Engineering wiki

Rephrased is a 3D isometric exploration game about the rune language of a lost civilization. The GDD summary is the design source of truth; this tab expands the Technical Design Document (TDD) for engineering.

New today? First day (engineering) — setup, compile, LV_2ndPlayable PIE, personal playground map, weekly workflow. Do not start on systems pages until that is done.

Start here when you pick up engineering work:

• First day covers setup, the required block, and the weekly workflow.
• Use the Systems and Authoring sections below to open the page for the area you are changing.
• Design source documents catalogues the Drive documents behind the design pages.

Onboarding

• Today is your first day — shared install
• First day (engineering) — the only engineering onboarding page
• Perforce workflow — get latest, changelists, exclusive checkout, review, submit
• First day (design) · First day (art)

Unreal basics — skip if you already know UE:

• Unreal Editor 101
• Building an Unreal project
• C++ extensions
• Actors, components, subsystems
• Blueprints overview
• Enhanced Input overview

Rephrased project — open only if the current task needs it:

• Project layout
• Blueprints in Rephrased
• Data assets
• Enhanced Input in Rephrased
• Coding conventions

Designers and artists (scripted build): Building Rephrased

Setup and assistants

Environment installs and coding-agent workflows are on the Setup tab:

• Setup overview
• VS and Unreal
• Glossary — carry, Interact Mode, CDO, GC, PIE, TSubclassOf, and other shared terms

Wiki operations

• Wiki maintenance — page metadata, change history rules, and the weekly audit workflow.
• Self-review workflow — say you are done in your coding agent; it runs convention_check then request_review before you submit.

Systems

One page per TDD subsystem. Each lists files, what it does, public API, and known constraints.

• Rune system core — word data, transactions, commands, and effect resolution
• Rune actors and placement — AWorldRune, placement, and interaction authoring
• Rune status catalog — approved Verb, Noun, and Status results
• Rune content sets — rune groupings and coverage
• Environmental runes — rune shapes at object, architecture, and landscape scale
• Puzzle rules and behaviors — noun rules, State Looks, performances, and behaviors
• Gameplay recording — rune use recording, save, and playback UI
• Memory Palace — Mind Palace rooms, pedestals, and transition behaviour
• Player and interaction — ARephraseCharacter, interaction, and drawn rune presentation
• Camera system — rune camera and authored camera zones
• UI and menus — menus and Mind Drawing UI
• Audio — AAudioManager, music routing, and rune feedback
• VFX — Niagara usage and handoff notes
• Save and load — persisted state schema
• Streaming, World Partition, and HLOD — level streaming and HLOD workflow
• Data layers — runtime level data layer use
• Content pipeline — data assets and the Blueprint authoring layer
• Content validation — automation and validation gates

Authoring (designer-facing)

• Making runes — walkthrough for creating rune content
• Rune authoring — rune data and drawing graph authoring reference
• Camera authoring — placing zones, blend modes, and tracking

Reference

Step-by-step recipes for the things engineers extend most often.

• Design source documents — the original Drive documents and what they cover
• Glossary
• Adding a subsystem
• Adding a rune
• Adding a verb
• Adding a puzzle device
• Adding a camera zone
• Debug toggles
• Manual workflow — the manual steps around a gameplay change

Plan

Mirrors of the TDD's plan, risk, and schedule sections. Engineers update these in place rather than touching the TDD between gates.

• Development plan
• Risks
• Schedule

Devlogs

• Lead development log — Gabriel Li — chronological repo change record (engineering lead).
• Weekly per-engineer naming: devlogs/README.

Conventions

Pages under wiki/ use front matter where noted: owner, status, last-reviewed. The lead development log uses the same three fields. Source citations use file paths only — no line numbers, they drift.

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Back to Start here.

Change history

• 2026-10-02 — Gabriel Li — The Adding a verb link uses the page's title (CORE-011).

• 2026-09-17 — Gabriel Li — Routed assignments by system and authoring area, linked the design source document index, and refreshed the systems and authoring lists to current pages.

• 2026-09-10 — rsafadi — Linked the new Gameplay recording systems page.

• 2026-09-05 — Gabriel Li — Renamed the Git workflow link to Perforce workflow and updated the self-review blurb.

• 2026-09-05 — Gabriel Li — Updated to the shipped hybrid Content structure (PR #19): PreProShowcase sandbox under Content/Rephrased/Levels/Prepro/, Art/Gameplay/Levels layout, Imports isolation, Content/Developers/<Discipline>/<Name>/ scratch space.

• 2026-08-27 - Gabriel Li - Updated first-day sandbox wording to PreProRuneShowcase and added the personal playground expectation where relevant.

• 2026-08-14 — Gabriel Li — Onboarding is First day (engineering) only; role tracks removed. Self-review blurb lists all team coding-agent harnesses.

• 2026-08-13 — Gabriel Li — Self-review blurb points at MCP review gate, not named skills.
• 2026-05-23 — Gabriel Li — GDD source-of-truth intro; onboarding first with PIE spelled out; role routes, First day, and Git workflow; glossary and Setup wording; lead DEVLOG front matter in conventions; onboarding nav split (Unreal basics + Rephrased project).
• 2026-05-10 — Gabriel Li — Engineer onboarding and Self-review workflow linked.
• 2026-05-09 — Gabriel Li — Engineering home lists Setup tab entry points (wiki/AI/Home.md, installers, assistants).
• 2026-05-08 — Gabriel Li — Added baseline change history section for weekly wiki maintenance.