🎮 Learning Game Development – Day 9

I thought my Blueprint was broken. Turns out, I just didn’t know how to debug it. Day 9 taught me why guessing never works in Unreal Engine.

Debugging Blueprints & Using Print String

This post is part of my daily learning journey in game design and game development.
I’m sharing what I learn each day — the basics, the confusion, and the real progress.

🧪 What I Tried / Learned Today

On Day 9, I learned something extremely important: debugging Blueprints. After Day 8, my interaction logic behaved strangely. Sometimes the door opened. Sometimes it didn’t. That inconsistency made me realize something uncomfortable: I had no idea what was actually running inside my Blueprint. That’s when I learned about a very simple but powerful tool — Print String.

Print String helps you:

• Check if an event is firing
• Confirm if an overlap is working
• See if an input key is detected

Basically, it tells you:
👉 “Yes, this part of the Blueprint is executing.”

😕 What Confused Me

Earlier, whenever something didn’t work, my first thoughts were:

• My logic is wrong
• My Blueprint is broken

But the real problem wasn’t the logic.

The problem was this: I didn’t know where the issue was happening.

Without debugging, I was just guessing — and guessing wastes time.

🧠 How I Understood or Fixed It

I started placing Print String nodes after important points in my Blueprint:

• After Begin Overlap
• After Input Key Press
• Just before the door logic

Once I did that, everything became much clearer.

Sometimes:

• The overlap worked, but the input didn’t
• The input worked, but the logic never ran

Seeing messages appear (or not appear) on the screen showed me the execution flow.

That’s when I understood a key truth: Debugging is not optional — it’s part of development.

🎯 One Lesson for Beginners

1. If nothing happens, don’t panic
2. Use Print String to verify your logic
3. Find exactly where the flow breaks
4. Fix one small issue at a time

Day 9 wasn’t about adding features. It was about understanding what’s actually happening.

Slow progress — but I’m building a strong foundation.

If you’re also learning game development, feel free to follow along.
See you on Day 10 🎮🚀