A great book for creating a 2D rpg in Unity!

                Another Unity game engine book from Packtpub was released in October, “Mastering Unity 2D Game Development” by Simon Jackson.  This is an intermediate to advanced guide to using the 2D features of Unity.  The book centers around creating a 2D RPG complete with world map, a conversation system, a store, and the beginnings of a battle system.  When the book was initially released there were a variety of typos and show-stopping problems with the book and code.  Packtpub has recently reissued the book and code and now everything works well. 

                Chapter 1 is an overview of the updates that occurred in Unity 4.3.  I went through the book using Unity 4.6 beta and had no issues. “Mastering Unity 2D Game Development” is definitely meant for those with some experience using Unity and in particular the C# programming language.  Many links are provided for reference throughout the book; but knowing how to use coroutines and delegates will definitely help you complete the examples in the book.

                Chapters 2 and 3 explain how to set up the foundation of the RPG project and begin with having you create a 2D game character and animate it.  Importing sprites and using the Sprite editor are discussed and then Unity’s Mecanim animation system is explained while the main character gets animated. 

                In chapter 4 the background for your initial scene is created and then populated with some trees, rocks and even store and house sprites.  This chapter also talks about transitioning from the background edges to another scene that you will set-up.  Chapter 5 is a heavily scripting-oriented chapter and has you create some NPCs and then set-up a conversation system.  This chapter also discusses co-routines and how to use them in Unity.

                Chapter 6 discusses places online to have maps drawn for you and alternately gives advice on how to create your own game world map.  The world map for the game is placed in your project and a nice fade-in technique is used to transition between the world map and the local scene for your player.

                In chapter 7 a battle system is created and the book explains how to have goblins randomly spawn in your scene.  In chapter 8 a shop is created so that you can purchase a sword to fight the goblins from chapter 7.  Both chapters discuss the creation of an inventory system and how to add the sword stats as a bonus to the battle system.

                Chapter 9 talks about using a state system for the battle and also programming a user interface system to keep the player informed about the battle.  Everything seemed to work fine using the ‘old’ user interface system in Unity 4.6 beta.  For those that don’t know the UI was quite significantly updated in Unity 4.6; but all the code in the books seems to work fine.

                Chapter 10 is all about creating particle systems for the battles in your RPG and chapter 11 discusses expanding the Unity editor to create some nice menus for your game.  I found chapter 11 a really interesting read as I was not aware that you could expand Unity that much for your own purposes. 

                Chapter 12 concludes the book with information on building your game for different platforms.  There is also a lot of links listed presenting information on a variety of tutorials and tools for working with Unity. 

                This is a great book for Unity and one that I will keep around for reference on how to do a lot of programming in Unity.  I am really pleased that I had a chance to read the book and try the code.  The link to the book on Packtpub is https://www.packtpub.com/game-development/mastering-unity-2d-game-development.  You can also find the download with all the assets for the RPG project there and a PDF that has all the pictures from the book.  Simon Jackson has a website at http://darkgenesis.zenithmoon.com/  and a forum for the book at http://darkgenesis.zenithmoon.com/DarkGenesisForums/forum/book-forums/ .

On November 11, I will post a review of "Mastering 2D Game Development" by Simon Jackson.  This looks to be a fascinating read as it covers one of my favorite genres, RPGs.  There is a forum for the book at Simon Jackson's webpage.  While your there you should read some of his other posts.  This is one of my favorites about Unity tutorials and resources.  He keeps this list up to date so it is a wonderful resource to keep bookmarked. Here is the link to the book at Packtpub.

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My review of "Learning Unity 2D Game Development by Example"

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

I will be writing a review of "Learning Unity 2D Game Development by Example" on Sept. 26th

On Friday, September 26th, I will write a review of the book "Learning Unity 2D Game Development by Example" by Venita Pereira.  I'm really looking forward to reading this book as Unity is my favorite game engine and I love 2D games.  This book teaches how to make 5 different games including a roguelike game.  I have always wanted to create a roguelike and maybe this will be the impetus to try and make one.