Playtesting is how you check whether your game mechanics do what they're supposed to. It's a vital part of game development.
It's also a way to check object scale, which will become important later when you start adding set dressing.
When you click the Launch Session button from UEFN, you're actually opening a live connection from UEFN to Creative, called a live edit. This means that some changes made in UEFN will show up in Creative immediately, and you will need to Push Changes for others.
Control Your Playtest Settings
There are three settings that help you control what happens when you playtest. Click the vertical ellipsis icon to open the menu.
Live Edit saves changes you make in Creative to UEFN.
Auto Start Game takes you directly into the game when you launch a session. To make edits in Creative, it's faster to turn this off.
Auto Push Verse Changes shows changes made with Verse (covered in 5. Spice Up the Gameplay with Verse) when the code is updated.
For initial playtesting, the most important feature to check is Auto Start Game so you can hit the ground running — literally!
Start the Playtest Session
To playtest your game, click the Launch Session button on the tool bar.
Play Session's Gameplay options. This will open Fortnite Creative, which is where the live edit session actually occurs. You'll see a loading screen that shows you the progress.
Once the island is fully loaded, a player character will spawn. To start the game, press Esc and click START GAME.
Play your game. If it doesn’t play the way you expect it to, go back through each step to see where you need to tweak the settings, then playtest again.
During playtesting, you have a live connection between UEFN and Fortnite. To make changes in UEFN, click End Game, then make your changes.
To end the playtest, click Exit Session from UEFN or Creative.
At this point, you are still in live edit, and can quickly playtest again by clicking Start Game.
Once you click Exit Session, you have three options:
Exit Session - Break the link between UEFN and Fortnite Creative.
Start Game - Start playtesting again.
Push Changes - Push any changes you made in UEFN while playtesting live, which automatically starts another playtest.
You can exit the live session from either UEFN or Creative.
