Terminal Terror

Inspiration

Our inspiration stemmed from the thrill of turn-based gameplay, combined with the tension of cyber warfare. Design elements, such as the console interface, were heavily influenced by games like Fallout and Lethal Company. The dark-strategy genre of turn-based games was influenced by a recent game called Buckshot Roulette.

What it does

Terminal Terror brings the player into a gripping narrative where they must defend vital time machine blueprints from a relentless hacker. Through text-based and turn-based combat on a retro IBM terminal interface, players deploy various programs to outsmart their opponent and secure their system.

How we built it

Terminal Terror was built with Unreal Engine 5. With music assets from pixabay, game models from Sketchfab, and various other assets (see the GitHub for more information) from the public domain, only thing that was left was the terminal interface itself.

The entirety of the game logic was built using the Blueprint Editor in UE5. Much like Scratch, it is a visual block/node style editor that made development swift and efficient.

With the help of countless YouTube tutorials for game design and ChatGPT for storyboarding, we brought Terminal Terror to life, infusing it with our own creativity along the way.

Challenges we ran into

Creating our first game in Unreal Engine within the 24-hour timeframe presented numerous challenges. Coordinating team efforts and ensuring effective communication proved to be key hurdles. However, with determination and collaboration, we overcame these obstacles, leveraging each team member's strengths to bring our vision to life within the constraints of time.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud to not only have made our very first game, but one that entertains and educates players on cybersecurity concepts. We are also all pleased with the workflow and collaboration that it took to make Terminal Terror.

What we learned

Navigating a new development tool such as UE5 in such a short timeframe is not for the faint of heart. We were luckily presented with a wonderful community of developers online through both the Unreal Engine forums and YouTube which guided us in almost every step of the way in terms of game development.

What's next for Terminal Terror

In a 24-hour timeframe, we weren't able to hit all of the features we had in mind. When we heard the theme of "Retro Futuristic" our brains went into overdrive brainstorming ideas that we simply couldn't meet. As it stands, the player is presented with files that they don't know the outcome of. The hacker plays randomly selected files. We want to incorporate a more advanced AI (in the form of a million if-statements) and introduce more strategizing aspects to the gameplay.

Project Files and Discord

You can download and run, edit, etc the project from the GitHub or from the OneDrive link below. Exports of a ready-to-run (on Windows) game will also be included. In the Discord you can see our antics and delusions unfold as our sleep deprivation kicked in.

Debug and Bugs

A few debug commands can be used to traverse directly to different screens. To restart you can run dbgrestart, and to see the win/lose screens you can run dbgwin and dbglose respectively.

As it stands, there is a bug that has plagued the final few hours of development without solution. When switching from the "main menu" to the terminal, you must click on the screen to regain focus before the game accepts input. ;(

Note: Due to organizational policies, the OneDrive link will expire on March 12th, 2024.