I am continuing the Battery Collector tutorial. This is the 18th video. Click here for the first part and here for the previous one.

Setting Up the Play States

In BatteryCollectorGameMode.h, I am defining an enum to specify the different gameplay states:

// enum to store the current state of gameplay
UENUM(BlueprintType)
enum class EBatteryPlayState
{
	EPlaying,
	EGameOver,
	EWon,
	EUnknown
};

I am creating a private variable to keep track of the current playing state:

private:
	/** Keeps track of the current playing state */
	EBatteryPlayState CurrentState;

In the public section, I am declaring getter and setter functions:

	/** Returns the current playing state */
	UFUNCTION(BlueprintPure, Category = "Power")
	EBatteryPlayState GetCurrentState() const;

	/** Returns the current playing state */
	void SetCurrentState(EBatteryPlayState NewState);

I am defining these functions in BatteryCollectorGameMode.cpp:

EBatteryPlayState ABatteryCollectorGameMode::GetCurrentState() const
{
	return CurrentState;
}

void ABatteryCollectorGameMode::SetCurrentState(EBatteryPlayState NewState)
{
	CurrentState = NewState;
}

In the same file, I am setting the current play state in the BeginPlay function:

void ABatteryCollectorGameMode::BeginPlay()
{
	Super::BeginPlay();
	SetCurrentState(EBatteryPlayState::EPlaying);

I am also modifying the Tick() function to set the play state when the power get greater than PowerTowin or negative:

void ABatteryCollectorGameMode::Tick(float DeltaTime)
{
	Super::Tick(DeltaTime);

	// Check that we are using the battery collector character
	ABatteryCollectorCharacter* MyCharacter = Cast(UGameplayStatics::GetPlayerPawn(this, 0));
	if (MyCharacter)
	{
		// If our power is greater than needed to win, set the game's state to Won
		if (MyCharacter->GetCurrentPower() > PowerToWin)
		{
			SetCurrentState(EBatteryPlayState::EWon);
		}
		// if the character's power is positive
		else if (MyCharacter->GetCurrentPower() > 0)
		{
			// decrease the chracter's power using the decay rate
			MyCharacter->UpdatePower(-DeltaTime*DecayRate*(MyCharacter->GetInitialPower()));
		}
		else
		{
			SetCurrentState(EBatteryPlayState::EGameOver);
		}
	}
}

BatteryHUD

Back to Unreal Editor, I am compiling the project.
I am opening the BatteryHUD and I am adding a Text at the top of the Canvas Panel.

The value for PositionX is 0, PositionY is 50 and AlignmentX is 0,5. I am also selecting “Size to Content“.

Then I am creating a binding for the Text in the Content section of the Details Panel.

In the new blueprint, I am returning the text corresponding to the current state.

When I am playing, I can see the text:

Next Step

Next, I will toggle the Spawn Volumes