Spirit Sealers • First-Year University Project

Overview

Spirit Sealers was my first-year university game project and my first full experience developing a prototype inside Unreal Engine. The game is a Pokémon-style top-down RPG where players explore a haunted landscape filled with wandering ghosts. When ghosts detect the player within range, they chase and engage them in a turn-based battle, where the player can choose to Fight or Run. The focus was learning level scripting, AI behaviour trees, and combat state management through Unreal’s Blueprint system.

Footage

Image Gallery

Blueprint systems

• BP_TopDownCharacter / BP_TopDownController - player input, camera follow, and movement logic for the top-down view.
• BP_enemy / BP_SpEnemy - ghost AI that patrols and switches to chase when the player enters range.
• BP_Spawner / BP_Dungeon - manages ghost spawn points and randomises encounters across the map.
• BattleContext - handles turn order, action selection, and outcome resolution in battle scenes.
• GameOver - blueprint for scene transition and UI reset when the player loses or runs.

Gameplay loop

1. Explore the overworld and avoid or engage roaming spirits.
2. When contact occurs, switch to the battle arena handled by BattleContext.
3. Use “Fight” to damage or “Run” to escape; ghosts re-aggro if the player returns.
4. Winning seals the ghost; losing triggers GameOver UI logic.

Reflection

Working entirely in Blueprint taught me the fundamentals of scripting flow, object communication, and event-driven logic. It also introduced me to AI perception, collision triggers, and state-based design — all of which influenced later C# projects such as DiveCraft and AI-Grid. Spirit Sealers marked the start of my interest in hybrid gameplay systems that blend exploration with reactive AI encounters.

Note: This was my first academic game project, created to learn Unreal Engine’s Blueprint architecture and core game-loop construction.