Lesson 3: Practice Time!

Let’s say you’re making a game with magic potions. Potions have different effects — they can heal players or hurt them. You would want to declare and initialize some constants and variables to store player health, and the amount of damage or healing caused by a potion.

But which should be constants, and which should be variables?

var PlayerHealth: float = 100.0
PotionDamageAmount: float = 20.0
PotionHealAmount: float = 10.0

The player’s health will change during the game depending on what potions they use. When you think change, think variable.

On the other hand, it doesn’t make much sense to change the amount of damage or healing the potions do during the game, so those should be declared as constants.

1. If you write code to change the PlayerHealth variable now, you won’t be able to tell if it worked unless you print something to the log. To help with that, declare and initialize the string constant and string variable below. Remember to add the space between the end of the text and the last ".

   Verse

        PlayerStatusText: string = "Player health now "
        var EffectOnPlayerText: string = "damaged "
   

   Copy full snippet(2 lines long)

2. Now you’re ready to change the player’s health. To change a variable’s value, you have to use the set keyword at the beginning of the expression. The PotionDamageAmount should be subtracted from PlayerHealth, so use the - operator.

   Verse

        set PlayerHealth = PlayerHealth - PotionDamageAmount
   

   Copy full snippet(1 line long)

3. After PlayerHealth changes, you want to see the proof! To do that, make the calls to Print() shown below.

   Verse

        Print("The Player was {EffectOnPlayerText + ToString(PotionDamageAmount)}")
        Print("{PlayerStatusText + ToString(PlayerHealth)}")
   

   Copy full snippet(2 lines long)

   It may seem like you are trying to do math with your strings but you are actually combining with the + operator. This is called concatenation. The ToString() function creates a string version of your float variable and constant so they can be used by Print().

4. Run this code now and you should see two new lines printed:

   • The Player was damaged 20.0

   • Player health now 80.00

Now on your own, try to do the same thing for PotionHealAmount.

1. Change PlayerHealth using the correct keyword and operator.

2. You’ll also need to change the EffectOnPlayerText variable so that it makes sense when printed.

3. Finally, you’ll need to print out how the player’s health was affected, and their current health. Try this by yourself first, but if you need help, look at the code below.

   Verse

        set PlayerHealth = PlayerHealth + PotionHealAmount
        set EffectOnPlayerText = "healed "
        Print("The Player was {EffectOnPlayerText + ToString(PotionHealAmount)}")
        Print("{PlayerStatusText + ToString(PlayerHealth)}")
   

   Copy full snippet(4 lines long)

Complete Script

using { /Fortnite.com/Devices }
using { /Verse.org/Simulation }

hello_world_device := class(creative_device):

    # Runs when the device is started in a running game
    OnBegin<override>()<suspends> : void =

        PotionDamageAmount : float = 20.0
        PotionHealAmount : float = 10.0

Next Lesson

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  Lesson 4: Writing Simple Code

  Practice is the key to competence. Practice writing more code!