Gears of Discovery Pickup System

Master Pickup Blueprint

The master blueprint for the pickups in gears of discovery allows for designers to easily implement more pickups in the future. This blueprint contains the logic for the standard pickup interaction. This includes the standard overlapping event when the player crosses over the mesh of the pickup, destroying the pickup, playing a sound, and activating it’s custom event. This also includes the logic for the bobbing function of the blueprint allowing the item to spin and bob up and down in the game world. Within this blueprint it also allows for the designer to change the pickup mesh, pickup sound, and pickup effect.

Health Pickup

The health pickup is one of the most simple pickups within the game. When the player walks into the pickup it checks to see if the player already has full health. If they do it will not consume the pickup and the player will not gain additional health point. If the player does not have full health it will run a check to get the players current health. Once this float value is obtained from the player blueprint it will give the player 25% of their max HP. If the player will obtain more HP than their max HP value it will set the players HP value to the max.

Shield Pickup

The shield pickup is one of the two storable pickups within Gears of Discovery. When the player walks over this pickup the item is added to the players HUD after a quick check to see if the players inventory is full. Once the player has the item in their inventory they are able to press the use button while hovered over the item and activate the shield. The shield is then consumed from the players inventory and a visual bubble surrounds the player. When the shield is active the player does not take any damage for a set duration. Once there is 2 seconds left in the shields lifetime the bubble surrounding the player will begin to blink and a sound will be played. This indicates that the shield is about to run out.

Speed Boost Pickup

The speed boost pickup is the second storable pickup within the game. This pickup works functionally the same as the shield. When the player runs into it, activating its pickup action it destroys the item from the game world and adds it to the players inventory. When the player decides to use the pickup it doubles the players walk speed for 5 seconds. When the player has the boost activated a bool is triggered to prevent the player from using their sprint function. This prevents the player from wasting stamina by accidentally pressing the sprint button while the speed boost is active.

Stamina Pickup

The stamina pickup works similarly to the health pickup. This pickup controls the players stamina value rather than the HP value. When the player overlaps with the pickup it does a simple check from the player character, making sure the stamina value is not maxed. If it isn’t it will give the player 25% of their max stamina value. This value can be adjusted by the designer at any time within the blueprint and can even vary between placed stamina pickups within the world.

Screw Collectable Pickup

The screw collectable is the item within each level of the game in which the player will collect as an additional objective. These collectables do nothing for the player when picked up but is a fun way for the player to explore the entirety of the level while collecting items. This item is controlled within another blueprint that is placed within each level. This blueprint takes a tally of all screw pickups within the level to then track how many their are and how many the player has collected. When the player collects a screw pickup it adds 1 to the value of total screws collected within the players HUD. This value is also used at the end of the level to tell the player how many screws were collected and how many were in the level.