I’m very inexperienced with programming and Unreal Blueprints. I don’t have very ambitious game dev goals so basic youtube tutorials are usually fine for me.
Something I can’t find and figure out is the standard way of creating “chapters” that allow properties of the game to change if needed.
Is there a specific way of structuring a timeline of events, for example, the main goal of the game being to progress from Monday to Friday? Where would that ‘day of the week’ checker go to make sure NPCs and certain actors progress with each day, while the overall environment stays the same.
The best example might be Ocarina of Time that I’m guessing keeps the same “levels” but progresses every component within it. Child characters swap models with an adult model, and have different dialogue or quests. Maybe some object actors swap their clean-looking material with a crusty old material.
Hey there @eeeeeeeeeeedward! Welcome to the community! So “standard” is a bit of a loaded question in the sense that many games do this differently.
From a high level, it’ll just depend how your story is supposed to progress. For games like Ocarina of Time, they often go with data flags that are checked when doing something. This could be as simple as having a Data Asset that you update as you play, check it when a check occurs, and save/load it when the game starts.
thanks SupportiveEntity. i was rushing and forgot to hint how to implement it.
agree it depends how you structure it. i would recommend having a centralized way to track these things. and possibly breaking down the different layers of progression. (story > chapters > steps > etc).
in order to track things that happen. i’ve also made a plugin that allows to track that (a subsystem called flags). also free and open source.
and i don’t mind if you don’t use it, but since is open source you’re free to check the code and get inspiration on what you want to do.
alternatively i’ve heard about the “persistence” subsystem, that can help persisting the state of certain things. but i haven’t used it myself and seems new.
though if you’re not very experienced in programming, i would recommend to use a plugin instead of diving into making your own systems. (not necessarily my plugins, but they are available, there are others in fab im sure).