Learning 2D Game Development with Unity

Matthew Johnson is a principal 3D artist at Firebrand Games in Merritt Island, Florida. He graduated with a BFA from the International Academy of Design, where he trained in computer animation before going on to study animation at Animation Mentor.   Matthew has been in game development for the past seven years working on more than a dozen AAA racing games, such as NASCAR, Hot Wheels, and the Need for Speed series. He has helped publish titles on almost every platform, including PC, Wii U, iOS, Android, and Steam.   In his spare time Matthew enjoys spending time with his wife and two kids and, when he finds time, pursuing his love for photography.   James A. Henley is an experienced game developer who has worked on several major titles and franchises, including Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Star Wars, and Skylanders, over the past decade. He originally entered the industry via the Neverwinter Nights modding community, where he was able to indulge his desires to craft content, tell stories, and write code all at the same time. He turned that love into a job opportunity at BioWare, where he spent three years with the Edmonton studio and five more with the Austin studio in a variety of design roles before briefly working for Activision.   Currently, James is working as an independent developer on [TITLE REDACTED] and is actively live streaming to share his love of games and game design in an interactive fashion. He may or may not also be a mad scientist. Analysis has proven inconclusive.

Preface xix

Acknowledgments xxv

About the Authors xxvii

 

Introduction 1

Introduction to Unity 1

Project Wizard 4

Setting Our Project 6

 

Chapter 1: Setting Up the Unity Development Environment 9

Welcome Screen 9

The Unity Interface 10

Summary 25

Exercises 25

 

Chapter 2: Understanding Asset Creation 27

File Formats 27

Importing Our Assets 28

Importing Packages 31

GameObjects 33

Components 36

Summary 39

Exercises 39

 

Chapter 3: Creating 2D Sprites 41

Working in 2D 41

Building Our Sprites 43

Sprite Packing 48

Summary 50

Exercises 50

 

Chapter 4: Building the Game World 53

Level Design 101 53

Getting around Our Scene 56

Manipulating Objects in Unity 59

Our First Level 64

Continuing On 69

Summary 69

Exercises 70

 

Chapter 5: The Basics of Movement and Player Control 71

Coding in Unity3D 71

Making the Player Go 72

Setting Up a Basic Follow-Cam 83

Introducing the Input Manager 83

Error Handling and Debugging 85

Summary 93

Exercises 94

 

Chapter 6: Adding Animations to Our Scene 95

Some Rules for Animation 95

Creating Animations 99

Animation States 108

Working with the State Machine 115

Summary 116

Exercises 117

 

Chapter 7: Setting Up Player Physics and Colliders 119

Understanding Physics 119

2D versus 3D 120

Physics 2D Settings 122

Rigidbodies 124

Colliders 125

Physics Materials 128

Constraints 129

Summary 134

Exercise 134

 

Chapter 8: Creating and Applying Gameplay Systems 135

Trigger Volumes in Unity 135

Creating Checkpoints 136

Using Checkpoints with Respawn 140

Creating Collectibles 144

Tracking the Player’s Stats 155

Summary 157

Exercises 158

 

Chapter 9: Creating Hazards and Crafting Difficulty 159

Creating Your First Enemy 159

Dealing Damage 167

Handling Player Death 177

Expanding on Platforming 178

Creating Your Second Enemy 182

Maintaining Your Enemy Arrangements 187

A Few Words on Challenge 190

Summary 191

Exercises 191

 

Chapter 10: Creating the Menus and Interface Elements 193

UI Design 193

Unity Native GUI 194

Creating a Splash Screen 198

Title Screen 200

Game Over Screen 201

Game Win Screen 202

HUD 204

Summary 212

Exercise 213

 

Chapter 11: Applying Effects to the GameObjects 215

Introducing the Shuriken Particle System 215

Modules and Properties of a Particle System 217

Adding Particle Effects to the Game 220

Unity’s Audio System 227

Adding Sound to the Player 231

Adding Sound to the Collectible System 236

Applying Some Extra Polish 238

Summary 246

Exercises 246

 

Chapter 12: Organization and Optimization 247

Organizing Assets 247

Organizing Scripts and Code 253

Optimizations 261

Summary 267

Exercises 268

 

Chapter 13: Bringing It All Together 269

Tying the Levels Together 269

Hooking Up the Intro Screens 275

Win or Lose: Getting Back into the Action 277

Building and Deploying the Game 281

Moving Forward 286

Final Words 290

 

Chapter 14: UGUI 291

UGUI Components 291

Creating Our Example Interface 293

Summary 300

 

Appendix: JavaScript Code Samples 301

Player Scripts 301

Collectible Scripts 307

Enemy Scripts 309

Game System Scripts 310

GUI Scripts 314

Hazard Scripts 320

System Scripts 322

 

Index 323