Unreal SDK 1.0 - PREVIEW

The Beamable SDK provides functionality to integrate your game with the Beamable features. These range from Content (Remote Config) to Events to Inventory to Microservices (Beamable's unique approach to a Cloud Code Solution).

Here's a bit of our philosophy when desing the SDK so you know a bit what to expect:

• 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.
  • We trust you to know when doing so might be worth it for you (VCS are your friend here).
• The SDK keeps itself as simple as possible, providing extension points and clear documented.
  • We believe that tools are either helpful or useless. If you find yourself working around parts of the SDK instead of using them even with MicroServices/Storages, reach out to us.
• The SDK is careful about assumptions it makes.
  • Whenever we have to make an assumption, we try to be explicit about what it means.
  • MicroServices/Storages are great ways to "just write what you want instead" when using our default services is not a good fit.

Requirements for Beamable

Beamable currently supports Unreal 5.3. It'll release the official SDK 1.0 version with 5.4 support only.

Beamable also has a dependency on .NET. This is needed for:

• Installing the Beamable CLI (and therefore enabling the various Beamable workflows).
• Using C# Microservices through the CLI.

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

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

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

Beamable CLI

Most of the Beamable workflows are enabled through the Beamable CLI; our editor integrations making use of it to create Engine-specific workflows.

The SDK is tightly integrated with the CLI in some ways more than others. For example:

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