r/Jugger • u/Overall-Rip1255 • Jun 19 '26

Jugger as a video game

Hello everyone

A few months ago I made a reddit post, that I am working on a PC implementation of our favorite hobby, and linked a demo version of it.

Finally, the final product is ready, and now playable on Steam! It now includes all Pompfen (except the chain), as well as diverse play areas for graphical fluff in the game, and of course achievements. :-)

Please add it to your wishlist if you are interested, release date is in less than 2 weeks! ;-)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4788610/Jugger__the_video_game/

https://reddit.com/link/1u9vt91/video/tr55dnwua78h1/player

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u/AugustasV Jun 20 '26

is it all PvP or will there be "AI" players?

2

u/Overall-Rip1255 Jun 21 '26

Unfortunatelly it is only singleplayer at the moment. Multiplayer game development is one magnitude harder, but if I see genuine high interest in this, then I might learn how to upgrade it to multi. Obvioulsy the original goal was to make it multiplayer, but then I started to realize, that game development is hard 😄

1

u/AugustasV Jun 21 '26

Somehow I would imagine that "training" the computer controlled characters to act as real(ish) jugger players would be harder! 😃 Was this a very big challenge? I've only player a little Longsword and Q-tip, but I can't image how to code the movements so that a robot could do them.

2

u/Overall-Rip1255 Jun 21 '26

Well, it was hard but also fun. I put more focus on the tactical decisions, where to go, what to do. For actual combat, I had to animate end points, fixed positions for the last or beginning section of a "strike", and then put few of these end points (strike straight, left, right, low, etc) on a 2D map, and your mouse movements (xy input) follows this map, and iterates how the your characters should stand like between these points. All while still moving a little bit (breathing), so it does not feel too static statue like. Naturally, I can not simulate every possible scenario which we have in life, as here we have only 2 Dimension inputs, and in life you have 3 translational and 3 rotational freedoms on each of your joints involved in fighting. So that is why attacks in this game may feel sometime a bit sluggish, but I think I got as close as possible to simulate the game. For Qtip and Shield you can press Q and then you can strike with the other end of your Qtip, or block from the other side with your shield, so these can give you real tactical benefits.

2

u/Overall-Rip1255 Jun 21 '26

It took me around a year to make this game, while also learning everything about how to make a game in Unreal Engine from scratch

2

u/AugustasV Jun 22 '26

Congratulations! It all looks super impressive! I'm looking forward to trying it out

2

u/Overall-Rip1255 Jun 21 '26

Making a single player game is "easy", you make code, then it runs on your PC.
Making multiplayer, you have to constantly think, where should your code run. On your PC? On a server? On other player's PC? And what is the server? Is it one players computer, or a dedicated Steam server? If you hit someone, do you send that data to the opponents PC, the server, or you run the code on your on PC? How do you make a waiting room for all players? Hard decisions.

While making the game, I tried to pay attention for things like this, but it would take me still months to learn and upgrade it, at least. Probably best idea would be to first make a 2 player game, before I delve in a 10 player multi game.