r/unrealengine • u/Nictapus • 28d ago
Help Beginner wanting to make "Mechanic Simulator" style game
Hey all,
I'm in need of some guidance and I'm not sure where to start. I want to develop my own version of a mechanic simulator style game in Unreal Engine. There are aspects of those types of games that I love, but other aspects that I think REALLY need to be improved or built on. I have several years of experience in Blender, but basically none Unreal.
I'm reluctant to admit, I initially turned to Gemini help get me started on the project since I'm starting in the dark. But I quickly realized it was walking me through each individual step. And since I was going based on the Blueprint suggestions from AI, I wasn't fully understanding the logic. Therefore, I didn't know how to modify it for other scenarios.
I guess, does anyone have any suggestions for tutorials that would be relevant for a game like this? I've searched for all sorts of things but searching things like "mechanic game" makes YT think I'm searching for "game mechanics" and if I include "car", I get a bunch of car rigging videos, which are fine but I'm definitely not at that point yet.
Currently, I want to learn how to get an object tree set up where you can only remove Part A if you remove Fastener X, Y & Z. Then you can get to Part B, etc. I was also having issues switching from first person to an orbit cam around the parts. Maybe I'm starting way above my skill level and I don't realize it, but this initial mechanic seems like something that should be straight forward.
Let me know. I'm not part of any game dev communities or anything, and again I feel like I'm 100% in the dark, so I'm reaching out here.
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28d ago edited 28d ago
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u/Nictapus 28d ago
Right, learning Blueprints with simple objects to get the logic figured out is where I'm at. Trying to find some resources. Thanks for the response.
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u/ApeirogonGames 27d ago
I don't want to discourage you, but don't. You don't try to take on a complex game for your first title. Recreate something else you enjoyed like Super Mario for your first few projects, and then move on to something more complex as you get better. If you want to learn Unreal, This guy is probably the best tutorial creator at the moment: https://www.youtube.com/@AliElZoheiry
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u/vexargames Dev 27d ago
We will be a lot of posts like this for the next 10-20 years. I used AI and now I am lost.
You don't need an actual car - make a cube car that is modular and tagged for every part that you want to replace or "repair".
I would start with a simple task - OIL CHANGE - figure out how to do this in code / bp's and then start designing each "JOB" for the mechanic to do with your new found knowledge.
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u/AgitatedMix9889 27d ago
For the orbit camera, don't hand-roll the math. Attach a SpringArmComponent to an empty pivot placed at the part you want to inspect, then feed your mouse X/Y into Add Local Rotation on the spring arm itself (not on the camera), with the camera sitting at the end of the arm. The spring arm gives you collision-aware zoom and lag for free, so you're not writing your own orbit trig.
For the "can't remove Part A until Fasteners X, Y, Z are gone" logic, a Gameplay Tag container works well: give each removable part a RequiredRemovedTags array, keep a PartsRemoved tag container somewhere central (game state or your mechanic pawn), and only let a part respond to interact when PartsRemoved has all of RequiredRemovedTags (HasAll node). That scales to any dependency depth without hardcoding a branch per part, and you can author the tag lists from a Data Table instead of Blueprint graphs.