Preface

I still remember that moment of my life when I was afraid of telling my parents that I was going to study game development. At that time and where I was, that was considered a childish desire by most parents, and a career with no future, but I was stubborn enough to not care and to follow my dream. Today, game development is one of the biggest industries, generating more revenue than even the film industry.

Of course, following my dream was more difficult than I thought. Sooner or later, people chasing this particular dream have to face the fact that developing games is a difficult task that requires a deep level of knowledge in different areas. Sadly, most people give up due to this difficulty level, but I strongly believe that with proper guidance and tools, you can make your career path easier for you to follow. In my case, what helped me to flatten the learning curve was learning using Unity.

Welcome to this book about Unity 2020. Here you will learn how to use the most recent Unity features to create your first video game in the simplest way possible. Unity is a tool that provides you with powerful but easy-to-use features to solve the most common problems in game development, such as rendering, animation, physics, sound, effects, and so on. We will be using all those features to create a simple but complete game, learning all the nuances needed to handle Unity.

By the end of this book, you will be able to use Unity in a way that will allow you to start studying in depth that area of game development that you are interested in starting your career in, or that will simply allow you to create hobby games just for the joy of doing it. Unity is a versatile tool that can be used both in professional and amateur projects, and every day it is being used by more and more people.

It is worth mentioning that Unity can be used to create not only games but any kind of interactive app, from simple mobile apps to complex training or education applications (known as serious gaming), using the latest technologies, such as augmented and virtual reality. So, even if we are creating a game here, you are starting a learning path that can end in lots of possible specializations.