DEV Community: The Startup Café

Tea House Area - Fencing, Pathways, Pond Area | UE5 Devlog

MT Indie Dev — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 22:42:19 +0000

In this Life of Alex devlog, I continue building the tea house area at Kazuhara Resort in Unreal Engine 5. This update focuses on defining the space with fencing, adding stones along the pathways, and introducing a pond with a bridge and fencing around its edges.

Piece by piece, the area is taking shape, with clearer routes through the garden and more detail surrounding the tea house. Join me as I bring these elements together and continue shaping a peaceful setting to explore.

Landscape creation and terracing process for Kazuhara Resort | UE5 Devlog

MT Indie Dev — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 17:48:55 +0000

In this devlog, I showcase the landscape creation and terracing process for Kazuhara resort in Unreal Engine 5. Using Landscape Mode’s Sculpt, Flatten, and Smooth tools, I shape the terrain, create distinct terraces, and soften the transitions between elevations.

The focus is on building a foundation for the resort, balancing usable flat areas with the natural slopes of the surrounding landscape. It’s a look at the work behind shaping the environment before the finer details bring it to life.

Evening the Terrain & the construction of Road Infrastructure | UE5 Devlog

MT Indie Dev — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 17:43:28 +0000

In this devlog, I continue shaping Kazuhara Resort by evening out the terrain and building its road infrastructure in Unreal Engine 5. The focus is on preparing the ground and creating routes that connect the resort’s different areas.

I showcase the Flatten and Smooth tools to level uneven surfaces and soften transitions, the Ramp tool to connect different elevations, and the Landscape Paint tool to define the road surfaces. These changes help establish the resort’s layout and make the terrain more practical for further construction.

Ragdoll Physics Issues | UE5 Devlog

MT Indie Dev — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 17:33:54 +0000

While implementing player death and ragdoll physics, I ran into a persistent Chaos physics issue. The death system and ragdoll activation work correctly, but once the body hits the ground, it begins violently twitching, bouncing, and rotating, sometimes appearing to push through the Landscape.

I tested several potential causes, including terrain collision, CCD, impact velocity, physics simulation nodes, modular mesh collision, damping, collision presets, and constraints, but the instability remained.

During debugging, I also discovered that I had initially been troubleshooting the wrong Physics Asset. After switching to the correct one, the issue still persisted.

The current investigation is focused on the Physics Asset's collision bodies and whether overlapping or conflicting bodies are causing Chaos to continuously apply forces to the ragdoll.

Death system: working

Ragdoll activation: working

Possessed inflatable tube-man physics: still under investigation.

Sprint & Stamina | UE5 Devlog

MT Indie Dev — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 14:56:04 +0000

This devlog showcases my Blueprint-based sprint and stamina system and its integration with the player’s health and thirst.

Hydration decreases at a normal rate while walking. Sprinting consumes stamina and accelerates hydration loss, giving faster movement an additional resource cost. Once stamina is depleted, the extra hydration drain from sprinting stops, while the normal drain continues. If hydration reaches zero, the player begins losing health.

These connected systems make resource management part of traversal. Players need to balance speed with their physical condition, using drinks to restore hydration and medkits to recover health. The UI tracks each stat and highlights critical levels, providing clear feedback as resources run low.

Interaction Awareness System – Custom Depth & Icon Widgets | UE5 Devlog

MT Indie Dev — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 14:49:52 +0000

Hello everyone!

In this development log for Life of Alex, I’m showcasing the interaction awareness system I’ve built to help players identify objects they can interact with naturally while exploring the world.

The system combines icon widgets with custom depth shaders, allowing interactable objects to provide clear visual feedback without overwhelming the screen or breaking immersion.

Icons help communicate available interactions, while the custom depth effect highlights relevant objects and makes them easier to distinguish from the surrounding environment.

This system is part of my ongoing work on making exploration and interaction in Life of Alex feel intuitive, responsive, and visually consistent.

Life of Alex is currently in early development, so everything shown is still subject to change as the project continues to grow.

Follow the development journey for more systems, environments, gameplay mechanics, and behind-the-scenes progress.

Illumination Systems | UE5 Devlog

MT Indie Dev — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 14:48:25 +0000

In this devlog, I’m showcasing the Flashlight, Lantern, and Battery Systems I’ve built for my game in Unreal Engine 5 using Blueprints.

Both light sources are fully integrated with the inventory system and can be equipped, used, dropped, and swapped. The flashlight and lantern each maintain their own battery level, while the UI displays the remaining charge of the currently equipped light.

The system also handles switching between the flashlight and lantern, including correctly shutting down the previous light, stopping its battery drain, and transferring control to the newly equipped device.

Systems showcased:

Flashlight system

Lantern system

Battery consumption

Independent battery levels

Battery UI and status display

Inventory integration

Flashlight to Lantern swapping

Equip and unequip logic

Light activation and deactivation

Battery drain timers

This is part of the ongoing development of my game, where I’m building the gameplay systems step by step in Unreal Engine.

More development updates and system showcases are coming soon!

Introducing The Startup Café: A Community for People Building Startups ☕

Hanzla Baig — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 14:44:12 +0000

I Started The Startup Café on DEV. Here's the Idea Behind It.
I've just started a new organization on DEV called The Startup Café, and I wanted to share it here while it's still at the very beginning.

Here's the organization: https://dev.to/startupcafe

The idea came from something pretty simple: there's a lot to learn from people who are building things, even when they're working on completely different projects.

Some developers build things for clients. Some work on side projects after their day job. Some are trying to launch a SaaS, while others are still figuring out which idea is worth pursuing.

I've always found that side of building interesting. Not just seeing what someone has launched, but understanding why they started, what they're figuring out, and what they've learned along the way.

I'd like The Startup Café to be a place for those conversations.

What do I have in mind?

I don't want this to be just another place to drop a project link and move on.

I'd like people to share what they're working on, ask for feedback when they're stuck, write about things they've learned, and discover projects they might not have found otherwise.

Maybe you're building your first website. Maybe you're working on a SaaS and trying to find your first users. Maybe you've got an open-source project, or an idea you keep coming back to but haven't started yet.

All of those are worth talking about.

You don't need to have a successful startup or years of experience to take part. Sometimes the most interesting discussions come from people who are still working things out.

I'd also love to see people connect through the organization. You might find someone dealing with the same problem, discover a project you want to contribute to, or meet a developer who's interested in building something similar.

There's no guarantee of where those conversations will lead, but that's part of what makes a community interesting.

It's just getting started

I want to be clear that The Startup Café is brand new. I'm not introducing an established community with a big audience or claiming we've already built something huge.

I'm starting small, and I'd like the people who join to have a say in what this becomes.

What would make it useful? What kinds of posts would you like to see? Would you be interested in sharing your progress, getting feedback, finding collaborators, or learning from other people's experiences?

Those are the kinds of questions I'd like us to figure out together.

Interested in joining?

The Startup Café is a DEV.to organization, and that's where the community will come together.

You can visit the organization here:

https://dev.to/startupcafe

I've also built a small website for it. If you'd like to join, you can visit the website to learn more and submit an application:

https://thestartupcafe.vercel.app

If this sounds like something you'd enjoy being part of, I'd be glad to have you check it out.

And even if you're not ready to join, I'd still appreciate hearing your thoughts.

So, what are you building these days?

It can be a startup, a side project, an open-source contribution, or just an idea you're considering. I'd love to hear what you're working on and where you are with it.

Let's start there.