Animated timers are more than just a visual countdown; they’re powerful tools for enhancing gameplay tension, player focus, and overall experience. Before you dive into building your own animated timer using UEFN, here are essential tips, things to know, and inspiring examples to maximize their impact.

Things Creators Should Know Before Starting:

1. Familiarity with UI Basics is Key
   • Before attempting an animated timer, you should be comfortable creating User Widgets, adding basic widgets (Overlay, Text Box, Size Box), and setting properties like alignment and padding.
2. Understand the Importance of Animation Timing
   • Subtle timing adjustments (when text grows, when color shifts) can make your animation feel exciting rather than chaotic. Smooth keyframes make a big difference.
3. Plan the Role of the Timer Early
   • Ask yourself: Is the timer meant to stress players, guide pacing, or simply inform them? Your design and animation should reflect the emotional tone you want.
4. Performance Matters
   • Complex or heavily layered animations can increase performance costs. Keep your timer lightweight to avoid issues on large maps or during intense gameplay.
5. Link to Gameplay Logic Thoughtfully
   • Set up Viewmodel bindings carefully to avoid glitches, especially when switching between regular mode and urgency mode.
6. Test in Different Game States
   • Make sure your timer behaves correctly when the match resets, when urgency is triggered, and when the timer completes.

Best Use Cases for Animated Timers:

1. High Stakes Final Countdown
   • Make the last 10 seconds of a match pulse and turn red to add adrenaline.
2. Puzzle Games or Escape Rooms
   • Use animated timers to build suspense as players try to solve puzzles before time runs out.
3. Race or Parkour Challenges
   • Show a bold animated timer to pressure players to finish courses faster.
4. Zone Control and Capture Points
   • Let teams visually see how much time is left to hold a point, with urgency flashing when time is nearly up.
5. Survival and Defense Modes
   • When players must defend an area for a set time, the animated timer keeps them informed and heightens tension.

Creative Ideas and Examples:

• Disappearing Circle: Add a shrinking ring around your timer, dissolving as time runs out.
• Moving Timer: Make the timer shake or jiggle subtly when urgency mode starts.
• Clock-Themed UI: Style the background image to look like a classic clock face or a sci-fi timer.
• Color Transition Over Time: Animate the timer to gradually change color as time passes (e.g., green to yellow to red).

Pro Tip:

If you use multiple timers in your map (for different objectives), differentiate them visually by size, color, or animation style. This avoids player confusion and keeps your HUD clean and effective.

TCB Community Projects Featuring Animated Timers:

Check out this awesome community-made example that creatively used an animated timer:

• “Cyber City Turf” by Digital Mushroom — Map Code: 8490-5754-8712
  • Example of Animated Timer: Cyber City Turf

And get inspired by how others have integrated timers into their gameplay loops!

Ready to build your own animated timer? Check out the Official tutorial on the EDC here: Making an Animated Timer in UEFN

Build with Us!

Every other week we have a tutorial challenge! Challenge yourself, learn something new and build with us! Join our Discord Community to share your voice and connect with fellow UEFN and Fortnite Creative developers.

Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) continues to evolve, bringing new tools and features that empower creators to build more engaging and customized experiences within Fortnite. Staying informed about these updates is crucial for developers aiming to leverage UEFN’s full potential. This article provides an overview of the latest enhancements in UEFN, explains how to access the development roadmap, and discusses the implications of these updates for future projects.

Upcoming UEFN Fortnite Creator Enhancements and Updates

Epic Games is set to introduce several notable features to UEFN and Fortnite Creative, enhancing both the creation process and player engagement:

A/B Testing for Thumbnails (Expected Q2 2025)

Creators can now integrate A/B testing into their publishing workflow, allowing them to experiment with different thumbnails and measure their effectiveness through click-through rates. This data-driven approach enables developers to optimize visual appeal and attract more players to their islands. This is one of several new UEFN tools that align with data-informed design.

“Not Interested” Button (Expected Q2 2025)

A new “Not Interested” button empowers players to customize their recommendations by signaling disinterest in specific islands. This feedback refines the “For You” page, ensuring that players encounter content more aligned with their preferences. Similar changes reflect discover tab improvements for Fortnite Creative.

