Category: Blueprints

Localisation

Unreal Engine 4 has a very nifty localisation dashboard, which, once activated, does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to localising your game. With it you can gather all the texts in your game from folders you've selected and create a robust localisation using .PO files. There are a couple of caveats … Continue reading Localisation

Working in Unreal Engine

For any developer there is a wealth of options out there for out-of-the-box solutions. In the triple-I spheres the choice seems to be Unity or Unreal and both certainly have their detractors and supporters. Personally, I chose Unreal because it gels with me and I like BluePrint visual scripting. It may not be the right … Continue reading Working in Unreal Engine

Dialogs

One element of the old-style RPGs we all know and love, and that persist in video games to this day, are the dialog boxes where the text appears letter by letter. Why these exist exactly is not clear. If you think about it they don't make that much sense. But they are part of video … Continue reading Dialogs

Blueprints: In-game messaging

Aside from character dialogues Piczle Cross Adventure also features some basic in-game messaging. In Piczle Colors some information was broadcast to the player through a fake Twitter-style social media post pop-up. When the player reached a milestone, unlocked a level, earned a trophy or anything like that, one of the game's characters would "tweet" at … Continue reading Blueprints: In-game messaging

Blueprints: Score-chan actor

A little technical blog post this week, as I talk through the creation of the Score-chan Actor BluePrint in Unreal Engine 4. Paper2D functionality in UE4 is not officially supported anymore and has a couple of quirks. However the Sprite and Flipbook Actor Blueprint classes are very useful and contain everything you need to quickly … Continue reading Blueprints: Score-chan actor

Custom themes

One of the strengths of working with data-driven systems is that it's very easy to tweak little things. For example, every aspect of the puzzle screen is easily modifiable. The colour of the grid, the type of cursor, the background, everything is tweakable with a parameter. Part of this can be found in the gameplay … Continue reading Custom themes

Faking it

However fine an engine Unreal Engine 4 is and however great its tools and visual scripting, there are definitely a few areas it doesn't quite measure up. One of those things is its not-supported-really-but-kinda-in-there Paper2D component, which Piczle Cross Adventure relies on quite heavily. Now of course I could (and perhaps should) be called foolhardy … Continue reading Faking it

Creating the Piczle Cross puzzles

One question people might want answered is "how many puzzles will Piczle Cross Adventure have?" and the answer is, at this stage... I'm not sure. The game's initial design aimed at a minimum of 150, but because I spent some time building data-driven systems to handle the puzzles it is child's play to add more … Continue reading Creating the Piczle Cross puzzles

Feature rich design

The best thing about the simplicity of Unreal Engine 4, as well as some intensive planning, means that Piczle Cross Adventures has a slew of options to cater the logic-puzzle game play to your exact liking. Game options Obviously the usual music and sound effect toggles are present. This is a given for any game … Continue reading Feature rich design