GRAB

Summer Experiment: Grab

A PVP project developed in 2 months

Hello! I wanted to share with you a small project we've developed during the months of July and August. My colleague from OddBits Studios and I decided to take a complete break from our personal projects, because the reality is that we both have our own things and a lot, a lot of ambition 😄.

It all started one day when we were talking about those great games from retro consoles. We dove into a wave of nostalgia remembering classic titles, and from that moment we knew we had our candidate for rapid and intensive development.

🤝 Collaborative Development

What surprised us most was how naturally we divided the work. We used Git with some technical limitations due to our shared NAS in our private VPN, but it worked perfectly given the CPU architecture constraints.

We started adding basic concepts and ideas, and the project evolved organically throughout this time. We even had important last-minute changes, like transitioning from Third Person to First Person and implementing unique states for environmental object interaction.

🎮 Game Mechanics

We've developed a PVP game mode with basic AI bot support. The main objective is to capture the city, placing defensive turrets to maintain pressure and prevent the enemy from recovering zones.

The system works through boxes that fall from the sky in different areas of the map. Players must transport these boxes to specific platforms to perform the crafting process.

Bombs for territorial control
Jump mushrooms that allow reaching great heights
Blocking mushrooms for access control
And some more surprises you'll discover while playing 😉

⚙️ Technical Development

On the technical side, we've developed the game core by implementing GameServer and PlayerController in C++, later adapting them to Blueprints for easier use.

🎨 Art & Visuals

Advanced Shaders and Materials
UV and Modeling techniques
Niagara effects

🔧 Systems

Complete Animation system
Audio implementation
Custom Physics system

🌐 Networking

Multiplayer networking
Steam integration
Match system

🤖 AI

Behaviour Trees for AI
Basic PVP bots
Decision systems

And practically any area of Unreal Engine 5

🎯 Steam Integration

We've implemented full support for Steam, allowing players to create matches and join others. This opens the door both for playing with friends and meeting new gaming companions.

🚀 Future Plans

Our immediate plans include:

Boost the project's visibility on social media and gather support for its continuation if it sparks interest
Release on Steam and Itch.io
Possible adaptation for Android (evaluating technical limitations and controls)

It has been an incredibly fruitful experience in terms of learning and, above all, very fun thanks to the collaboration with OddBits Studios.

Thank you very much for taking a few minutes to read this personal post.

— Rawbit Games 🎮