Set on a remote island, the player must fight back against their captives with nothing but their fists, using their enemies' weapons against them. Do you have what it takes to escape?

Developed over the course of 1 year, Django Unplugged is an action shooter developed in Unreal Engine 5 in an ambition effort to replicate the AAA pipeline on a significantly smaller scale. My team had the honor of showcasing the game at WPI IMGD's ShowFest event. We were honored to be voted "Audience Pick for Best Major Qualifying Project" when we displayed the game in April 2023.

The final version released August 2023 on itch.io. Interested? Play it now!

Gameplay Trailer

My Responsibilities

Created weapon and melee combat systems using UE5 Blueprints, including hit detection, recoil systems, and inventories.
Implemented animation systems for MetaHuman actor movement and combat, working with animators to ensure quality visuals.
Collaborated closely with AI programmers and designers to create a smoother combat experience.
Programmed foundational UI elements such as the player HUD and the menus.

Guns, Guns, Guns

Gunplay in Django Unplugged was programmed from the ground up only using Unreal's out-of-the-box Blueprint scripting. The goal was to make firing weapons feel powerful yet scarce, as we wanted the player to engage in a back-and-forth dance between gun and melee combat.

An image showing a shot of the HUD from in-game.

Another example Blueprints from Django's weapon inventory system.

Some example Blueprints from Django's weapon inventory system.

The components of guns and their functions were split across different Unreal Actor Blueprints. The firing sequence itself was handled as a combination of the weapon scripts for hit detection and the player's scripts for recoil control.

Information for firing sequences and ammo were stored per-weapon, and each weapon had a pickup item counterpart which handled out-of-hand interaction (example of weapon pickup logic above).

Beat 'em up!

Since the player would be starting from nothing but their fists, we wanted melee combat to feel powerful. Each hit the player deals both damages and can potentially stun enemies, knocking them down to the ground for you to hit 'em where it hurts!

Wanna up the ante? Each takedown with melee send you into a vengeful state, making each melee attack hit harder. Want to play it safe? Plenty of weapons for those who want a more traditional shooter experience.

Image of melee combat in Django Unplugged

Melee combat used similar systems to guns for storing data like damage and stun values. The methods of hit detection vary from weapon to weapon, with the player's fists and the knife being hitboxes that are turned on/off during specific animations, while the whip uses hit-scan with a cable for a visual indicator of where the attack is going. The knife is also coded to function like a ranged weapon in the event the player wants to try to hit a risky knife throw.

This endeavor would've been literally impossible without my teammates:

Yaseen Nagib (Lead Designer and Producer)

Victoria Rindeiko (Animator)

Hanwen Xu (Environmental Artist)

Nadiyah Garris (Orchestrator)

Jay Ignatowski (Combat/AI Designer)

Xander Presser (AI Programmer)

Marik Garbaczonek (Unreal Generalist)

Lastly, special thanks to Zach Adams for animation assistance, Mikel Matticoli for IT support, and the WPI IMGD program staff/faculty for giving us the opportunity to make this game a reality.