Book Image

Unity 4.x Game Development by Example: Beginner's Guide - Third Edition

By : Ryan Henson Creighton
Book Image

Unity 4.x Game Development by Example: Beginner's Guide - Third Edition

By: Ryan Henson Creighton

Overview of this book

Unity is one of the biggest game engines in the world, providing the user with a range of important tools that they need to bring their ideas into reality. Beginner game developers are optimistic, passionate, and ambitious, but that ambition can be dangerous! Too often, budding indie developers and hobbyists bite off more than they can chew. Games like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, and Fruit Ninja are fun, simple games that have delighted players and delivered big profits to their creators. This is the perfect climate for new game developers to succeed by creating simple games with Unity, starting today. This book teaches you the ins and outs of the unique Unity game engine interface. Clear and concise code examples written in both Unity Javascript and C# take you through the step-by-step process of building five small, functional games. With this understanding you can start making your own mark on the game industry! With absolutely no programming or game development experience, you will learn how to build five simple games in Unity by following step-by-step instructions, peppered with amusing analogies and anecdotes from an experienced indie developer. Following a primer on simplifying your game ideas to that single “something” that keeps players coming back for more, dive into the Unity game engine by creating a simple bat-and-ball game. From there, you'll build a complete memory game using only the Unity GUI system. After building a 2.5D mouse avoider game, you'll learn how to re-skin the project to completely change the game's theme. Incorporating everything you've learned, you'll return to complete the bat-and-ball game by adding scoring, replay flow, sound effects, and animations. Finally, in the new bonus chapter, you'll program some simple AI (Artificial Intelligence) for a tic tac toe game. "Unity 4.x Game Development by Example" is a fun and light-hearted exploration of one of the most powerful game engines on the market today. Find out what all the fuss is about by getting up to speed using this book!
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Online resources


Here's a list of websites where you can tap into the Unity development community to find answers and to ask questions. Please remember to be courteous and respectful of more experienced developers' time. As with any online forum, be sure to search existing content for an answer before you ask a question.

Unity Manual: When you're new to a technology and you ask naive or poorly researched questions, you may hear "RTFM" a lot, which stands for "would you please be so kind as to review the product manual?" Well, here's the link to the product manual, which covers both beginner and advanced topics, including examples on writing your own custom Shaders:

http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/index.html

Google: A search engine should be the first place you look for answers. If the solution is plainly available with a simple query, you'll quickly exhaust the goodwill of the real-life people you petition for help online:

http://lmgtfy.com/

Unity Answers: This Unity sub-domain bills itself as "The best place to ask and answer questions about development with Unity", and it's not lying. Many of your Google searches will lead you here:

http://answers.unity3d.com/

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) : This is an old-school chat system. You can download an IRC client to reach one of its many servers. IRC users split themselves into channels by topic. The very best channel available for Unity discussion is #unity3d on the server group irc.freenode.net. Wikipedia hosts this list of IRC client programs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_Relay_Chat_clients

Unity 3D Tutorials: The creators of Unity host a growing number of tutorials on the program's official site:

http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules

YouTube: The Internet's most popular video sharing site has tons of Unity 3D tutorials. Just search "Unity 3D" to get started:

http://www.youtube.com

Twitter: The best place to get up-to-the-minute news and information about practically everything is on Twitter. Follow as many Unity developers as you can find, and keep a watch on the #unity3D hash tag to become the smartest kid on your block. Twitter: it's not just about what your friends are having for lunch:

http://www.twitter.com

Unify Community Wiki: This is an excellent Unity resource where developers can help each other out. I've linked specifically to an excellent page outlining the differences and uses of various Collections (Arrays, Lists, Hashtables, among others), which was very helpful to me.

http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php?title=Which_Kind_Of_Array_Or_Collection_Should_I_Use?