Dishonored: Over a Decade Later
This is a jumble of notes from a recent play-through I did of Dishonored. It isn’t a true deconstruct but does take note of certain opinions that I will note are my own. One of my favorite types of games are Immersive Sims; games like Bioshock, and Thief, that present the player with general goals…
Unreal Engine 5’s Gameplay Ability System: An Intro
I’ve been spending the last few weeks working with a system based on UE5’s Gameplay Ability System. In order to learn the general basics of the system I learned quickly that the best resource at the moment for a working example is a great tutorial by Leonard Parisi that exists on his Youtube channel and…
Unreal 5.1 And Blueprints: The Basics, Part III
This section is about Arrays, and more specification on other useful nodes. Arrays Simply put, arrays are a collection of elements. In the above example, the array here is a variable of strings which are defined in the Array elements list. To create an example array, do the following steps: 3. After compiling, you can…
Unreal 5.1 And Blueprints: The Basics, Part II
More details and breakdown notes for this post, including information on Event nodes, Custom Events, Functions, and Macros. Blueprint Nodes, Part 2 Event Nodes Event nodes are red in color and typically are the starting node in a graph sequence. An important note! The most expensive and rarely used Event node is the “Event Tick”…
Unreal 5.1 And Blueprints: The Basics, Part I.
Working through the following Udemy course as a way to get more familiar and comfortable with visual scripting. I’m going to break down a few aspects of the learnings I’m going through for future reference for myself any anyone else who may need a quick primer on the fundamentals of Blueprints. These notes are more…
A Return To Unreal
Hello again, it’s been a while! I’ve had a few job changes over the last few years, and each role has required me to work more in documentation than in a scripting capacity. I must say, I was worried about getting rusty, and even though a lot of the dust is knocked off, I’m still…
A Return to Adobe Illustrator
I’ve been trying to get back into digital design recently and did a few things in Illustrator that I’m proud of; mostly images inspired by friends. I hope you like my most recent designs!
Learning Unreal Day 2
I’m about 75% of the way through this lesson from Unreal’s learning resource center. I really like all of the available lessons and especially appreciate their Badge system which helps mark a learner’s progress through a fun little achievement system. The overall resources out there for learning and utilizing Unreal is astounding and I appreciate…
Learning Unreal Engine: Day 1
Running through introduction tutorials and built my first level using free assets in the Epic Store. Having all of the items in one spot, including the market place, the Epic Launcher, and the Unreal Engine in one shell is really cool. I only dabbled in Blueprints creating a prop light, but I think I’m going…
An Introduction to Game Design
A few months back, I was asked to do a write up on the different disciplines that exist in game design to help onboard a new designer. As a neophyte to design, this person is still unsure of what realm they are hoping to dive into long-term. This was created as a template, a broad…
All Girls Considered Interview: The Podcast
I wrote earlier about an interview I did with a group of young women from Leander ISD and my answers to their very well thought out questions. If you’re curious, the podcast is up and ready for you to listen! https://www.allgirlsconsidered.org/blog/tag/Valerie+Kromas Thank you so much for the opportunity!
The Handoff
The other day I was asked if I was in a good place to handoff my current workload on to another designer so I could move on to the next big task. In most cases delegating an implementation task would be no big deal, but for some reason unbeknownst to me at the time, I…
An Interview with All Girls Considered
As a veteran game developer, I am lucky enough to be invited to partake in convention panels, career days, and interviews discussing my experience in game development.
How I Accidentally Became a Game Developer
Like most, I struggled with what to occupy this space with; should it be a blog about my current project I am working? Should I use this space to document my own personal growth and development as a game designer? Should this be more of a warning guide to people contemplating entering this industry? While…
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Valerie Kromas 