Devlog #1: Setting Sail

Author: Brandon Rowe

Getting onboarded into this project has been something of a trial of learning, as this VR game I am now developing for has already passed through the hands of a few developers before me. It took me quite a bit of time to sift through existing code, functionality, and concepts left behind by previous devs to see what overall image was being aspired to, and where to take it from there. To make my life easy, I have decided to limit myself now to the hub level and the first puzzle level, being the Pirate Ship. There is a sort of underwater level that already exists, but since it's meant to be a later level, I decided tackling the fist level would be more prudent. From there, it was time for me to hit the books.

The primary hurdle from here on out for me was twofold, as not only did I now have to begin researching what resources Unreal 5 had to offer for a VR game online, but I also have to begin familiarizing myself more deeply with the Blueprint systems since I had been using almost exclusively C++ when working with Unreal 4 before this point. After discussing with one of the other devs who was finishing some further implementations for the project on his off time, I found myself at a better starting point overall with a new plethora of youtube resources we had found together. Additionally, there is a handful of forum discussions and such that dive into the basically untapped monster that is VR development in UE5. With this starting point and resources, I have begun placing additions into the game and setting functionality for the first couple of puzzles in this level, which involve getting the ship's anchor raised and the sails loosened so that we may step off on our journey into the rest of this level.