I wanted to write a post describing how easy it is to develop a game with the Untold Engine, the 3D game engine I developed. I wanted to create a simple mini-game that encompasses the features available in the Untold Engine.

For the first game, I decided to develop a game with one character, power-ups, and obstacles. The game design is as follows: the main character must collect all the power-ups. If the character collides with the Obstacles, the game is over. The game is shown below:

Let's go over the steps required to develop such a simple game.

Create the models and scene

I did not create the 3D models myself, (I don't have an artistic eye). Instead, I bought several 3D models from cgtrade. I then assembled the scene in Blender 3D as shown in the image below.

Once I was happy with the game scene, I proceeded to export the 3D models and scene using the Digital Asset Exporter (DAE). The Digital Asset Exporter extracts rendering information from a 3D object and provides the data to the Untold Engine.

The video below shows the 3D models in Blender 3D and the DAE being executed. Once the information is available to the Untold Engine, it is rendered on your iPhone or Mac.

Adding Walking Animation and Motion

I also created a walking animation for the character in Blender 3D. The animation is shown below:

The DAE, aside from exporting rendering information, can also import animation data. So, once the animation was ready, I used the DAE to export animation keyframes into the Untold Engine.

I also enable a controller, such as a gamepad, game controller, mouse, and keyboard, to control the movement of the main character.

As the video shows, I also added motion to the "tree trunks" that serve as obstacles in the game.

Enabling Collision Detection and Particle System

I wanted to create a visual effect whenever the main character eats a power-up. By enabling Collision Detection between the character and the powerup, I can determine whenever a collision between the two objects have occurred. Whenever such collision happens, particle systems are created. Thus, serving as visual cues.

Adding Knock-out Animation

I decided that it would be a good idea to create an additional animation that would execute whenever the Tree-Trunk hits the character. Like with the Walking animation, the Knock-out animation was created in Blender 3D. The animation is shown below.

The animation was exported with the DAE, and it runs whenever the character collides with the tree-trunk, as shown in the video below.

Adding Text

As I was playing around with the game, I realized that it would be a good idea to keep track of the powerups collected by the character.

To add text to the game, I used an app called Glyph Designer. The Untold Engine process the output from the Glyph Designer (.xml and .png files) and renders a text using the font type.

I decided to add a Text Object which displays the current number of powerups eaten.

Aside from that, the game will show a "Game Over" text whenever a tree-trunk hits the game character.

Adding a Skybox

Finally, I was not happy with the black background, so I decided to add a skybox. As you can see in the video, the skybox improves the visuals of the game.

I developed this game in parts throughout several days. However, overall it took less than three hours to develop. The hardest part was finding the right 3D models for the game. However, once I had the models, the Untold Engine made the development of the game easy.

If you are interested in developing a game using the Untold Engine, please visit our website: Untold Engine.

Thanks for reading.

Developing 1st mini-game with the Untold Engine