This week we are looking at some advanced Unity features that we can use to create our own “first person shooter” (FPS) style game. We will take a look at tools for quick level generation, dive into Unity’s Character Controller, take a deeper examination of the offerings of the Physics library, and finally dip our toes into some Enemy AI. Starting today, our remaining lessons are no longer required to complete the assignments. From this point on, all lessons are strictly educational, but I strongly recommend trying to follow along as these systems are very useful for developing your own games.
continue readingLesson 9: Advanced 2D
For this class, we looked at a few more advanced techniques to enhance our platform games. The first is Animation Effects, which allow us to call a scripted event from inside an animation clip, which we used to make a “coin box”. Then we look at defining physics collisions, setting up areas that affect our physics with 2D Effectors, and finally look at Sprite Shapes.
continue readingAssignment 9: The Final Project
Dun dun… DAAAAAAAAH! This is it, folks. The last and final assignment for this course. The big burrito, with a side of all the chips – your very own game. This one is worth a little over 25% of your grade for the course, so make sure to read the directions carefully. You don’t want to get caught on a technicality!
continue readingAssignment 8: Platform Game 3 – Advanced
This week we learn some new techniques for enhancing the look and feel our our game levels. Use these tools and build out more of the mechanics of your game level to make your platform game complete!
continue readingAssignment 7: Platform Game 2 – Animation
This week we learn how to animate things – our characters, our objects, even our tiles. Now it is time to put that to knowledge to practice and bring your own personal game to life.
continue readingLesson 8: 2D Animation
It’s time to bring our world and our characters to life. This week, we dive into the wonderful world of animation, specifically how animation is implemented in our engine.
continue readingAssignment 6: Platform Game
It’s time to dive into 2D development with the creation of your very own side-scrolling adventure. In this round, you have much more creative freedom than before – your characters, story, and level design are up to you! You will be seeing less and less constraints over the next few assignments, as the training wheels are coming off and you get to decide what your game should be.
continue readingLesson 7: 2D Side Scroller
This week we take a closer look at Unity’s 2D systems, and start out on our own side-scrolling adventure. Over the next two weeks, we will develop a fully functional platform game complete with hero, enemies, and so many moving platforms. Let’s begin!
continue readingAssignment 5: Astral Attackers 3: The Final Round
Now that our game mechanics are all working, it is time to punch up the “WOW!” factor of our game with cooler aliens, better visual effects, more UI (ok, that one may not be as exciting, but it IS important!), and finally we will build this version into its own stand-alone application/executable, so that you can say “I built this!”
continue readingLesson 6 (Part 5): Controlling Color with MeshRenderer
White boxes falling from the sky is a beautiful site, but it would look even better if the debris appeared to change color. In this section we are going to look at how to access the “color” property of an object programmatically using the Mesh Renderer component.
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