USC MFA THESIS / GAMEPLAY ENGINEERING
First-person sci-fi action survival · USC MFA thesis
The Man I Invented is a first-person sci-fi action survival game developed as a USC MFA thesis project. Its systems span character combat, equipment switching, enemy behavior, and persistent world state. As Lead Programmer, I work on these gameplay systems and first-person animation.
This 29-second demo showcases procedural animation. Read about the systems I worked on below.
Video hosted on Bilibili. If the player does not load, watch on the original site. Bilibili ↗
As Lead Programmer, I worked on the following systems and their technical implementation.
Connected equipment switching, firing, ammunition, reloading, and damage into one combat flow, with repair and explosive projectile variants.
Built data-driven character and equipment systems in C++ with GAS. PlayerState owns the player ASC; equipment swaps grant and revoke abilities for input, firing, ammunition, reloading, and damage. Extended a shared projectile base for repair and explosive rounds.
Stored object state across the world, supporting reconstruction of runtime objects and tracking objects that have been permanently destroyed.
Designed a component-based persistence framework using GameInstanceSubsystem, persistent GUIDs, and a custom state interface, supporting runtime reconstruction, permanent-destruction records, and state restoration.
Built a shared combat foundation for humanoid, nightmare, and boss enemies, with behavior subtrees and ability configurations shaping their combat behavior.
Built a shared enemy-combat base for ASC, attributes, and abilities, with humanoid, nightmare, and boss variants. Reused AI through dynamic behavior subtrees and selected abilities by phase and distance, including invisibility and area barrages.
Coordinated separate arms, visible legs, and full-body shadows, extending animation for different weapons and adding movement leaning and weapon lag.
Created skeleton-independent animation templates and weapon-specific Linked Anim Layers. Coordinated separate arms, visible legs, and full-body shadows, with bone-driven leaning and spring-damped weapon lag.
Connected combat events to effects, audio, and camera feedback through a shared mechanism for different combat actions.
Decoupled combat from audiovisual feedback with Gameplay Tags and Gameplay Cues, integrating Niagara, blood decals, spatial audio, and camera shake.