Runaway Game WIP

This is a solo developed project in UE5.

After my layoff from Highwire Games in January of 2025, I decided to put all my efforts into learning as much as possible in UE5 and potentially re-direct all my efforts and free time toward a cohesive focused narrative SP title.

As someone who has spent pretty much his entire career in videogames in one or two specialty, I am learning things I had never any idea how to do before on a daily basis. I always had Technical background, but to be able to actually use them here in much larger scale than I ever did, has been a journey on its own. This is just a sampling of daily triumphs/struggles on working on my own stuff.

In the beginning 2025 - despite all of my experience - if you put a blueprint in front of me, I didn't know much how to deal with it. Not only that, but over the course of this past year, I have fully developed the skillset to deal with a lot of advanced technical elements - from locomotion systems, PCG, Layered Shaders, event dispatchers, rig breakdowns etc.

Learning takes time... but so much of what I have been able to achieve have been through watching and doing courses, youtube tutorials and digging into reddit and Epic threads. So thanks to whoever had a hand in any of these. Much of what I have done probably could have been just "bought" via a sample pack or FAB product. I don't think that would have helped me learn the nitty gritty of the process - which is the most important element here.

The Goal is to reach this level of visual fidelity.
Yes, there are elements from city sample project. But everyone knows that dealing with that project, has its own kinks. This was also a ground for me learning cinematic tools/ Sequencer. The car is animated via a custom control rig - fully set up initially in Maya, and then inside Unreal for procedural use. But once inside sequencer, I still can manually hand animated upon need.

Dev Blog

Mar 1, 2026
General Notes:

Spent some time with PCG.

I already studied some use cases of PCG last year, but I didn't commit to actually creating anything. Due to high volume of demand from variety of studios I am applying to, I decided to actually put the knowledge in action and create something on the side - some of which would eventually get used in this project. I learned some more in the process as well. Funny, how much difference almost a year makes. It was super easy to pick up and incorporate into currently existing workflow. I ended up creating 2 different set ups. One for a jungle scene (so typical), and another for Urban building structures. they are quite easy to customize with easy mesh inputs and adjustments inside the BPs.

The building one - as shown - also is quite easy to modify as long as all the pieces have similar wall width size (currently there's one with 300 unit, one with 350 unit and another with 400unit). Extending this to further customization on each section of 1st floor, mid and penthouse could be relatively easy too - as I already do that sort of calculation in the roof area. All roof pieces have different sizes compared to the rest of building elements.

Feb 18, 2026
General Notes:

Extended the movement set with additional hops, jumps, mantles and climbs. A lot of them also have situational dependencies - character speed, height/depth of the obstacle, whether character is in crouch mode or not, how much room there is for character to extend himself, etc.
Climbing at the moment works as grab, shimmies, drops, and climb ups - getting the hops to work has not been successful yet.
The IK for hand/feet adjustment mostly works. There are still a few kinks here and there.
Some of the animation set also is a not perfect yet. That's what you get relying on Mixamo :D
Finally got a crack at Gameplay Tags. The entire system here is built on that.

Jan 23, 2026
General Notes:

Polished the locomotion system much further. There were still a few kinks left in the previous update. I am now at a very happy place with this. Extended the updates to NPC AI as well. Also in the process, a few camera related issues also got resolved

Cleaned up a lot of the work, to further improve performance. Pretty much all the direct "Casts" are now removed from the game.

Weapon firing mode switcher. The setting can easily be defined inside the weapon structs I already had setup.

I spent a day or two to updating the Door Blueprint I had; so that now I feel very comfortable about it in terms of design and in-game usage. Other than the lock/unlock with key which I previously had done, now I can do lock/unlock with switches as well.

Added a few things that still in early stages - but I think could potentially be improved upon/used in a better way down the line.

A spreadable fire system - which actually is doing it's job on painted foliage. The burnt foliage get deleted once the burning is over.
A scanning system - currently it is just specific assets. But can easily be extended for weapons/ NPC AI

Dec 20, 2025
General notes:

Fully updated data-fed locomotion system which is also implemented for NPCs
Adding a new weapon system that allows much more definition for each weapon type and controlling everything with data sets
Integration of said weapon system with previously established inventory system
Character profiling so that I can choose who's friendly, enemy ,etc.
Updated camera system which is also fully data-fed
Event-Dispatched animation montage system

Let's take a moment to appreciate the magic of the updated locomotion system. The moment I implemented the turn-in-place, there was this moment of magic to me
Some basic design implementation in terms of doors/keys and storage.

Then there's the locomotion system. Most of the animation sequences have been taken from Epic's Lyra sample set. But to anyone who has dealt with them, knows there's key elements missing or some kinks here and there.
Making everything use datasets have been such an easier route. All the sets have override ability - the biggest example could be seen by Pistol and rifle data sets. I was not happy with how Lyra instantly uses Pistol data set with both hands up. I used the usual "unarmed" set + "hand clutching the pistol" override. Meanwhile, I completely switch to a new data set of animation when I am aiming. Meanwhile, for Rifle, I really liked the "Animation Starter Pack" idle animations. I needed to re-bake all those sets with proper "weapon" sockets.
And then there's the weapon system - which as I said now can be much more elaborate in terms of setup
Inventory still fully integrated and showing proper buttons based on current functionality
I also set up a spawner for NPCs - this is still early
It is rarely ever discussed, nor there's much tutorials for this - but dealing with interruptions was an effort. For every animation montage, there's a lot of work needed to be done via event dispatchers inside of an animation montage system
Sprint is also very well integrated now.

Updated the ragdoll system to recognize directionality of the hit + how/where the impact happens.
With the new weapon system, it is actually quite easy to give NPC proper weapons to carry

This new locomotion system allows for both strafing and forward facing methods. For strafing I am mostly relying on "Lyra" set, while for forward facing turns, I am relying on the "Echo" set. Echo set is mostly applicable to a female character - so here the overrides come in useful again.
Another issue with forward facing and "Echo" set is it doesn't have any animations for crouch position. For that I had to integrate whatever was available through Lyra - alot of math needed to be resolved.

I had a 3month stint at Room8 Group. My production output was a little more limited

August 10, 2025

Added a fully functional "Storage Locker" that is fully aware of your inventory and how to react to it (e.g. storing multiple similar items, but can only retrieve one/ automatically convert doubled weapon to ammo)
Add Melee

Figured out the Aim Offset stuff - it is fully working with the Shotgun at the moment

June 20, 2025

Overhauled the entire weapon system - now fully running on Enums
Fully context sensitive inventory system - now showing proper functions available to each item
Added Hand Cannon and Shotgun - The animations definitely could be improved, but that's just on animation side
Cleaned up all the D-pad functions for weapon assignments
Full Parity between whatever happens in game and inventory (reloads, holsters, UI, etc)

May 20, 2025

Adding a reload system
Adding a semblance of Inventory system - Each item gets proper function assignment
Add Item Inspection with it's own camera control