How to make an "attract screen / mode" for your game?

Development Programming & Scripting Blueprint
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Back in the arcade days…there was what was known as the “attract mode” or screen.

Basically you had the title screen of the game…press start or insert coins etc etc… If that did not happen in a small time period (seconds?) then the game is shown playing essentially by itself. You see the main character playing and displaying moves and maneuvers. That also seems to play for a set amount of time, then the title screen comes back. The title screen also came back any time the player pressed start or inserted coins. To keep things from not getting too repetitive, usually several different attract modes were shown in series (attract 01, title, attract 02, title, attract 03, title etc etc etc…) The attract mode was also a time where stationary screens and other information about the game would be shown.

I suppose in the modern day, this could be accomplished just by playing video clips (edited shadowplay footage?), but I doubt that is what they did back in the 80’s…

Either way, this concept seems to be essential to video game design and development.

So does anyone have any ideas or thoughts about how to go about doing this in UE4? Thanks!!!

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This is not what was done in the 80s, but in the modern day we have: Replay System | Unreal Engine 4.27 Documentation

It’s a little complicated to set up, but if you do then as a bonus you also have most of the work done for online multiplayer :slight_smile:

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Ok thanks, that does look pretty complicated but it would surely be a very clean result.

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the classic arcade structure still works great, title screen with a press start prompt, an idle timer, then the attract demo, then back to title on any input. the replay system can drive the demo part if you record inputs, otherwise a scripted sequence is simpler and reads better on a show floor.

for the idle side of it, Kiosk Lockdown Toolkit is a kiosk mode plugin for Unreal Engine 5 with On Idle Started and On Idle Ended events on a timeout you set, which maps directly to attract mode timing: Kiosk Lockdown Toolkit — Block Alt+Tab, Win Key & Taskbar for Kiosks | Fab

its made for arcade cabinets and exhibits that boot straight into the game and have to recover on their own, watchdog relaunch included.