Barroom Billiards - Physics driven arcade game

EdgeOfMadness

Hello everyone.

I am working on a very basic physics driven billiards arcade game in Unreal Engine 5. It is very much a work-in-progress, but we all have to start somewhere.

I have a rudimentary implementation of the following functionality in place at the moment:

1 - The player can execute a strike on the Cue Ball. (even if it is only at the same force each time)

2 - The table has a controller blueprint that can; Monitor the table to see if it is in play; Remove pocketed balls from play; Reset the table to a previous state if the Cue ball is pocketed; And monitor if the table is cleared to reset for the next round.

Next I will be working on refining the gameplay. If anyone is interested in following along, here is a YouTube video with my first developer log for this project.

EdgeOfMadness

Hello everyone. I should have the next developer update ready by this weekend.

In the meantime, I did manage to update the low-poly developer art from the last post with something a bit better.

Here are some screenshots of the Work-in-progress table environment.

EdgeOfMadness

Hello everyone, I hope that you have all had a great week?

I have made the following updates this week to the Billiards based game I am working on in my spare time.

- Updated the environment art.
- I Set up a player score system.
- And created a fail-state for the game.

If anyone is interested, here is the link to my second developer log video.

Elyaradine

That soft lighting with those soft shadows is very pretty!

If you're mainly doing this for learning, I suggest you keep your scope really small, and make several different smaller games to acquaint yourself with your various tools.

I could be wrong, but I struggle to see what the "hook" behind this game would be, limiting its commercial appeal.

EdgeOfMadness

Elyaradine said:

That soft lighting with those soft shadows is very pretty!

If you're mainly doing this for learning, I suggest you keep your scope really small, and make several different smaller games to acquaint yourself with your various tools.

I could be wrong, but I struggle to see what the "hook" behind this game would be, limiting its commercial appeal.

Thank you for the reply and interest, it is much appreciated.

You are correct, learning is the primary project deliverable on my side. Keeping the scope small is something I am keeping in mind all the time. The idea is to develop a series of smaller games with focused experiences. Then to increase the complexity and scope slightly with each game I work. This project for instances, is inspired by an old NES game I played growing up, and does not require any skeletal meshes, and only uses a small level layout. That allows me to focus on scripting and putting the game together.

EdgeOfMadness

The next Barroom Billiards video update will be ready this coming Friday. (work has been a bit hectic this week during month end)

In the meantime, I have done the preliminary table layout for 4 more game stages:






The 5 stages I have ready will be used for an early playable demo to get some gameplay feedback.

iceblademush

Im liking what I'm seeing so far. Like the minigolf design aspects. Lots of potential there to push it further like ramps or split tables etc.

You could push it even further by different size balls or even material, so a heavy gold ball for example. A theme ive always wanted to see on a pool table are planet themed balls for instance :)

I think so far its looking really good and polished, the "trick" is to get some interesting hooks in, which i think you have done in your latest post.

iceblademush

Had to mention - but how about 1 table that it round with a single hole in the middle. Guess would need to play test to see if fun.

EdgeOfMadness

Thank you iceblademush, I really appreciate your feedback a lot. And I like a lot of your ideas. Will give it some consideration. This is my first game, I just need to make sure I restrict myself with regards to the scope, and possible feature creep. My primary goal is to create a primary gameplay loop, and content with the stages, and see the production phase through to the end. Then iterate on this project in the future, first add local multiplayer. Then possible online play later, but that will be much later, as it seems scary to approach right now.

iceblademush said:

Had to mention - but how about 1 table that it round with a single hole in the middle. Guess would need to play test to see if fun.

I do have something like that sketched out, along with an inverted version of it, where the entire ring around the outside is a continues pocket. Will playtest to gage the difficult, and then determine where I place it in Stage count.

iceblademush

This was shown to me - FYI

EdgeOfMadness

iceblademush; said:

This was shown to me - FYI

I like the line said at the end, "at first I was a bit disappointed at how difficult it was, but then I realized that it is much better this difficult, because then it is more fun.' (I think I quoted that mostly accurate.)

EdgeOfMadness

Hello everyone. I hope you all had a good week?

For this week's development update I managed to incorporate the four new stages, I modelled last week, into a small playable build of the game. Here is what all I managed to add:

- Added a preliminary menu system, including a main menu and pause menu.
- Expanded the amount of stages from 1 to 5
- Refined the physics slightly to allow the table to settle quicker.

Here is a link to the third development log:



I also uploaded a unedited video of the raw gameplay footage for those who might be interested to scrub through:



I am in the process of setting up the production phase for all of the stages for the entire game. I would be interested to find out what the community's thoughts might be on the following:

1 - How many stages would be the right amount for this type of game?
2 - Any shapes or ideas for the table stages they might want to see in the game?

dark_seth

I love the clean look of it.