1 Getting to know Unity

If you’re anything like me, you’ve had developing a video game on your mind for a long time. But it’s a big jump from playing games to making them. Numerous game development tools have appeared over the years, and we’re going to discuss one of the most recent and most powerful of these tools.

Unity is a professional-quality game engine used to create video games targeting a variety of platforms. It’s not only a professional development tool used daily by thousands of seasoned game developers, but also one of the most accessible modern tools for novice game developers. Until recently, a newcomer to game development would face lots of imposing barriers right from the start, but Unity makes it easy to start learning these skills.

Because you’re reading this book, chances are you’re curious about computer technology and have either developed games with other tools or built other kinds of software, such as desktop applications or websites. Creating a video game isn’t fundamentally different from writing any other kind of software; it’s mostly a difference of degree. For example, a video game is a lot more interactive than most websites, and thus involves different sorts of code, but the skills and processes involved in creating both are similar.

1.1 Why is Unity so great?

1.1.1 Unity’s strengths and advantages

1.1.2 Downsides to be aware of

1.1.3 Example games built with Unity

1.2 How to use Unity

1.2.1 Scene view, Game view, and the Toolbar

1.2.2 The mouse and keyboard

1.2.3 The Hierarchy view and the Inspector panel

1.2.4 The Project and Console tabs

1.3 Getting up and running with Unity programming

1.3.1 Running code in Unity: Script components

1.3.2 Using Visual Studio, the included IDE

1.3.3 Printing to the console: Hello World!

Summary