ScriptedWaters

Over the course of working on this Capstone Project, I have been tasked with completing 3 puzzles within our Scooby Doo themed escape room.

Image Source: Our Progress Report #3 for the course

I had worked with Unreal Engine for work in a mostly static capacity.  Modifying and changing landscapes to resemble specific environments, or even to run preexisting code. 

Image Source: Screenshot of an Unreal Project taken from an Internal Work PPT Slide

However, the imposter syndrome was really setting in and getting started on implementing the first puzzle had me feeling paralyzed.  The excitement for the project suddenly wasn’t outweighing my ability to get my own code changes and implementations to do anything of… substance.

Image Source: https://skillstraining.medium.com/what-is-imposter-syndrome-and-how-can-you-overcome-it-a4ddb3a5886

My main breakthrough of the imposter syndrome barrier of this project was when I worked on (and eventually completed) the first puzzle for my floor.  This puzzle involved picking up multiple items that allow the “unlocking” of a door.  In our case it enabled the attic staircase to open.  For now, I decided to use these pages as the items I would use to unlock the stairs.

Image Source: Our Scooby Doo Themed Unreal Engine Capstone Project

Thankfully for various random YouTubers who are kind enough to share their wealth of knowledge, I was able to stumble my way through an adaptation of their code.  The lifesavers of that week were YouTubers: “Matt Aspland”, “Gorka Games”, and “hawaiifilmschool”.

YouTube Channel Links: “Matt Aspland” (https://www.youtube.com/@MattAspland), “Gorka Games” (https://www.youtube.com/@GorkaGames), and “hawaiifilmschool” (https://www.youtube.com/@hawaiifilmschool).

Image Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im4lJRNCVZA

First, I found the Unreal Engine development series by “Matt Aspland”. In this particular video, he walked through how to implement a key & door system for doors in Unreal Engine. This helped me understand how to have a single particular item unlock a door.  While this wasn’t the end all be all for my puzzle, it helped me understand the simplicity of the problem, and helped me visualize the OOP aspects of these door and key “objects” within Unreal. 

Image & Video Source for Locked Door & Key System: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bcle9sSS4Oo

Armed with slightly more confidence, it was in the series of recommended videos that led me to the “Gorka Games” walkthrough video.  This is the one that really got me excited about the puzzle, and allowed me to implement this type of code into our project.  It showed how to create invisible “trigger” objects that allow events to happen – whether that be coming into proximity of a pick up item, or blocking a path for the user.

Image & Video Source for Pickup Item Puzzle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im4lJRNCVZA

The ability to adapt this code into my project in a relatively straightforward manner, got me excited about other applications of these trigger box mechanisms within the game.  This led me to create the triggers for not only the staircase to the attic (necessary for my puzzle), but also the relocking mechanism once in the attic.  This is shown in the photo below, by a round ball that illustrates the center of a the transparent outlined box at the top of the stairs (as well as the 3 cake items behind it), representing the trigger box object in the viewport.

Image Source: Our Scooby Doo Themed Unreal Engine Capstone Project

After getting the stairs to intentionally open and close upon my coded triggers, I felt UNSTOPPABLE.  I ended up staying up for hours lost in the excitement of implementing stand in door triggers to help with overall game flow for all floors.  My overall goal was to create a user experience shown in the image below – in which informative text is displayed on the screen to the user to let them know why they couldn’t proceed through the game.  This felt like the last detail for this feature (current implementation seen below).

Image Source: Our Scooby Doo Themed Unreal Engine Capstone Project

With this in mind, I set out for YouTube once again, leading me down another rabbit hole of videos until I found the perfect one that would work with the content and code base we were already using.  The quick video by “hawaiifilmschool” quickly taught me how to create text widgets that would be displayable on screen. 

Image & Video Source for Displaying Text on Screen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqUTK5-XqYY

These collective features made the project start to feel like it might turn into something fun and playable.  This got me excited about the puzzles and how to refine and fine-tune them to be more fun (and less buggy).  I was able to place the items in different rooms within the level, making them more fun to find.  This also segwayed into a perfect opportunity to ensure that the user must complete all of the puzzles on the second floor before proceeding to the Attic. 

Image Source: Our Scooby Doo Themed Unreal Engine Capstone Project

Sometimes all it takes to get past the seemingly impossible barrier is the first step. Oftentimes, that first step is best taken with help from others.  I greatly credit the various YouTubers that provide the amazing wealth of Unreal Engine knowledge online for anyone to access, for free.  I will forever be grateful to them for the breakthrough on my project!

Image Source: ​​https://imgflip.com/i/7dzaww

Peace out coders!

-Kristy