Crafting Retro Horror: Developing an Authentic PS1-Style Game in Unreal Engine 5 - DevLog #1

Be funny to see how PS5 game look if had the same missing features the PS1 had like no Z-buffer.

I'm so bored of horror ps1 style games, but i'm never truly bored of seeing PS1 style games lol

This devlog helped inspire me to make something like this but more... different and violent

Top dude

im so in love with psx graphics..

low poly and pixel games test creators to push the boundaries of creativity and craft in this style, the best thing about it is it has low budget for talented indie devs, and it just take very low processing power for budget gamers, i can play a great full fledge creative original 2d or 3d game made in low poly or pixel with my weak pc and probably in my mobile device, this trends needs to be keep popularizing more and more

i love modern adaptation of low poly graphics of ps1 n64, but we need more mid poly graphics style of ps2 gamecube wii also, and there are so much variety in it low mid poly, mid mid poly, high mid poly

GO GO GO

I actually found Aaron Young’s channel first and afterward your channel was suggested to me lol.

hey mate your game looks awesome! i have loads of music stems, SFX and ambience that you can have if youre interested

If you use the screen percentage setting to pixellate your game, also remember to set upscale quality to 0, as this will remove any smoothing. Disabling any advanced features like lumen, TSR, reflections, AO etc. is also a must.

Using the screen percentage will also make your game easier to run for lower end platforms as opposed to using a post process material on a full resolution game as that will actually make it more costly. Considering UE5 is already a beast of an engine, this might be something to consider.

Would be awesome if you went into a little more detail on the setup for the post processing setup, I'm having a hard time finding the ditheringMF option and Mask (R G) options not showing up for me?

As well as setting up the other material parts, connections, systems

Thanks!

how do i get the ditheringMF?

You should show what the nodes actually do instead of having half of your post process material functions be collapsed

I can imagine a "liminal spaces" inspired playground working well for this ...

wow, these graphics looks terrible, and I LOVE IT :D Really brings me back to games like Silent Hill, Tomb Raider and Metal Gear Solid which I spent many hours playing on the PS1. Looking forward to seeing more of your progress.

I really like the idea of capturing the asthetic while not limiting yourself to that era of technology. Like object deformity and advanced physics/animation.

Can you post a video showing how to create the dithering effect material function? Fantastic work btw!

I have worked on a ps1 style game before and I think you should leave affine texture warping out. PS1 developers and artists who are purists will hate it but I found with playtesting that retro horror fans who didn't grow up with the console find it the most jarring and nauseating effect. Affine texture warping warps closer to the camera and only ever existed on PS1 so its one of effects people are just not used to at all in a video game.

I feel the struggle. Carry on lone Dev

Hi! You channel is great! I wanna figure out how to model something in maya in 3D and to make it pixelerated like characters were in retro games. Or it is better to do in the engine with textures as in this video?

Hi there! I'm just starting out game development, I'm really drawn to the older style graphics/low poly horror games. Could you please explain how that skydome works?

Great informative video

Thank you for showing the jittering

Incredible stuff

Man this is awesome I’m a front end dev looking into making something with my own hands game dev related. And this is exactly the vibe of my idea! I can’t wait to see this series continue!!!

love this style

Hello, thank you for showcasing some of this. Hope you're still happy doing what you're doing.

I'm kinda working on something similar but I've as a matter of fact run into a small issue. I see you're using more or less the same approach that I am for the pixelation and posterization but I'm having some issues with pixels flickering here and there. My guess is that it's Lumen.
If I may ask, what's your lighting setup? I'm currently using Lumen and my main lightsource is an ambient cubemap from a skylight. I'm not using anything other than that.
However, for testing and debugging, I've opened up a new project and the default level in 5.1.1 still has the same issue. As soon as I add the posterization to it, pixels start almost dancing around. If I remove the pixelation, it works. If I remove posterization, it works. Both just freak out and it's not very pleasant to look at. lol
Maybe I'm missing something in some settings somewhere. Thanks and keep it up!

Very cool idea with amazingly novel implementation. Gives me ideas ty

What texture sample nodes did you use? I'm trying the same nodes but the texture samples never look like the right ones. Can you tell me what texture sample nodes to use?

This is cool! I'm trying to do a psx-esque horror game myself so watching this gives me inspiration. Subbed

I absolutely love the concept here. Reminds me of the bloodborne demake, great video!

respect

Never be finished? Well, yes, but imo it's easy style if we talk about basic post process effects and modeling, we just need ideas. You have an excellent beginning, so don't stop and continue your work as far as possible. Nice work, good luck! :3
P. S.: my recommendation, if you would like to empower retro feelings from playing horror, you can add VHS effect (as minimum, color effect) Also, you can add sharping effect, but it's unnecessary :)

I love how the PS1 artstyle is getting so much love, also, Id like to ask, do you think that the PS1 artstyle would play nice with a complex open world creature collector where you wanted a simple means to work on a world in which you can roam and just watch the wildlife and enjoy the world around the character?

Looks great! Now we just need a tutorial on how to achieve this ourselves! winkwink nudgenudge

Thanks for the shout-out and good luck with your project!

great start! i love to see more unreal devs going for an old school style

You had me at "4:3 aspect ratio" 💛

Very cool, more of this

I love the PS1 effect achieved here, wish that was deep dived enough that we could achieve it ourselves.

excellent

As someone who also has tons of project ideas that are sitting in my dusty notebook, i find just getting started is the biggest step. Hope to see more from this in the future, definitley nailed the ps1 aesthetic so far

very cool , i'd love to see more of the future game

Smart man finally making a game with the following & technology.

One heads up use a template dont code from scratch

lucky to see you uploaded haha, I'm currently watching your older tutorial series and I'm on #16 of your UE4 blueprint tutorial for beginners

Again, thanks for the mention I appreciate it! I can't wait to see how this project develops... simply awesome!

More of this please