Glutton Runner: Subway Surfers like

This is actually the project that got me started in coding. It was pretty simple but it was already a challenge.

Screenshot of an early version of the game running on PC

Introduction

Glutton Runner is an endless runner game based on the famous mobile game Subway Surfers.

In 2018, I discovered programming with the Unreal Engine 4. I wasn’t not writing C++ but blueprints instead, a visual scripting system that allowed me the same than writing code.

Screenshot of blueprints from the Unreal Engine 4 documentation

At the time, I didn’t understand the principle of functions so there was duplicated code everywhere, it wasn’t great. But still, I was able to write games.

I don’t remember a lot of things about developing Glutton Runner years ago, so I’ll make my best to find interesting things to talk about.

Play Store page is not accessible anymore, so nothing to show but screenshots!

Challenges

I had literally no experience so the project was really challenging. Here are a few challenges I faced:

Deployment target

First of all, I wanted to make a mobile game using Unreal Engine 4. It’s pretty heavy and I think it wasn’t quite ready for such a small game at the time. Unity would have been a much better choice.

Moreover, I developed the game on desktop so it was definitely not mobile friendly nor optimized for mobile. I had to rework a lot of stuff.

Performances

I wasn’t a 3D modeler so I used a free pack on the Unreal Engine marketplace which was POLYGON - City pack from Synty Studios. It’s a low poly city with a lot of assets but I wonder if it was optimized enough for mobile.

In order to fix the performance issues, I unloaded any tiles (basically, the game is about going through modules of assets like a bridge, a town etc) too far from the player. I also added a fog (a sphere around the player with a grey texture) to load the tiles as late as possible. I also added a shader to make the view rounded and hide upcoming fog as much as possible.

I also manually worked on LODs (Level Of Detail) in order not to show too many polygons if not needed.

Current status

This game is unpublished from the Play Store, and has never been actually playable on mobile devices. I don’t plan on going back to it.

Lessons Learned

So many lessons learned with this project!

First real introduction to programming
Project management and versionning with Trello
Deployment with the Play Store Console
Taking care of performance
Basic material work
And so much more I forgot!