From a community perspective, this feature could be highly beneficial—it allows users to curate their Discover feed, leading to more relevant and enjoyable gameplay experiences. It gives feedback loops to the algorithm that can help surface higher quality or more tailored content, potentially increasing engagement and satisfaction across the board.

However, there are also potential drawbacks worth discussing. In the hands of influential creators with large followings, this feature could inadvertently (or intentionally) become a tool for silent gatekeeping. If such creators frequently mark competitors’ islands as “Not Interested,” and encourage their following to do so through social media content posts, this large volume of interactions could skew visibility in Discover. This opens up concerns of silent bullying or manipulation within the ecosystem. It raises a critical question: how will Epic Games protect smaller or emerging creators from being disproportionately affected?

What if an island receives a significant number of “Not Interested” signals before it has a chance to iterate or improve through updates? Will that map be permanently suppressed in visibility? And if a disliked map undergoes major revisions, will it still struggle with the same visibility issues because of its initial reception? These are important considerations that must be addressed to ensure the system does more good than harm in supporting creative diversity within the UEFN community.

Matchmaking Options (Expected Q2 2025)

UEFN now offers creators enhanced matchmaking controls, including:

• Minimum Player Count to Start Match: Set the minimum number of players required to initiate a game, ensuring optimal gameplay experiences.
• Maximum Queue Time: Define the maximum waiting period before a match begins, balancing player retention and game readiness.

These improvements are part of the broader Fortnite Creative roadmap that supports smoother gameplay across player skill levels.

Elimination Camera (Expected Q3 2025)

Creators can utilize custom cameras during the transition from player elimination to spectating. This feature allows for personalized visual effects and perspectives, enriching the player’s experience during eliminations.

Camera Component (Expected Q3 2025)

The new Camera Component grants creators control over higher-level camera behaviors, such as selecting active camera modes, updating current modes, and blending between modes. This component manages various camera modes and determines the active one during gameplay updates.

Custom Data-Driven UI Widgets (Expected Q4 2025)

Creators can design custom UI widgets within the Editor that update dynamically based on gameplay data using the Verse programming language. This capability facilitates the creation of HUD and gameplay widgets driven by custom data structures, enhancing user interface customization for Fortnite creators using Verse.

Accessing the UEFN Roadmap

To stay updated on upcoming features and improvements, creators can access the UEFN development roadmap through the official Fortnite Roadmap Trello Board. This resource provides insights into planned updates, allowing developers to anticipate and prepare for new tools and functionalities.

Implications for Future Project Development

These enhancements offer UEFN and Fortnite Creative developers expanded opportunities:

• Improved Player Engagement: Features like A/B testing for thumbnails and the “Not Interested” button enable creators to tailor content more effectively to player preferences, potentially increasing engagement and retention.
• Enhanced Customization: Advanced matchmaking options and camera controls provide greater flexibility in designing unique gameplay experiences, allowing for more personalized and immersive content.
• Dynamic Interfaces: The ability to create custom data-driven UI widgets empowers developers to design interfaces that respond in real-time to gameplay events, enhancing the overall user experience.

By integrating these new tools and staying informed through the UEFN roadmap, creators can elevate their projects, delivering more engaging and customized experiences within the Fortnite ecosystem. At the same time, it’s important that we, as a community, reflect on how these tools shape the creative landscape—for better or worse. Are we building an ecosystem that welcomes all creators equally, or one where visibility is swayed by influence?

UEFN Roadmap Quick FAQs

Q: What is the Fortnite Creator roadmap?
A: The UEFN roadmap is a Trello board managed by Epic Games that outlines upcoming features and changes for Unreal Editor for Fortnite.

Q: When are A/B testing and the “Not Interested” button coming to UEFN?
A: Both features are expected in Q2 2025, according to the Fortnite Creator Trello roadmap.

Q: Can disliked maps be updated and regain visibility?
A: This is currently unclear. Epic has not specified whether updates to disliked maps will reset or influence their placement in Discover.

Q: Where can I access the official Fortnite Creator roadmap?
A: Visit the Official Trello Board here for real-time updates.

