Neon Steel is a 2.5D cyberpunk side-scrolling action game developed in Unreal Engine 5.6 as a capstone project by Bloodfeather Studio. Players explore a neon-lit dystopian world, fight hostile enemies, collect resources, unlock abilities, and progress through interconnected environments while uncovering the mysteries surrounding the collapse of civilization.

As Technical Director, responsibilities included gameplay programming, systems integration, source control management, technical troubleshooting, and supporting team members across multiple disciplines throughout development.

Key Learning Outcomes:
- Developed gameplay systems using Unreal Engine 5.6 Blueprints.
- Designed scalable and reusable gameplay frameworks for multidisciplinary teams.
- Implemented player combat systems, projectiles, shields, and pickups.
- Created destructible environment systems with designer-friendly customization tools.
- Integrated gameplay systems with UI, VFX, and player feedback mechanics.
- Developed autosave and checkpoint progression systems.
- Applied source control workflows using Git and Git Bash within a collaborative development environment.
- Resolved merge conflicts and maintained project stability across multiple contributors.
- Collaborated with designers, artists, and programmers as Technical Director.
- Strengthened technical problem-solving, debugging, and systems integration skills.

Technology Used
- Unreal Engine 5.6
- Blueprints
- GitHub (Version Control)
- GitBash
- GitKraken

Neon Steel

My Role: Technical Director

As Technical Director, responsibilities extended beyond gameplay programming. The role involved supporting the technical needs of the project, assisting team members with implementation challenges, maintaining source control workflows, and ensuring systems could integrate successfully across multiple disciplines.

Primary responsibilities included:

Gameplay systems development
Technical architecture planning
Source control management
Merge conflict resolution
System integration
Technical troubleshooting
Team support and mentoring
Cross-disciplinary collaboration

Overview

The combat framework was designed to provide responsive player combat while supporting future expansion. This included weapon functionality, projectile handling, damage processing, and visual feedback systems.

Responsibilities

Weapon system implementation
Projectile spawning
Damage integration
VFX integration
Combat feedback

Technical Breakdown

The system uses projectile actors spawned from the player weapon. Projectiles handle collision detection, damage application, and the triggering of visual effects upon impact. The framework was designed to support additional weapon types and combat mechanics with minimal modification.

Challenges

Balancing flexibility with maintainability and expandability for future features.

Firing Blueprints

Weapon Input & State Validation

Enhanced Input implementation for ranged combat. Multiple gameplay states, including aiming, equipped weapon type, and available ammunition, are validated before triggering weapon animations and firing logic.

Combat Feedback & Event Binding

Combat workflow connecting projectile impacts to gameplay events. This implementation updates the HUD, controls firing visual effects, and binds projectile impact events to damage processing and hit reactions.

Damage Processing System

Event-driven damage system that processes projectile impacts, spawns hit effects, and packages collision data into a custom damage structure before passing it to damageable actors for health and reaction handling.

Fire Logic & Projectile Spawning

Combat firing logic responsible for validating ammunition, calculating projectile direction from the player's aim position, spawning projectiles from the weapon muzzle socket, triggering audio feedback, and managing ammunition consumption.

Bullet
Blueprints

Projectile Impact Handling

Player projectile logic that detects collision through the projectile’s hit event, broadcasts the impact data, breaks the hit result, and spawns impact effects and sound feedback at the collision location.

Projectile Cleanup & Collision Safety

Final projectile cleanup logic that applies surface-based audio parameters, prevents the projectile from continuing to collide with its owner or instigator, and destroys the projectile after impact.

Firing Blueprints

Aimming Blueprints

Mouse-to-World Projection (Part 1)

Converts the player's mouse cursor from screen space into a world-space direction vector, creating the foundation for accurate 2.5D aiming.

Mouse-to-World Projection (Part 2)

Uses vector mathematics and camera positioning to calculate where the cursor intersects the player's movement plane, generating the final world-space aim location.

Controller Aiming Input (Part 1)

Detects right thumbstick input and determines when controller aiming should take control of the virtual cursor.

Controller Aiming Input (Part 2)

Converts thumbstick movement into screen-space cursor movement, enabling precision aiming while using a gamepad.

Aim Direction Calculation

Projects aiming input onto the gameplay plane and calculates the character's desired aiming direction using normalized vectors and directional comparisons.

Mouse Aim Rotation Generation

Calculates weapon and character rotation from the projected world-space cursor position, producing accurate aiming data for combat systems.

Mouse Aim Rotation Generation

Applies calculated aim rotations to character components while maintaining side-scroller movement constraints.

Directional Rotation Construction

Generates stable rotational data from directional vectors, ensuring smooth and consistent aiming behavior.

Aim Constraint System (Part 1)

Applies rotational limits and angle mapping to prevent unrealistic aiming positions while preserving responsive controls.

Aim Constraint System (Part 2)

Converts aim rotation values into animation-friendly pitch values used by character aiming and weapon orientation systems.