Okay, so today I wanted to mess around with adding content warnings to my game controller. You know, those little notices you see before potentially sensitive content? I figured it would be a good way to be responsible and give players a heads-up. Here’s how I went about it.
First, I brainstormed what kind of warnings I might need. I came up with stuff like “Flashing Lights,” “Violence,” “Strong Language,” and things like that. You gotta think about what your game actually has, right?
My Initial Setup
- Dug into the input settings: First I had to find where all that controller mapping stuff lives. Usually, I found my way into the “Project Settings” and then the “Input” section.
- Created a new input action: This is important. The action is what the game does. I called it “ShowContentWarning” for simplicity’s sake.
- Assigned a button:I chose a button on my controller that wasn’t being used for anything else. The “Select” button seemed like a good candidate since, it’s usually for menus.
Getting it to Work
Next, I created a simple UI element. Nothing fancy, just a text box that would pop up in the center of the screen. I made sure it was initially hidden, so it wouldn’t be there all the time.
I wrote a little script. It was pretty basic. The script does this:
- Listen for the button press: Basically, “Hey, is the ‘Select’ button being pressed?”
- Check what’s going on:The scripte check if the player is currently in a scene or near a trigger that needs a content warning.
- Show the warning: If it’s time for a warning, the script makes that text box visible.
- Hide it again:Once the warning is read, the scripte should hide that text box again.
After that, I hooked up the script to the UI element and the input action I created earlier. This part is where things can get a little specific to your game engine, but generally, you’re connecting the button press to the script that shows the warning.
Testing and Tweaking
Then came the testing. I played through parts of the game where I knew I wanted warnings, mashing that “Select” button to see if they popped up. Most of the time, it worked! But sometimes the timing was off, or the warning would show up at the wrong time. So, I tweaked the script a bit, adding some delays or changing when the warning check happened.
Finally, I added a way to dismiss the warning. I made it so pressing the same “Select” button again would make the warning go away. You could use a different button, but I wanted to keep it simple.
It’s not perfect, and I’m sure there are more elegant ways to do this, but it’s a start! It feels good to have a system in place that gives players a bit more control and awareness over what they’re about to experience. Now that the “Select” button shows and dismiss the warning box, I think I did a great work!
