Ding, Dong, Deliver
Position: Lead Developer (Solo Project)
Engine: Unreal Engine 5
Date: October 2024 – November 2024
Ding, Dong, Deliver is a local multiplayer, arcade-style game that puts two players at the wheels of delivery trucks in competition to finish more deliveries than the other. The game was developed using Unreal Engine 5 and coded using the blueprint system over the course of around six weeks. The game started as a prototype for a class assignment, before getting expanded upon further after the fact.
The game follows a simple gameplay loop where players would first pass through a “pick-up spot” to obtain a package, and then pass visit a “drop-off spot” to deliver it, earning them a point. Whichever player has more points at the end of the two minute and thiry second round would be crowned the victor. Furthermore, there are several power-ups that players can use to either help them or disrupt their opponent, creating a level of stretegy in the game.
At first, the game was designed with a much different gameplay loop in mind. Rather than have to pick up packages before delivering them, players simply had to reach a drop-off location to earn a point. Furthermore, there weren’t two set locations for drop-off locations at any give time – instead, three timers were set at random intervals and, when they eached zero, would spawn a drop-off location around the map.
However, this more barebones version of the game posed a couple of problems:
For one, the gameplay felt, overall, very samey and boring. With players just needing to reach one spot for a point, it lead to the game becoming very stale. However, by changing the delivery system to the one described above, it created a more intersting gameplay loop where players could now route their path in between pick-up and drop-off. After further testing, the new layer of strategy this created was very well recieved.
The map was usually completely empty or had every slot filled – no in between
Secondly, I found that there was little interaction between players, leading the game to feel more like two players simply existing in the same world, rather than two players competing. This is when I decided to add power-ups, as it created another resource for players to compete over, as well as a way to directly affect each other’s gameplay. My favorite power, Reset, took advantage of the reworked delivery system, allowing players to remove packages from both their inventory and their opponent’s.