Lesson Plans

Polish and Publish Your Game: Working with Widgets and the Heads-up Display in Unreal Engine

Computer Science and Engineering
Unreal Engine
Hour of Code
Lesson 5 | Think about some of your favorite games. As a player, are you aware of your score or health? Can you easily view what items are in your inventory? In this lesson, students will learn how to add UI and HUDs to enhance the play experience and learn how to package and publish their game.

Overview

Think about some of your favorite games. As a player, is the information displayed in a way that lets you know what’s going on? Are you aware of your score or health? Can you easily view what items are in your inventory? If you have special abilities, is there a way for you to see whether they are currently available or in a cooldown period? These are all elements of the User Interface (UI) or Heads-up Display (HUD). When implemented effectively, they add to the positive user experience in a game.

It’s your turn to become the developer and use Unreal Engine, one of the industry-standard tools for game development, to add this functionality to your game. You will add UI and HUD elements to enhance the player experience. In addition, you will modify your game to make it your own. Finally, you will package (publish) your game so you can share it with the world!
 

Students will be able to:

  • Demonstrate an understanding of the HUD and modify settings related to HUD elements.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of how to incorporate widgets and work with them in the Blueprints Visual Scripting environment. 
  • Incorporate what they have learned to enhance a game level using Unreal Engine.
  • Package and publish an Unreal Engine project so the end user can launch and play the game outside of the UE environment.
 

Subject

Computer Science & Engineering
 

Grade level

Grades 8-12 (Ages 13+)


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  • Course Length:1 hour 0 minutes
  • Author: Steve Isaacs, Brian Dickman, and Ian Southwell
  • Release date:12-2020