Scroll down if you are only interested in the game. (way down)
My initial entry to unity was with thoughts like these :
- Unity, wtf is that? something made in Copenhagen then later moved to San Francisco, hmm sounds like snobs.
- Just another game engine, so some random scammer can earn some cash from "upcoming" indie devs.
- I allready own pro license to 4 smaller indie engines, this seems way to expensive for someone like me.
- f... it, gonna try this download..
And then i Broke my elbow, spend a month at the hospital got a few operations and was sendt home for 6-12 months for healing.
now what...
Ohh right Unity, might as well get to know this thing. I already have a fair knowledge of C# before starting, i can only get
better i thought.
The Startup
So i started out by starting Unity, logging in and was looking at the default layout like dafuq is this (exspecting unrealEd).
Went to check out some YouTube videos as first resource, then the Unity forums.
On the unity forums I've found a lot of terrible questions with obvious answers and these "noobish" questions was actually
what made me stick around. Clearly I wasn't alone not knowing what to do here.
Found the tutorial section, went through all the tutorials over a couple of weeks, fell in love with the extremely helpfull and
actually professional developers hanging around, quite impressed.
Of course once in a while you run into some arrogant forum trolls.
Well now i got Unity down i thought, now what!
The Push
Without any idea's to go with i was just a regular forum browser, not posting, not responding, just reading!
I stumbled over a forum thread (I CANT FIND NOW) which where titled something like - Indie Dev Guide.
Great instructions of how to handle yourself in the phase i was in.
But what struck me the most was the fact that there was 2 kind of developers, those who finish a game and those who don't.
There was also a challenge where you should respond "Challenge Accepted" and complete a game within 12 weeks.
I meant to reply, but never did.
But it made me think, I need to make a game, complete it and don't care about how bad it is!
The Game Idea
Now i needed to make a game and complete it fast, and I'm the puzzle kinda a guy. and thought that "roll a ball tutorial" series
by Unity, might actually be a good place to start. So i Took my tutorial project and began playing around with all the things i've
learned so far, suddenly I got it - roll a ball puzzle :D
Making the Game
I started out in my head just imagine how this should play out, what is needed and mostly CAN I EVEN DO THIS?
At first it was quite clear i had no way of completing it with my current knowledge BUT i thought i just need to
teach myself as i go, and run into problems.
I started out by making a new scene and i called it assets/_prototype/prototypeOne
I imported my Ball and scripts from the tutorial, and then started out by creating a Plane and 2 boxes,
the idea was to push one box into the other one then unlock a invisible Exit.
Next step was to make it work, so i started to write scripts, they where named like this
plrPushCube, controlPushCube, endCube, lockCube, unityCamSucksCube, killPlr
It took me a couple of days to get all of them working as intended, my idea was i wrote them once, then for each
level i designed i just DragNDrop the scripts needed onto the map ;) well it didn't work like that.
The Prototype is complete
Now i got the prototype working and it looked terrible, i was in dire need learning how to control levels, player saves and GUI.
and by pure accident i stumbled over a YouTube video from Unity with Caitlyn the Store manager talking about the store.
I then knew, i need to see this place. Went to the assets store and was like a child in a candy store and STILL IS!
At my first Login i bought 2 assets, Android control scripts and Tidy Tile mapper,
I added the control scripts to my prototype and VOILA it works, tested on my Tablet. spammed out 7 levels with the
Tidy tile mapper after watching another ton of tutorials on YouTube.
But then I learned the scripts i wrote for my Prototype didn't always work, i had not taking certain things into account and
was now being penalized for it. Had to write one to three new scripts pr level and was stressed out by this.
Went back to the store to see if there was something to help me out!
The Game Changers
I found "playMaker" the ultimate tool for the small kinda of games I'm looking to do, NGUI easy GUI setup, proBuilder 2, Mad level manager, after buying these products without any sort of testing i imported them into my project and WAS BACK ON TRACK!
I'm now back to making levels, and focusing on the fun part Designing and teasing the players, while the tools simply
helped me reduce my workload of scripting from tens of hours to merely a few hours.
Since then, i have bought many assets, and quite a few of them are included in my first game!
I have no problem using assets, because I'm a 1 man team, i don't resources to spend 1000s of hours creating the amazing
things i really want to make, but i can make smaller things and make them playable!
The Game release
I have before released an App on Android so it was not new to me to get it to work, and I'm very surprised how easy it is to
release from Unity, because before i had to create keystore myself, and via Command promt and the android SDK manually
sign my .apk before uploading them to the market.
The Game
I still add levels now and then to the game, because I'm having fun with it.
However, the game clearly shows my learning curve as the levels progress, start out very simple and then
more and more features are added. the page 3 levels is where i am now, Learning about lights, lasors and stealth :D
If you feel like trying it out, you can on Android.
Right here : https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ystems.push_it
A screenshot :
The Candy Store
Asset list (not all included in the game, but purchased during the development of this game)
In alphabetical order.
52 Special Effect Pack
Block Crusher Kit
Camera Path Animator
Create GUI 2
Easy Touch 3
Holographic Signs
Mad level manager
NGUI
PlayMaker
ProBuilder
ProGrids
Prototype
Shadow Volumes Kit
Tidy Tile Mapper
Vehicle 2d Physics kit
And a ton of free assets containing sounds,textures and models.
The Financial situation
Considering Unity's free model.
I really doubt I'm gonna make more than $100K pr year as a game Developer.
and right now I'm a student and will continue to be so for the next 2½ years.
So I'm giving myself 2½ years to play with Unity, and after that I most likely will
have to let it go, as a sacrifice to my professional career as a Engineer.
But in case something happens i wouldn't want to be caught with my pant's down speak.
So I'm keeping track of all finances regarding my game development, just in case.
The image is not updated, but if you are interested, so far I'm around -$700US
That's the oposite of a profit incase you missed it.
The Future
I plan to eventually make a sequel, but it will be developed with a clear layout and process from the beginning to the end.
However, i think i want to make something else in between, and I really plan to make something fun for PC next.
Thank you for reading, watching
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