Quickstart information about developing a mod in UDK here.

First of all - install UDK. Note that this guide was written for UDK version July 2012 (UDK-2012-07), but it should hold for other versions as well. Get UDK from www.udk.com .

When developing a project in UDK I strongly recommend to use Visual Studio along with nFringe.

1. Download nFringe for Visual Studio (even free express edition works - I use 2008 express). nFringe is free for non-commercial purposes.
2. Guide to set up a new UDK project here: http://wiki.pixelminegames.com/index.php?title=Tools:nFringe:UnrealScript:UdkProjects

To assure your new game or mod get compiled properly you need to tell UDK it should compile your mod as well. You do this in the file UDKEngine.ini (located in UDK-2012-07/UDKGame/Config folder). Find the part below and make sure it looks like this:

[UnrealEd.EditorEngine]
EditPackagesOutPath=..\..\UDKGame\Script
FRScriptOutputPath=..\..\UDKGame\ScriptFinalRelease
+EditPackages=Core
+EditPackages=Engine
+EditPackages=GFxUI
+EditPackages=GameFramework
+EditPackages=UnrealEd
+EditPackages=GFxUIEditor
+EditPackages=IpDrv
+EditPackages=OnlineSubsystemPC
+EditPackages=OnlineSubsystemGameSpy
+EditPackages=OnlineSubsystemLive
+EditPackages=OnlineSubsystemSteamworks
+EditPackages=UDKBase
+EditPackages=UTEditor
+EditPackages=UTGame
+EditPackages=UTGameContent
+EditPackages=YOUR_MOD_NAME

where YOUR_MOD_NAME is the name of your mod. Then you can compile code by manually calling “udk make” (Binaries/Win32 folder) or by building project in Visual Studio.

Note: +EditPackages=YOUR_MOD_NAME should be the LAST +EditPackages record in [UnrealEd.EditorEngine] (otherwise there could be problems with dependencies!)

This assumes you have already set up your mod and created subclass of GameInfo class that is used for launching your game. To run your game simply type in console “udk DESIRED_MAP_NAME_WITHOUT_.upk?game=YOUR_MOD_NAME.YOUR_GAMEINFO_SUBCLASS_NAME” (Binaries/Win32 folder)

• E.g. “udk DM-Deck?game=GameBotsUDK.BotDeathMatch”

To run UnrealEd call manually “udk editor” command from Binaries/Win32 folder.

Dungeon Defense is an example of a game built entirely on UDK. Its open source, so it can serve as an inspiration on how to do things in UDK (note however that is was built using older version of UDK).

• Download it from www.udk.com/showcase-dungeon-defense
• Read more about development of it at UDK forums.

There are many online sources and large community around Unreal and UDK.

• Official Unreal Development Network contains many tutorials and guidelines and is constantly updated
• UDK Youtube channel is a great resource of UDK oriented video tutorials
• Official Unreal Forums contains thousands of user and developers interested in Unreal development
• Beyond Unreal Forums is another great community site about Unreal and UDK development
• Beyond Unreal Wiki is a long maintained wiki that is constantly updated (however for UDK development it is not as good as for UT2004)

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