Tips for New UE5 Dev in 2024!

[DieselQueenDev]

Howdy!

Though I've played probably hundreds of games from this place, I haven't found one that quite scratches the itch for me. So, I figured I'd dip my toes into Development!

I plan to have a game built with isometric combat, random-encounter style world-map, and an optional storyline. All of this is going to be done through Unreal Engine 5, as it was personally recommended to me by a Dev friend!

So, in short, if you have any tips or tricks on how to get started, I'd love the help! I've been following tutorials and reading up on help forums, but I'd love to hear your personal advice for someone new like me!

 

[SpiteWorks - Cassian]

personal advice is to dive right in, and to only use UE's features(lumen, nanite, etc) if they are absolutely necessary. A lot of the time they can cause additional bloat and complexity, which is the worst thing for a solo project to have. Practice your google search/troubleshooting skills whenever you run into an issue, and avoid using event tick as much as possible.
Start with hammering out your isometric camera, and avoid using marketplace assets for mechanics/systems as much as you can.

If you wanna talk game dev, my discord is spiteworks

Looking forward to what you make!

 

[MissFortune]

I might add, from what little I know about this side of UE (know more about making cinematics with it than this side of it, but not by much), that you might want to think about getting a small team together. Especially for something like this. Every UE game I've seen in the adult space usually has 3-4 people working on it.

It's fine for solo devs who are looking to make cinematic styled stuff with it (Alpha, Omega or To Be a King), but if you're making a full on game out of it, I'd probably get at least one other person on board. At least part time.

 

[XXXDimension]

Fully agree with MissFortune, Unreal looks great in the beginning but is hard to optimize. For cinematics it´s perfect.

 

[sanyya]

...I plan to have a game built with isometric combat, random-encounter style world-map, and an optional storyline...

that is A LOT for a game you want to solo dev in unreal. hope you have a ton of experience in game development/coding/animation and plenty of time on your hands.
if not, i'd suggest something way simpler for a start. work your way up to it.