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Unity 4.x Game Development by Example Beginner's Guide
A seat-of-your-pants manual for building fun, groovy little games quickly with Unity 4.x Overview In Detail 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! What you will learn from this book Approach This is a practical and light-hearted guide to get to grips with creating your first games, with easy-to-follow, step-by-step tutorials using the award winning Unity engine.
548 pages, Paperback
First published December 28, 2013
10 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 15, 2014
I've wanted to learn Unity for a while now. I mainly do my game development in Flash, but having seen what is possible with Unity just made my desire to learn it grow. All the games I make are 2D though, and just the thought of doing something in 3D scared me. I really don't have a great math background and just thought doing anything in 3D was beyond me. I also don't learn well from reading a book, I'm a ‘hands on’ kind of guy. So why did I read this book? The author of this book has a game development background and a webpage which mostly deals with flash. I've read articles he's posted and found them very informative, so when I saw he had a beginner's guide to learning Unity I felt this was the book for me and boy was I right!
The book starts out by showing you what you can do with Unity and what Unity is all about. Next the author shows you where you can download Unity from and helps you install it if you don't already have it installed. There is a demo which is installed and the author uses it to explain the interface of Unity. Once you've learned the interface he then moves on to explain the basics of game design. If there is any chapter in this book which should be committed to memory it is this second chapter. Honestly if you learn nothing else from this book remember what is written in this chapter as it will serve you well no matter what language or tool you use to build your game in.
In the rest of the chapters you'll build several games and learn some really cool concepts which you can use in other game you make. As you build each game the author explains every line of code to you. There is even a chapter where he asked you to think of a way to do something and then explains how he did it. The author does have an odd sense of humor, which I found funny at times but I was used to it from reading the articles he'd posted on his website. The good thing is it doesn't distract from what the author is trying to teach you, which is game design and Unity.
All the games in the book are made using Javascript, also called UnityScript. Once the game is completed the author provides a C#(C Sharp) conversion of the code at the end of the chapter. All in all this was a great book and I enjoyed reading it from cover to cover. I would definitely recommend this to anyone wanting to learn Unity.
Here is a link to the book on the Packt Homepage: http://goo.gl/qTVQf1
The book starts out by showing you what you can do with Unity and what Unity is all about. Next the author shows you where you can download Unity from and helps you install it if you don't already have it installed. There is a demo which is installed and the author uses it to explain the interface of Unity. Once you've learned the interface he then moves on to explain the basics of game design. If there is any chapter in this book which should be committed to memory it is this second chapter. Honestly if you learn nothing else from this book remember what is written in this chapter as it will serve you well no matter what language or tool you use to build your game in.
In the rest of the chapters you'll build several games and learn some really cool concepts which you can use in other game you make. As you build each game the author explains every line of code to you. There is even a chapter where he asked you to think of a way to do something and then explains how he did it. The author does have an odd sense of humor, which I found funny at times but I was used to it from reading the articles he'd posted on his website. The good thing is it doesn't distract from what the author is trying to teach you, which is game design and Unity.
All the games in the book are made using Javascript, also called UnityScript. Once the game is completed the author provides a C#(C Sharp) conversion of the code at the end of the chapter. All in all this was a great book and I enjoyed reading it from cover to cover. I would definitely recommend this to anyone wanting to learn Unity.
Here is a link to the book on the Packt Homepage: http://goo.gl/qTVQf1
February 19, 2014
I just finished reading this book and before giving my deep thoughts on it i have to say this is the best unity book for starters i have read so far and if you want to start learning to use unity you should stop reading this and buy it now.
Most people who want to start making videogames get into it thinking they'll make somekind of skyrim type of game in a weekend. In the first few chapters Ryan Henson sets you to the right mindset and down to earth by showing you how many people were needed and how much time it took, to make a few of the most popular unity games.
The author's instructions are clear and i like how Ryan Henson uses a certain kind of humor that reminds me of another favorite author of mine, Kathy Sierra.
By always having you doing a new small project every few chapters and sometimes revisiting and improving them, the book teaches you a bit about how to work iteratively and how getting the game working is many times more important than having it over optimized. It also makes the book less tiresome and makes you want to read what's next since you don’t have to wait too long to see some progress.
There's a big emphasis in scripting and author assumes you know nothing about it so if you don't know a lot about programming this books explain it all. If you are already an experienced programmer (like me) you will probably find it a bit redundant but you can always skip the explanations. The default scripting language is javascript but every chapter with code has a C# addendum at the end.
Given the date of publishing of the book (Dec 2013), the book doesn't contain a chapter on 2d development but it does a good job on teaching the basics of how to work on unity in general so this is just a nitpick.
One thing i really didn't like was that the final chapter's assets were missing from the book's assets. The final project is there but the assets for import were missing. I'll make sure to update this information when the assets are added.
If you are starting to work with unity reading this book will be a very good start. If you also happen to be a newcomer in both unity and programming in general it is a must.
**UPDATE**
I submitted the errata report about the missing assets and just confirmed they added them.
Most people who want to start making videogames get into it thinking they'll make somekind of skyrim type of game in a weekend. In the first few chapters Ryan Henson sets you to the right mindset and down to earth by showing you how many people were needed and how much time it took, to make a few of the most popular unity games.
The author's instructions are clear and i like how Ryan Henson uses a certain kind of humor that reminds me of another favorite author of mine, Kathy Sierra.
By always having you doing a new small project every few chapters and sometimes revisiting and improving them, the book teaches you a bit about how to work iteratively and how getting the game working is many times more important than having it over optimized. It also makes the book less tiresome and makes you want to read what's next since you don’t have to wait too long to see some progress.
There's a big emphasis in scripting and author assumes you know nothing about it so if you don't know a lot about programming this books explain it all. If you are already an experienced programmer (like me) you will probably find it a bit redundant but you can always skip the explanations. The default scripting language is javascript but every chapter with code has a C# addendum at the end.
Given the date of publishing of the book (Dec 2013), the book doesn't contain a chapter on 2d development but it does a good job on teaching the basics of how to work on unity in general so this is just a nitpick.
One thing i really didn't like was that the final chapter's assets were missing from the book's assets. The final project is there but the assets for import were missing. I'll make sure to update this information when the assets are added.
If you are starting to work with unity reading this book will be a very good start. If you also happen to be a newcomer in both unity and programming in general it is a must.
**UPDATE**
I submitted the errata report about the missing assets and just confirmed they added them.
February 15, 2014
The author covers a lot of what you can do with Unity, from basic script writing to tweaking Physics to using Unity's own Animation tool.
Each tutorial is made up of a combination of Unity features that is designed to help readers pick up easily. I particularly like the part where the author go in-depth with how each line of the code works, in regards to the game that the tutorial intended to make.
It's a good starter book for those who are just getting into Unity or have zero knowledges in game programming.
Each tutorial is made up of a combination of Unity features that is designed to help readers pick up easily. I particularly like the part where the author go in-depth with how each line of the code works, in regards to the game that the tutorial intended to make.
It's a good starter book for those who are just getting into Unity or have zero knowledges in game programming.
July 28, 2015
A great, fun tutorial for Unity! I hope he comes out with a V5 :)
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews