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Unreal SDK - Intro & Mindset

We strive to give developers visibility and autonomy over their project dependencies. As such:

  • The SDK's source code is entirely available and modifiable inside your project by you.
  • In case you modify the SDK's source code, we cannot guarantee that its features will work; but we trust you to know when and how it is worth it for you to take on that responsibility.
  • The SDK keeps itself as simple as possible, provides reasonable extension points and is clearly documented.
  • We make public our internal documentation about how internal SDK specifics function (to the extent that they can be).

Requirements for Beamable

Beamable has a hard-dependency on Docker. This is needed for two things:

  • Running Beamable Microservices without opening the service's project (for non-engineers that want to run microservices locally).
  • Building and Deploying Beamable Microservices to your realms (dev/staging/prod environments).

If you don't have it installed, take this opportunity to install it while you investigate these docs further.

Beamable CLI

The Beamable CLI is the cornerstone of our various SDKs. Most of Beamable workflows are implemented in it; our editor integrations making use of it to create Engine-specific workflows.

In Unreal, the SDK is tightly integrated with the CLI in some ways more than others. Content, being designer-focused, has its own UE-familiar content editing UI so you can edit the various JSON blobs that defines your game's content. Microservices, however, being more engineer focused, leans more directly on the CLI.

In other words: The Beamable CLI is transparent to the user where it needs to be and explicit to users that need to work with them.

Where to start?

Regardless of who you are, we recommend run through the Introduction to the SDK and Runtime Concepts documents. After this, it depends on what you're game is or what you are looking to do.

  • If you are a game maker looking to implement simple and common back-end features, take a look at the docs for Inventory, for currency and items, and Stats, for player-scoped key-value stores.
  • If you are a game maker looking to implement highly specific features, browse the documentation for Content and Microservices to think about how to structure your game's data and custom data with Beamable.
  • If you are looking to integrate beamable into your game through Unreal's IOnlineSubsystem, take a look at the Online Subsystem Beamable.
  • If you are a Beamable engineer or looking to develop a plugin that works alongside Beamable, we recommend you take a look at the SDK Development Guide.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us through one of our Customer Success channels.