combo system for enemy attacks. I developed this (and all my other systems) with other people's use in mind to make it as easy to use as possible. The Combo System allows me to set attacks for any enemy in a few clicks, just slot in the attack animations, plug in the attack stats (such as damage), and the "rarity" of the attack.
This allowed me to iterate on enemy attacks, so if I wasn't quite happy with how something looked, felt, or played out I could change it in a minute and be back to testing.
I am by no means a UI designer, but I took it upon myself to dip my toes into roles that I had not experienced before. I did so since I needed to for the project, but also to become more aware of what was required of those roles.
I've gotten to try a bit of modeling, animating, and rigging alongside intricate system design and my first hand with enemy and AI design. It has been a great experience to get to know various roles at a surface level and a pleasure to iterate upon and watch that work grow and improve.
Overall I'm pleased with how the project has turned out. I set out wanting to make my little version of Sekiro and I believe I nailed all the basics while also getting some great experience all around within Unreal.
There are some aspects I wish to continue to flesh out such as AI, and this will still act as a passion project I will poke at on the side.
I truly believe that with a larger team, this project could bloom into an amazing game for the world to enjoy, but until then I'll just have to hone my skills to help make that and other projects a reality.