I’m currently making a hidden objects game. I’ve got quite a few levels made so far. After having a few people test it out I am told some objects are just WAY too hard to find. I would like to make a hint feature to help them out. My hidden objects are blueprints that have a mesh, collision and OnClicked Event. The OnClicked event destroys the object, adds 1 to your score, and removes it’s name from the screen. I have about 10 Hidden objects in each level of which all are their own individual blueprint, and I am having a hard time even starting to code a hint script. I cant visualize in my mind how to tell a blueprint/UMG Button BIND or any clickable blueprint I make to randomly pick one of my 10 hidden objects and do something like play a particle effect on it. I have an isdestroyed? Boolean I use for other parts of the script so maybe I can use it somehow. The only thing I know to do of right now is have the hint button play a particle at a specific location or on a specific actor or all of them and even if I had the hint play a particle on all of the hidden objects I may run into problems once I only have 5 objects left and it tries to play a particle on an already destroyed actor in the game. I have not tried out those 2 hint types yet because they are not ideal at all. If anyone has any help, suggestions or “hints” please let me know.
a hint system for that setup is mostly bookkeeping plus one visual effect, and since your OnClicked already handles the find, the missing piece is a registry of what is still unfound.
structure: keep an array of the currently unfound object references on your game mode or a manager blueprint. each hidden object registers itself on begin play and removes itself when clicked. that array is the source of truth for hints.
then layer the hints:
tier 1, directional: pick an actor from the unfound array, project its world location to screen space, compare against the viewport center, and flash “look left” / “look up right” on the hud. cheap, and it keeps the scene challenging.
tier 2, pulse: for that same actor, add a pulsing glow for a few seconds. easiest version that works with any material: a material parameter collection scalar driven by a timeline, and each hidden object material adds emissive from it. no per object material setup, every material just reads the collection.
tier 3, direct: draw a small ring widget at the projected screen position of the object for a second.
add a cooldown timer so players cant spam it, and track hints used if you want a score penalty. if you would rather not build the registry and click bookkeeping yourself, the Hidden Object Game Template is a data driven hidden object game template for unreal engine 5 with the object registry, click to find flow and list ui already commented end to end, so a hint system only needs to read its unfound array: Multiplayer Hidden Object Game Template | Fab
