DowntownFortMyers

Downtown Fort Myers | Combat & AI Systems
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Downtown Fort Myers

First-Person Survival Shooter | Unreal Engine | C++

A systems-focused survival FPS prototype inspired by wave-based combat design. This project emphasized combat responsiveness, enemy AI architecture, and scalable encounter balancing.

Unreal Engine C++ Combat Systems Behavior Trees AI Architecture Game Balancing

Project Overview

Downtown Fort Myers is a first-person survival shooter centered around wave-based enemy encounters. The core objective was to push my gameplay engineering skills by building modular combat systems, scalable AI behaviors, and responsive weapon mechanics.

This project marked a major technical growth milestone, demonstrating rapid improvement in gameplay system architecture following my previous stealth project.

Core Gameplay Systems Implemented

  • Modular weapon firing system (hitscan logic + damage calculation)
  • Health & damage processing framework
  • Enemy AI behavior trees with chase and attack states
  • Wave spawning and encounter escalation system
  • Player feedback systems (hit reactions, damage indicators)
  • Performance-conscious AI update logic

Combat System Architecture

Weapons were built using modular C++ components allowing reuse across future weapon types. Damage calculations were abstracted into a centralized processing system to maintain scalability and reduce redundancy.

Enemy behaviors were structured using Unreal’s Behavior Tree system, ensuring clear separation between decision logic and execution logic. This improved debugging clarity and system maintainability.

Technical Challenges

One of the primary challenges involved balancing AI aggression with player survivability. Iterative tuning was required to ensure encounters felt intense but fair.

Another key challenge was managing multiple AI actors simultaneously while maintaining stable performance. Optimized update cycles and controlled perception checks helped reduce unnecessary processing overhead.

Future Improvements

  • Advanced enemy archetypes with unique attack patterns
  • Dynamic difficulty scaling based on player performance
  • Weapon upgrade system with stat modifications
  • Network-ready architecture for multiplayer scalability