Mini-Vania

This project was a passion project to practice character animation and gameplay logic in Unreal Engine.

I eventually want to create a metroidvania-style game, and I called this prototype my own “Mini-Vania.” I used it to learn the animation pipeline and ability unlock system from the ground up.

All animations were sourced from Mixamo, and I created five abilities around them: run, jump, double-jump, slide, and wall jump. I built a short greybox level designed to mimic progression, where each new ability is required to move forward.

I used an Animation Blueprint, a State Machine, and Montages to manage transitions. I ran into a few challenges, including shifting from “walking” to “flying” state for the double-jump and adjusting the player’s collision capsule to get the slide animation working correctly.

I learned a lot about how Unreal handles root motion and animation blending, and I’m excited to carry these lessons into Star Chasers, the game I’m actively developing.