Q: What tools are coming later in 2025?
A: Q3 and Q4 features include the Elimination Camera, Camera Component, and Data-Driven UI Widgets.

Join the Conversation

We’d love to hear your thoughts, experiences, and feedback on the UEFN Fortnite Creator Roadmap! Join the conversation in our Discord Community to share your voice and connect with fellow UEFN developers.

At The Creative Blok, we believe in more than just creativity — we believe in integrity. Today, we’re proud to announce the launch of our new Content and Interview Policy, designed to clarify how we gather, present, and preserve the stories shared with us.

Whether you’re a contributor, interviewee, or loyal reader, this policy reflects our continued commitment to authentic storytelling, game development journalism and respectful publishing practices.

Why We Updated Our Policy

As our platform grows, so does our responsibility. We often plan to feature voices from across game development and creative industries — such as artists, designers, storytellers, and beyond. With that comes a duty to handle interview content with transparency, respect, and editorial purpose.

This update aims to:

• Define how interview content is used and edited
• Reaffirm our commitment to ethical content practices
• Build trust with our contributors and creative community
• Prepare the foundation for a forthcoming Review Policy launch

What’s New in the Content Guidelines

To help contributors and readers understand our evolving standards, here’s what’s outlined in the new policy:

• Content Ownership: Interviewees maintain their right to withdraw participation prior to publication, and all content is shared with proper consent.
• Editorial Integrity: We aim to preserve original voice and intent. Minimal edits are made for clarity or grammar without altering the core message.
• Fact-Checking: All claims, quotes, and context from interviews are reviewed for accuracy to prevent misrepresentation.
• No AI Interviews: We do not publish interviews conducted solely by AI tools unless disclosed transparently and approved editorially.

What Are Interviews Solely Conducted with AI Tools?

AI-conducted interviews are interviews where artificial intelligence systems — rather than a human interviewer — are responsible for asking questions, interpreting responses, and sometimes generating both sides of the dialogue. These can occur in a few different ways:

1. AI Interviewing an AI
   Example: ChatGPT “interviewing” another AI like MidJourney about design trends. The entire exchange is machine-generated.
2. AI Interviewing a Human (Prompt-Based)
   Example: A person responds to interview questions entirely generated by AI without any human follow-up, moderation, or adaptive engagement.
3. Fictional or Simulated Interviews
   Example: AI-generated conversations with historical or fictional figures (e.g., “an interview with Vincent van Gogh”) with no basis in actual dialogue.

These types of interviews lack human insight, empathy, and context, which are crucial in ethical storytelling. For that reason, we do not allow fully AI-generated interviews to be published unless explicitly labeled and editorially reviewed.

Using AI as a tool (for question suggestions, transcription, or summarization) is acceptable, but it must serve a supportive role — not a substitute for real human interaction.

Our Stance on Interviews: Integrity with Purpose

Interviews are at the heart of The Creative Blok. They serve as a mirror to creative culture and a platform for unheard voices. That’s why:

• Interviewees will always know how their responses will be used.
• Quotes will never be altered to mislead or sensationalize.
• We’ll request approval for any significant narrative edits or structural changes.
• All interviews are conducted with clear intention — no fluff, no misrepresentation.

This isn’t just a policy — it’s our commitment, recognizing that even with the best intentions, human error can occur. We strive to uphold transparency and integrity every step of the way.

How to Submit or Participate

Want to share your story or pitch content? Here’s what to do:

• For Contributors: Visit our Content and Interview Policy Page and read the guidelines thoroughly.
• For Interview Requests: Use our contact form to express interest or respond to an invitation to to you by one of our editors. We’ll walk you through the next steps.
• Review Submissions Coming Soon: We’re developing a fair and transparent Review Policy, so stay tuned for more updates.

Looking Ahead: Our Commitment to Ethical Storytelling

With this update, we’re laying down a more intentional path forward — one where creative stories are treated with the dignity they deserve. We appreciate your continued support and enthusiasm for The Creative Blok as we grow.

Have questions or feedback? We’re all ears. Contact us or connect with us in Discord via ModMail!

Want to connect fast? Join our Discord Community where we have staff available 24/7 to share insights, chat and help you grow!