A whole game without any C++ / just with Blueprints?

Hello guys,
I`m new into Unreal Engine 4 and I have a great game idea. I don’t wanna say that I’m bad @ C++ Coding but this question is general for me. So is it possible to create a whole game just with Blueprints and not with any C++ coding? So I think from the basic programming it will work - but I think Blueprints are much slower than C++ Coding, right? So thats not my basic problem, I just wanna know if it’s possible. And then my second question is, if it’s possible to make a game with Blueprints AND C++, so both of it. Thanks.

Yes and yes, but not everything is possible via blueprint as not all APIs are accessable (well at least untill people do plugins to extand APIs, which some people already do), where with C++ you can go beyound Unreal APIs. I recently made tutorial on basic knowlage claases, you can see how C++ and Blueprint is closely tied on eachother there

Hm, is it possible is a good question. There a some games out there that only have Blueprints BUT there can come up some things that can’t be done with Blueprints. There you need to write some functions etc in c++.
But this is different for each project so i can’t tell you the edge of blueprintpossibilities.

I read often that BP are slower, but i haven’t noticed that by now. Also IF you notice something that slows down your game, you can still port your Blueprints to c++. It’s “nearly” the same.

You can use both. I do this at the moment. I make all my classes in c++ and set up generall functions i don’t want to edit in my .cpp file. The rest is made in the Blueprint that i create from that c++ file.
There are several property paramters that let you definine if a variable or function can be used in Blueprints.

Start watching the BP and C++ Tutorials from Epic Games on their Youtube Account. Do both although you only want BP to get a better understanding. (:

EDIT: Gnahhh. Shadow (>O.o)> don’t be so fast!

While you can build an entire game in blueprints, you will be limited in what you can do. So if you have some crazy new idea for a game (especially if it is not an FPS), there is a good chance you will need at least some C++.

From what I have experienced with UE4, speed is not the main reason to use C++. I use C++, when blueprints are not able to do what I want to do.

Blueprints are limited in capability. C++ has unlimited capability. All good game programmers will use a combination of C++ and blueprints as they will properly use the correct tool for the job at hand. Usually this means creating new classes in C++ and then creating blueprints that derive from those classes.

Hi, I am using C++ and blueprints in my game, I think most of things I am doing in C++ could be done with blueprints as well, one way or the other, however I prefer C++ for all the important functions and heavy lifting in the game, and blueprints for basic game structure, trigger events, etc, it is a really nice combination.
Of course you can write your own Blueprint nodes as well, which is a lot of fun.
Important point is that while blueprints are simplified way of programming, it is still programming,
so understanding what is going on, what are variables and functions and how to use them is a must have to be able to do complex things.

I disagree with this statement, especially the part about “if it’s not an fps” and also the part that good game programmers will use C++, that is a belief and not a fact.

With blueprints only you can make any game type. I’ve thought a few times there was things I’d need C++ for but I have done them in Blueprints and my game is definitely very far from a FPS and it has complicated AI and Animations in it as well as a completely different control scheme to a fps game.

The thing to keep in mind is that with blueprints you are only automating existing C++ code that is built into UE4. If UE4 does not contain a certain functionality built-in, then you can’t do it in blueprints. Here are some examples of things I was not able to do in blueprints and had to use C++ for:

There was a method in UE4 to stop a running AI, but it was not exposed to blueprints. In C++ I created a new AIController class to expose it so I could use it from my blueprints. This was recommended by Epic staff.

In an early version of UE4 there was a method to set the position of the mouse cursor, but it was not exposed to blueprints. I added C++ to expose this to blueprints. I believe did have a patch for this I could have used and I think this was added in a more recent version of UE4, but at the time it was not possible in blueprints.

I also wanted to access an external SQL database. There was no way to do this in blueprints, so I had to write a C++ plugin to access an external C++ database.

There are many other cases of things I was not able to do in blueprints. There are also many cases where you can do something in blueprints, but probably shouldn’t. In many cases I have been able to reduce a blueprint with a hundred nodes into 4 or 5 lines of C++ code.

Also, my statement about using a combination of blueprints and C++ being optimum has been confirmed by multiple Epic staff. I can find you a list of the references on this site if you want them.

Blueprints are compiled and executed on the UnrealSccript VM and so they are slower than native code. That is normally not an issue and should not affect development. As you said porting a finishing feature to native code a very good and often required optimization pass.

Your post was longer thats why i was faster :stuck_out_tongue:

I plan a SimCity-Style game. Do you think it’s possible just with blueprints? I’ve got some basic ideas like buildings which will spawn at the mouse position with “Spawn Actor” and some stuff. So the main fact of my thread is not that I can’t code in C++, my C++ just isn’t that great :wink: