About

Burn The Bodies is a co-op horror game where players go through randomly generated floors to destroy evidence of the company Eskon having any ties to the new ethereal monsters loose in the office building. It's being developed by myself, another programmer, and 3 other devs in the Unreal Engine. We have a roadmap for announcing this October and releasing early next year.

For this project, I was able to dive into new systems and enhanced my Unreal Engine knowledge. I had no prior knowledge of VoIP but have now made modifications to the OnlineSubsystem plugin to support Walkie-Talkies and enhanced volume controls.

Contributions

I created a computer that the player could interact with in the style of Windows 96. The computer has programs that the player can open and interact with to get points and shop, and because players are usually separated I wanted them to be able to tell what other players did on it. To achieve this I added in selective widget replication by sending RPCs about widget creation, movement, and custom data. To identify the correct widget, I hashed the path name of each replicated widget.

I also developed the inventory system and tools including a flashlight, glowstick pack, and Walkie-Talkie. With players being able to drop and pickup tools, I decided to sync their data only when dropping and transitioning between levels, cutting down on unneeded traffic. For the Walkie-Talkies, I read through the Voice Engine and added in hooks to reproduce the audio through them along with noise triggers for AI.