Mind: Path to Thalamus was the result of a dedicated team of three developers in Spain who set out to create a non-shooter experience from the first-person perspective. Co-creator Carlos Coronado came out to North Carolina to talk with us about his experience in building the game, as well as his plans to update it with new features while moving it to Unreal Engine 4. Carlos also joined Epic at the East Coast Game Conference to speak about teaching techniques he uses at the University of Barcelona to train others how to use Unreal Engine 4. His project VR Olive aims to solve a lot of design challenges in virtual reality, such as more natural movement and orientation. Watch as he demonstrates his approaches of new ways to control the player character.
The April #ue4jam was also kicked off, when developers were invited to take part in the weekend game jam around the theme of "Don't Put All Your Eggs in One Basket." You can already check out the submissions in the forum thread!.
Community Spotlight
Deep Echo by Raffaele Picca
Deep Echo from Raffaele Picca is an underwater exploration experience designed with VR in mind. The beauty of VR is in the ability to completely immerse people into areas that are difficult or impossible to actually reach, and Deep Echo delivers on this idea by letting players explore the deep sea. The game features a great looking environment and a nicely done submarine interior that adds to the feeling of isolation that a real dive like this would provide. You can download the project here, and tell Raffaele what you think on his forum thread.
Real Life Vs. UE4 by AVR London
Visual artists are continually pushing the Engine to create some incredibly realistic scenes, and AVR London has put together a comparison video of a real place that has been recreated in UE4. In the video, it's often difficult to tell which is the real-world footage and which is not. You can find the video here, and check out AVR's website for more architectural goodness.
Polycount Throne Room Challenge: Top UE4 Submissions
Polycount and Allegorithmic hosted a fantastic contest, "The Throne Room Challenge", earlier this year, and the results are in! Of the top ten selections, nine of them were ultimately rendered in Unreal Engine 4, including the number one slot. Here are the winning announcements: First Place - Second & Third Place - Fourth Through Tenth Place
Guncat by Shortbreak Studios
An adorable yet aggressive game, Guncat is a great mobile 2D title from Shortbreak Studios. The game has a basic premise: shoot the birds and avoid the bombs. Simple, fun and free, Guncat is one you should download for your iOS device today.
Submerge by Icebird Studios
Submerge takes the Real-Time Strategy genre to the underwater world! Showing great use of post-processing effects and other visual tweaks, the team at Icebird Studios has been updating their Work-In-Progress post for a few months now, and the game's coming along nicely! Check out the gameplay video, and give the team feedback on the game in the forums.
Watch the Unreal Engine livestream every Thursday at 2PM ET at twitch.tv/unrealengine.