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Unity3D - Can you discuss your experiences?

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 9:37 pm
by Dinre
QCF folks:
As a hobby developer myself, I'm constantly feeling out tools, including Unity3D, for my 2D games. Can we start a discussion about your experiences using Unity and any lessons / tips / horrors you have to pass on?

I'm personally really interested in how friendly Unity has been with Desktop Dungeons' very "flat" (read: 2D) interface and with sprite management. I'm sure other developers have an interest in some of the inside scoop, too.

Dinre


P.S. I was one of the very early pre-orders, and I have never regretted it! I've also been responsible for several word-of-mouth sales, because I can say with honesty that I am very impressed with what you've accomplished so far. The only thing that would make me happier is a dev blog about the background work.

Re: Unity3D - Can you discuss your experiences?

PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 9:27 am
by Aequitas
Honestly, we've been meaning to pick up the devblog again (qcfdesign.com), but we just keep getting caught up in "work", and it kinda falls by the wayside.

I think we'll try to re-introduce it, but obviously, finishing the game comes first.

Re: Unity3D - Can you discuss your experiences?

PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 9:39 am
by dislekcia
Thanks for the support! :D

One of the things we'd like to do more this year is blog more, especially on the QCF site. Getting the game to be 2D in Unity isn't particularly hard: Orthographic camera, some fiddling with numbers to make 1 Unity unit = 1 game grid in DD, done. It was much trickier not using prefabs for anything and building our own object hierarchy - the game's surprisingly polymorphic in how it approaches items and events, so we needed to get a little smart around that ;)

We probably should use Unity's layout capabilities for the interfaces more, right now they're built from the ground up in code - just because that was easier to do with the way our texturing/mesh generation system works.

Re: Unity3D - Can you discuss your experiences?

PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 10:08 pm
by Dinre
Oh, man, I hope you folks are keeping a dev journal somewhere, so the later blog can illuminate some of the decision-making and debugging processes. I would PAY MONEY just for more info on the process. Heck, I've funded two kickstarters just to get access to the dev documentary / journals. It's fascinating AND useful. So much info is lost after the fact, and then the rest of us are fated to experience the same problems. Such is life, eh?

diskelcia: your description "surprising polymorphic in how it approaches items and events" sends shivers down my little dev spine.

Re: Unity3D - Can you discuss your experiences?

PostPosted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 10:49 pm
by Darvin
A high level of polymorphism is the right way to do things. It can be a lot of work to set up initially, but it pays off enormously in the long run.

My experience with designing (non-trivial) games is fairly limited, so I'm also somewhat curious for some technical perspective from those with first-hand experience.