🎮 HeadCase — Fortnite (Signal Jack)

Overview

In UEFN — not yet publishedVerse compiles clean

Arena architectural preview Top-down geometry layout Six generated TV faces

Gameplay & features

• First playable — eight-player free-for-all in a 64 × 48 metre television studio. An elimination creates a collectible signal at the victim's position, including the victim's carried signals. Environmental deaths only drop existing signals; they never create new ones.
• Extraction rules — pickups expire after 15 seconds; players carry up to five signals; collecting one reveals a snapshot of the nearest active rival's lane in a private HUD message; players may recover their own dropped signals after respawning.
• Broadcast to win — hold the center broadcast button for two seconds to bank all carried signals; first to 15 banked points wins. Ten-minute island time limit with score as win condition.
• Combat setup — 100 health + 100 shield, three-second individual respawn with unlimited lives, two-second spawn immunity, building off, environmental damage off, no DBNO, eliminated players' items deleted; Item Granter issues an assault rifle + 120 medium bullets and clears inventory first.
• The Headcase host — six face expressions (idle, scan, static, jackpot, alert, winner) driven in order by the Verse device; captions deliver short authored comedy reactions. No remote AI generation, no external phone service.
• Full device wiring — Broadcast button (2 s hold, 1.5 m radius), Score, End Game, HUD, HostCaption billboard (HEADCASE: SIGNAL JACK — Eliminate. Collect. Broadcast.), Loadout, all eight Player Spawn Pads (team Any, island start, hidden in game) and all 24 collectibles (Consume If Collected By Anyone, no auto-respawn) assigned to the controller.

Assembly & build flow

Headcase-Signal-Jack/            # source of truth
 ├ Assets/  arena OBJ (52 objects, cm, Z-up) + 6 face OBJ/PNG (1024×512)
 ├ Verse/headcase_signal_jack.verse   # custom gameplay device
 ├ arena-layout.json         # exact geometry / spawn / broadcast positions
 └ BUILD-NOTES.md            # dated checkpoints, import gotchas
 ▼  (manual UEFN assembly per BUILD-NOTES)
HeadcaseSignalJack/              # native UEFN project (42.10)
 Content/ …uasset imports, CustomProps, ExternalActors
 ▼
UEFN: Verse compile → session prep/cook → connect Fortnite client → playtest → publish island

Documented import gotchas (saved future-you pain)

• Arena collision must be Use Complex Collision As Simple — a generated convex hull seals the arena solid.
• Face planes are placed at (0,0,0) to preserve their authored world positions; assign to FaceFrames in exact 0–5 order (Verse shows one at a time).
• UEFN location fields read Left/Up/Forward (−Y/Z/X) — don't paste source XYZ left-to-right; verify orientation visually.

Tech

🗂️ Roadmap

• ☐ #1 Optional: add a shotgun after the rifle-only first test; then publish the island.
• ☐ #2 Verify Item Granter advanced defaults (especially grant-on-game-start) and move supporting devices out of the play area.
• ☐ #3 Inspect the Minimum LOD For Quality warning on Headcase_Arena (Low/Medium quality) before publication.
• ☐ #4 Live checks: spawn facing/clearance, pickup spawning + 15 s expiry, contested collection, slot recycling, broadcast banking to 15, timed-score win, face durability, caption readabi
• ☐ #5 Connect a Fortnite game client to the prepared session — the single blocker for every live acceptance test.

Live roadmap, managed as GitHub issues (fortnite issues). Add or close items on GitHub — ☑ = done, close as “not planned” to remove.

Test results

2026-09-09 — wiring + combat rules checkpoints

• All 24 collectibles assigned to SignalPool (indices 0–23, distinct actors); all 8 spawn pads placed and assigned; editor saved + "All Saved" in UEFN.
• Combat rules saved: 8-player FFA, one round, 10-minute limit, 100/100 health/shield, 3 s respawn, 2 s spawn immunity, building/env-damage/DBNO off, items deleted on elimination.
• Session preparation/cooking completed successfully (green status) after the saves — but the session ended "server shut down because no game clients are connected." Verifies cook, not gameplay.

2026-09-07→09-08 — assembly + first session prep

• Saved level at 51 actors including 24 collectible devices; HostCaption Billboard placed and visually checked in editor.
• Verse compiled in UEFN with zero errors and zero warnings (Verse-Build-Result.json: SUCCESS).
• Epic session preparation succeeded Sep 8; closed for lack of a game client — live playtesting remains outstanding (also noted: broadcast-button hold, HUD and End Game option verification still to confirm in a live session).