🎮Bitpart Game Mode

The Bitpart Gameplay Manager is responsible for initializing and running the Bitpart AI system within your game. It needs a Bitpart Gameplay Manager Data component to feed it your game’s setup information. This component has optional fields (Player Affordance Config, Bitpart Player UI) in addition to mandatory fields (Bitpart Action Map, Player Casts, and Startup Domain). You will need to add this component to your Game Mode in World Settings for any map that uses Bitpart NPCs.

Our base plugin and each of our archetypes currently have their own GameMode preset with the Bitpart Gameplay Manager Data component.

Table of Contents

1. Adding the Gameplay Manager to Your Map

   1. Using Bitpart's Game Mode

   2. Adding the BitpartGameplayManagerData Component to Your Game Mode

   3. Creating a New Game Mode

2. Finding your Game Mode

Adding the Bitpart Gameplay Manager to Your Map

In order to use Bitpart NPCs, you will either need to add the Bitpart Gameplay Manager Data component to an existing GameMode, use one of the pre-made Bitpart GameModes, OR create a new GameMode from scratch.

Using Bitpart's Game Mode

Our existing GameMode's have the Bitpart Gameplay Manager already set-up.

To use one of our GameModes, navigate to World Settings → Game Mode → GameMode Override and choose one of the following:

• Bitpart_GameMode (base archetype)

• Bitpart_Blacksmith_GameMode (blacksmith archetype)

• Bitpart_Barkeep_GameMode (barkeep archetype)

• Bitpart_Farmer_GameMode (farmer archetype)

Each archetype's Game Mode has the same content attached to the asset. We have individual Game Modes for each archetype because of requirements related to FAB releases. When adding Bitpart to a new level, choose the Game Mode associated with one of the archetypes you're using. You can add other characters as needed!

The content (which plays through the domain attached to the Game Mode) has individual content for each archetype as well as shared content that allows them to interact with each other.

You can find each of the assets in the content browser in the folder attributed to it's archetype.

Adding the BitpartGameplayManagerData Component to Your Game Mode

• Open your Game Mode blueprint and add a component. Choose BP_BitpartGameplayManagerDataComponent

• Click into the BP_BitpartGameplayManagerDataComponent. In the Details panel under Bitpart you can either choose your own assets, or you can mimic what we have in one of our GameModes. Below are the settings for our base archetype:

Creating a New Game Mode

• In the Content Browser click Add → Blueprint → Blueprint Class. When prompted select Game Mode Base and name the blueprint.

• Double-click on the asset. Add the BitpartGameplayManagerData component

• Click on Self. Feel free to input your own settings here. The screenshot below shows what our default GameMode assets looks like.

• Navigate to Details → Bitpart, you'll see the following fields, with empty values. The default assets we include in ours are as follow:

  • Player Affordance Config: This required configuration file specifies which types of player actions can be assigned to props. This is defaulted to our example file: Affordances_Player.

  • Bitpart Player UI: This is an optional field that enables you to use our basic player controls for interacting with objections and NPCs. This is defaulted to BP_BitpartUI but you can click on the X in the far right of the row to remove it.

  • Bitpart Action Map: This is a required field that sets the action map. The action map is a mapping of how commands from the planner should be translated into in-engine actions. This is defaulted to BAM_ActionMap.

  • Player Casts: This is a required field if the player will be interacting with the NPCs. NPCs are placed into casts based on their role and region in the game. The player should be included in all casts that contain an NPC they can interact with. This is defaulted to Base_Cast.

  • Startup Domain: This is a required field that tells the planner which planning domain to load on start. This is defaulted to BDS_bitpart-plugin

• Either fill out the fields with new assets, OR if you’re looking to mimic the set-up of the default gameplay manager, then it should look like this:

Player Casts is an obsolete field, as the player is automatically added to all existing casts. This will be removed from the UI in a future fix.

• Once you’ve finished setting up your gameplay manager, go to World Settings → Game Mode → GameMode Override and choose the name of your new blueprint. Save your changes.

The game should now use your gameplay manager when you hit play.

Finding your Game Mode

Not sure where to find the Game Mode your level is using?

• The Game Mode lives in World Settings, which can be found under Window . Once the World Settings tab is opened, you can find the Game Mode asset attached to the level under Game Mode → GameMode Override.

You can also find the Bitpart Game Mode's created for each of our archetypes in their demo folder in the Content Browser, e.g. Barkeep-Demo (All → Content → Bitpart-Barkeep → Barkeep Demo)