The Knight And The Mantis Lord · Development Story

Project Overview & Background This project was an engineering exercise in 2D game development on Unreal Engine 5. Using the Paper2D/2D framework bundled with early UE5 versions, it focused on validating how well a modern 3D engine serves the core presentation and gameplay loop of a 2D game.

Core Implementation & Completeness The project closed the loop from visuals to game logic, with solid overall fidelity:

• Scene & animation systems: full 2D level construction, with frame-animation state machines for characters and enemies built on Sprites and Flipbooks.
• Combat & skill presentation: basic normal-attack and skill systems, plus Niagara particle effects custom-tuned to a 2D art style for hits and abilities.
• Game loop & UI: a complete main loop (death/respawn and victory settlement) with the necessary HUD and tactical UI hints.

Design Trade-offs & Reflections For the sake of fast iteration on core presentation, several underlying systems were deliberately simplified (for example, enemy AI uses linear Blueprint sequences instead of Behavior Tree / State Tree architectures). This accelerated the prototype phase but left clear directions for future AI architecture work and performance optimization.