I really enjoy working with the Unity game engine. It is terrific as a 3D engine; but recently
they have added 2D functionality.
“Learning Unity 2D Game Development by Example” by Venita Pereira is a
book that will help you understand how to use the new 2D aspects of Unity 2D.
As with most Packtpub books the artwork, code samples, etc. are available on
their website for download.
The
book begins with providing information on where to download Unity 3D version
4.3.4. I completed the projects in the
book with the current beta version (Unity 4.6) and everything worked just
fine. Next you create a project and then
the book discusses the interface with you including how to bring up the Animator
and Animation components which you will need for some of the later projects in
the book.
The
next chapter discusses how to create a scene in Unity. It presents how to import sprites (graphics)
and place them in a scene and then how to create a prefab from the
sprites. Camera settings, setting a
background and working with a grid are all explained. Chapter 3 is covers creating a 2D character in
your scene. Unity’s animation system,
Mecanim, is explained. How to import a
sprite sheet; chop it into the various sprites which represent body parts, and
then animate the resulting character is explained.
Chapter
4 discusses programming a game using UnityScript, which is Unity’s version of JavaScript. Example code is given for controlling a 2D
character, printing output to your computer screen and destroying an
enemy. Chapter 5 is all about giving
your game information (input), and how to use Unity’s Input Manager.
The
next four chapters go into detail on how to create 4 different sorts of 2D
games. The games types are: roguelike,
classic arcade, endless runner and a physics game. A website location is listed where you can
download the graphics for all the projects listed. The roguelike game chapter explains how to
break up a spritesheet into its various sprites and then how to animate
them. Randomly spawning enemies,
programming your character to shoot an object and destroying objects are all
part of this lesson.
The
classic arcade game demonstrated is the one where you move your character along
the bottom of the screen and random objects spawn from the top and drop down
for you to try and catch. The chapter
explains 3 common game mechanics: keeping score, a timer, and how to give your
character more than one life. The
chapter goes on to explain how display all of these on a HUD screen.
The
endless runner chapter mostly discusses how to make a ninja character appear to
be running endlessly. This is done by
explaining how to create parallax scrolling in Unity. The chapter also explains how to use Unity’s
particle effects to create puffs of dirt coming off the ninja as he is running.
The
physics game chapter explains how to create a game using the Box2D physics
engine that Unity provides. The example game provided involves shooting a
cannon and having it knockdown planks on top of boxes. Scripts to do this are explained and how to
extend the game is discussed.
The
last chapter describes how to polish all the example games by adding audio,
more cameras, multiplayer, and the ability to save and load. Then details are provided on how to deploy the
game to the web. The book ends with a list of online resources where you can
find more information on Unity.
Overall,
I liked the book and enjoyed learning the ins-an-outs of programming and
implementing the various sample game types.
If you are new to Unity and especially if you are new to Unity 2D then I
can easily recommend this book. Here is the link for the book http://bit.ly/VRS4CF
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