Landon Voss

Bringing Cozy Games to Fortnite – Day 2

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Landon

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Day 2 — Establishing Time & UI Foundations

Context

With the visual foundation in place, today focused on developing systems that make the island feel persistent and alive.

Date & Time System

I built the island’s Date/Time system using UMG and Verse. This required experimenting with how data moves between UI and logic, but once everything synced correctly, the system felt stable.

The island now tracks:

  • Real-world date (Central Time)
  • Current in-game time
  • Player inactivity windows
Idle UI with real-time date/time

UMG + Verse Integration

I created a small “Idle UI” overlay to validate that the data was flowing correctly. It wasn’t required, but it helped confirm assumptions early.

Summary

What I accomplished:

  • Added the foundational Date/Time system.
  • Connected UMG and Verse for the first time.
  • Validated UI–logic communication with an Idle UI overlay.

What I learned:

  • Time systems influence nearly every future mechanic.
  • Early UI prototypes save debugging effort.
  • Real-time dependencies require careful handling.

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