In this book, we explore the ever-expanding world of mobile game development. Using Unity 3D and the Android SDK, we will learn how to create every aspect of a mobile game. Every chapter explores another piece of the development puzzle. Exploring the special features of development with mobile platforms, every game in the book is designed to increase your understanding of these features. We also finish the book with a total of four complete games and all of the tools we need to create many more.
The first game that we make is Tic-tac-toe. This game functions just as the classic paper version. Two players take turns filling a grid with their symbols; the first to make a line of three wins. It is the perfect game for us to explore the graphical interface options that we have in Unity. By learning how to add buttons, text, and pictures to the screen here, we have all of the understanding and tools needed to add any interface that we might want to any game.
The next game that we create is the Tank Battle game. The player takes control of a tank to drive around a small city and shoot targets and enemies. This game spans three chapters, allowing us to explore many key points of creating games for the Android platform. We start by creating a city and making the player's tank move around, using controls that we learned about when making the Tic-tac-toe game. We also create and animate the targets that the player will shoot at. In the second part of this game, we add some lighting and special camera effects. By the end of the chapter, the environment looks great. In the third part of the game's creation, we create some enemies. Using the power of Unity, these enemies chase the player throughout the city, and attack when they are close.
The third game to be completed is a simple clone of a popular mobile game. Using the power of Unity's physics system, we are able to create structures and throw birds at them. Knock down the structures to gain points, and destroy the target pigs to win the level. We also take the time to explore some of the specific features of a 2D game, such as a parallax scrolling background, and how they can be achieved in Unity. We complete the chapter and the game with the creation of a level selection menu.
Finally, we create the Space Fighter game. This game involves using the special inputs of a mobile device to control the player's ship. As the player's device is tilted, they will be able to steer the ship. When they touch the screen, they can shoot at the enemy ships and asteroids. The second part of this game involves including the special effects that complete the look of every game. We create explosions when ships are destroyed, and engine trails for the ships. We also add the sound effects for shooting and exploding.
The book wraps up with a look at optimization. We explore all of the great features of Unity, and even create a few of our own to make our game run as best as it can. We also take a little bit of time to understand some things that we can do to minimize the file size of our assets while maximizing their look and effect in the game. At this point, our journey ends, but we have four great games that are just about ready to go to market.
Chapter 1, Saying Hello to Unity and Android, explores the feature lists of the Android platform and the Unity 3D game engine, covering why they are great choices for development. We will also cover setting up the development environment, and create a simple Hello World application for your device and emulators.
Chapter 2, Looking Good – Graphical Interface, takes a detailed look at the graphical user interface. By creating a Tic-tac-toe game, we learn about the user interface while making it pleasing to look at.
Chapter 3, The Backbone of Any Game – Meshes, Materials, and Animations, explores meshes, materials, and animations. Through the creation of a Tank Battle game, we cover the core of what players will see when playing.
Chapter 4, Setting the Stage – Camera Effects and Lighting, explains about the camera effects and lighting. With the addition of shadows, lightmaps, distance fog, and a skybox, our Tank Battle environment becomes more dynamic. Utilizing special camera effects, we create extra feedback for the player.
Chapter 5, Getting Around – Pathfinding and AI, shows the creation of mobile enemies in our Tank Battle game. We explore pathfinding and AI to give players a target more meaningful than a stationary dummy.
Chapter 6, Specialties of the Mobile Device – Touch and Tilt, covers the features that make the modern mobile device special. We create a Space Fighter game to understand the touch interface and tilt controls.
Chapter 7, Throwing Your Weight Around – Physics and a 2D Camera, shows the creation of a clone of Angry Birds after taking a short break from the Space Fighter game. Physics and a 2D camera effect are explored here.
Chapter 8, Special Effects – Sound and Particles, returns to the Space Fighter game to add special effects. The inclusion of sound effects and particles allows us to create a more complete game experience.
Chapter 9, Optimization, covers optimization in Unity 3D. We cover the benefits and costs of making our Tank Battle and Space Fighter games as efficient as possible.
Throughout this book, we will be working with both the Unity 3D game engine and Android. As you can see in the previous section, we will cover both the acquisition and installation of Unity and the Android SDK in Chapter 1, Saying Hello to Unity and Android. To get the most of this book, you will need access to an Android-powered device; either a phone or tablet will work well. For simplicity's sake, we will assume that you are working on a Windows-powered computer. Also, the code throughout the book is written in C#, though JavaScript versions of each chapter project are available for reference. To fully utilize the models provided for the chapter projects, you will need Blender, a free modeling program available at http://www.blender.org. To reach all of the challenges, you will need to make use of either Blender or another modeling program that you are comfortable with, for example, a photo-editing program; Photoshop is a common choice, and a source for the creation or acquisition of audio files. All of the audio files provided by this book were found at http://www.freesound.org.
This book will be optimal for readers who are new to game development and mobile development with Unity. Readers who learn best with real-world examples rather than dry documentation will find every chapter useful. Even if you have little or no programming skills, this book will make a great place to jump in and learn some concepts and standards for programming.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "If during the build process, Unity complains about where the Android SDK is, select the android-sdk folder inside the location where it was installed."
A block of code is set as follows:
public void OnGUI() {
GUILayout.Label("Hello World");
}Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
adb kill-server adb start-server adb devices
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Follow that up by clicking on the Download the SDK Tools for Windows button".
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