Anyone here tried Unity?

So Unity found me on the web yesterday while it was searching "People who are willing to become indie developers". I thought it was one of the simple "Click and Drag" programs to create a game at first, but after seeing a few Unity games, I fell in love with its 3D engine. Also, the free version has a few limitations. Many people say that it's a powerful (yet easier than actual programming) game making program including commercials.

I'm planing to become an indie developer, which means I'll get into commercial game developing, but I doubt Unity is the right way to follow especially for non-professionals.

Suppose I wanna make a racing game. Maybe I can model tracks/cities/terrains, but I'm not good enough to model high-poly vehicles (have you seen my thread in Everything Else?). I also found some kits that will cover for you the basics of a typical racing game (e.g.: Waypoints, Checkpoints, etc). Then there is the asset store, where you can find free models (like cool looking cars) you can use in your project. Great! The only thing left to do is scripting/programming and off I go! But wait, would people actually pay $10 for this game? Do people pay for a game because it is good, or because it cost so much work to create?

I haven't touched Unity and probably won't for a while since I'm busy studying and learning some programming. But do you think that I should go along with this "Racing Car" game using everything I mentioned above in the near future?

If you're looking for something fully-featured for your indie project, try Ogre3D.

Less talk, more work.

Make the game before asking if we'd pay $10 for it. To be honest there are way too many PC racing games. Steam and bundles have them for $5 or less. You're competing with big names. Just make something fun to play. That's all that matters, not how it looks.

Games are entertainment, make people have fun and they'll pay money for it :-) People sink money into free to play games.

To be honest there are way too many PC racing games. Steam and bundles have them for $5 or less. You're competing with big names.

Indeed. Asking yourself if you can sell a video game is a pointless venture. Much better to put yourself in the shoes of the player and ask "why would I play this instead of any comparable option". And that's just playing the game, that's before we consider even paying for it. So many options and so many of them free these days.

Especially if your plan is to bundle a few kits and call it a day, which will inevitably result in something much, much lower quality than the many good racing games out there.

Can you sell that? Sure, there's always a sucker. Question is do you want to be a game developer or a scam artist; and for people looking to make a cheap buck, mobile platforms are much more profitable.



Tried Unity myself, couldn't get into it. First, most of the community (on forums and such) seems to fall into the aforementioned category of developers. Very thick "I don't touch the stuff" attitude over there. You'll find plenty of people willing to talk about monetizing your apps or their rating on the iOS store, while on the other hand "game design" is either considered a swear word or the process of typing code and creating art assets and nothing else.

The program itself has this... Mac-ish feel, workflow I just never got into; as in, it wants you to do things in the very specific way it believes is best, even down to file management. Which can be OK if you happen to like their particular approach. For me it seemed clunky and inefficient. But then, I'm no programmer, just a hobbyist.

There's performance issues and bugs, and more importantly for non-programmers, missing core functionality. There's the free version to reel you in, but you're clearly expected to spend hundreds and thousands on various modules in the asset store, and eventually buy the pro version.

To be fair there's about a billion Unity games out there, some of them pretty good (although none of them performance-heavy), and many pros praise the workflow. So there has to be something to it. My guess would be current game engines being a gigantic clusterfuck, making Unity look good in comparison, but what do I know.

War Z guy wanted to be a scam artist, but its cool.

Anyway, with Unity, mess around in it, before you go making a full fledged game.

So many racers are modernized while so many platformers are becoming 'old school.' I wonder if there would be money in a SNES style race game like F-Zero or the original Mario Kart.

I have mixed feelings about unity.

I would say its great to mess about in and you are likely to create some playable content with some ease. However, you will still need a good understanding of how a 3D engine works to avoid pit falls and have some good supporting programs for 3D modelling and texture design etc.

Before making anything seriously in Unity, I would do some research into texture atlas's and draw calls because if these go out of control you will kill your game performance. Lots of research and panning!! Some programming language in either Java or C is pretty essential, though you may be able to figure some stuff out by looking at code snippets and adapting to your own needs.

After I have finished with some of my current projects I am planning to use Unity to make an example FPS level similar to a sort of System Shock 2 theme. I doubt it will turn into a full game as its only me and making a whole game by your self is hard work. Though it should be a bit of fun. Much of the planning has already been laid out from how the level will be made up from modules to a bit of the story and how my textures will work along with how I plan to implement shadows.......anyway, basically research and plan everything.

Be realistic about expectations. Often it may be best just to mess about and try to get things you plan on doing working. Then when you are at a confident level start on the main project.

Overall, I would say Unity is bit of fun if you like messing about with 3D content and game making.

Make the next Podracing game. Fun is the factor. So stop worrying, get to work, and then I'll pirate it when it comes out and tell my friends about it. Hopefully word of mouth still means something.

Make a Carmageddon-esque knock-off, since that was always more fun than any of the serious racing games. Gibs are always a bonus and the vehicles don't have to look even remotely realistic that way.

I've been playing the Grid 2 now that its free on PSN Plus. There's a lot of variety in there all under the disguise of a career. The game has your typical multi lap races, but there are also straightaway tournaments where you race 1 on 1 and move up a tournament facing tougher drivers. There are time challenges to unlock new cars and some sort of overtake challenge where you see how many cars you can overtake. Again, its all in your career, instead of a blunt chose a mode or a 'you now have to do only this.' The variety of letting you chose what you want to do under the guise of a 'career' prevents boredom.

Other than the occasional straight up racing game once every system generation, I only play Mario Kart games. Not only do they give kids to be on the level of adults, but it lets less skilled players catch up. Basically giving everyone a chance to win.

High skill vs anyone can win.

Well, you'd better get on that shit. It's your patriotic duty.

geo said:

I've been playing the Grid 2 now that its free on PSN Plus. There's a lot of variety in there all under the disguise of a career. The game has your typical multi lap races, but there are also straightaway tournaments where you race 1 on 1 and move up a tournament facing tougher drivers. There are time challenges to unlock new cars and some sort of overtake challenge where you see how many cars you can overtake. Again, its all in your career, instead of a blunt chose a mode or a 'you now have to do only this.' The variety of letting you chose what you want to do under the guise of a 'career' prevents boredom.

Other than the occasional straight up racing game once every system generation, I only play Mario Kart games. Not only do they give kids to be on the level of adults, but it lets less skilled players catch up. Basically giving everyone a chance to win.

High skill vs anyone can win.

I like games that feature many unlockables unlocked several ways. They will give you a goal to finish in the game, thus increasing the length of the game that can be enjoyed. For example, in Revolt you do not win everything just by winning championships.

Other than that, quick race, time attack, championship, free run modes are enough for a good racing game at least.

Then there's MK Deadly Alliance that gave you like 5 or 7 types of currency and blindly unlocking things with that currency.

Another program you should check out is the Unreal developers kit, but it's a bit advance for people who are just starting, but it deserves a little look at.