An example-based practical guide to get you up and running with Unity 5.x About This Book * The most updated resource on Unity 5.x with comprehensive discussion on all the new features of Unity 5.x * Understand the core concepts surrounding Unity5 game development with this power-packed hands-on guide * Brush up your existing game development skills and create games that have a brilliant gameplay using the excellent examples from this book Who This Book Is For The ideal target audience for this book would be game developers. They need not have previous experience with Unity since this book will cover all the basics about game development with unity. This would also be a very good resource for Unity developers who want to brush up their basic Unity skills and also get up and running with creating interesting games with Unity 5.x. What You Will Learn * Understand core Unity concepts, such as game objects, components, and scenes * Learn level design techniques for building immersive and interesting worlds * Learn to make functional games with C# scripting * Use the toolset creatively to build games of different themes and styles * Learn to handle player controls and input functionality * Dive into the process of working with terrains and world-creation tools * Import custom content into Unity from third-party tools, such as Maya and Blender * Get to grips with making both 2D and 3D games In Detail Unity is an exciting and popular engine in the game industry. Throughout this book, you'll learn how to use Unity by making four fun game projects, from shooters and platformers to exploration and adventure games. Unity 5 By Example is an easy-to-follow guide for quickly learning how to use Unity in practical context, step by step, by making real-world game projects. Even if you have no previous experience of Unity, this book will help you understand the toolset in depth. You'll learn how to create a time-critical collection game, a twin-stick space shooter, a platformer, and an action-fest game with intelligent enemies. In clear and accessible prose, this book will present you with step-by-step tutorials for making four interesting games in Unity 5 and explain all the fundamental concepts along the way. Starting from the ground up and moving toward an intermediate level, this book will help you establish a strong foundation in making games with Unity 5. Style and approach This book would be a very unique resource for any game developer who wants to get up and running with Unity. The unique example based approach will take you through the most basic games towards the more complex ones and will gradually build your skill level.

Do you like video games? Do you buy video games for your children, or maybe for yourself? Do wonder why it is that these games cost so much when you go to your favorite "big box" store? Do you wish there was a cheaper way to get these games? If so, this book, "How to Get Video Games Cheaply," is for you. A video game fan for many years of his life, author Paul J. Blom Jr. breaks down the leg work for you, and explains why getting games at the "big box" retailers is the worst possible thing you can do. No endless pages to read, no endless amount of details. This book cuts straight to the chase and explains how getting games on the Internet will save you a fistful dollars, regardless of what device you own, whether it is old, new, or brand new. "How to Get Video Games Cheaply," available both in paperback and on Kindle.

Master a series of performance-enhancing coding techniques and methods that help them improve the performance of their Unity3D applications About This Book * Discover features and techniques to optimize Unity Engine's CPU cycles, memory usage, and the GPU throughput of any application * Explore multiple techniques to solve performance issues with your VR projects * Learn the best practices for project organization to save time through an improved workflow Who This Book Is For This book is intended for intermediate and advanced Unity developers who have experience with most of Unity's feature-set, and who want to maximize the performance of their game. Familiarity with the C# language will be needed. What You Will Learn * Use the Unity Profiler to find bottlenecks anywhere in your application, and discover how to resolve them * Implement best practices for C# scripting to avoid common pitfalls * Develop a solid understanding of the rendering pipeline, and maximize its performance by reducing draw calls and avoiding fill rate bottlenecks * Enhance shaders in a way that is accessible to most developers, optimizing them through subtle yet effective performance tweaks * Keep your scenes as dynamic as possible by making the most of the Physics engine * Organize, filter, and compress your art assets to maximize performance while maintaining high quality * Discover different kinds of performance problems that are critical for VR projects and how to tackle them * Use the Mono Framework and C# to implement low-level enhancements that maximize memory usage and avoid garbage collection * Get to know the best practices for project organization to save time through an improved workflow In Detail Unity is an awesome game development engine. Through its massive feature-set and ease-of-use, Unity helps put some of the best processing and rendering technology in the hands of hobbyists and professionals alike. This book shows you how to make your games fly with the recent version of Unity 2017, and demonstrates that high performance does not need to be limited to games with the biggest teams and budgets. Since nothing turns gamers away from a game faster than a poor user-experience, the book starts by explaining how to use the Unity Profiler to detect problems. You will learn how to use stopwatches, timers and logging methods to diagnose the problem. You will then explore techniques to improve performance through better programming practices. Moving on, you will then learn about Unity's built-in batching processes; when they can be used to improve performance, and their limitations. Next, you will import your art assets using minimal space, CPU and memory at runtime, and discover some underused features and approaches for managing asset data. You will also improve graphics, particle system and shader performance with a series of tips and tricks to make the most of GPU parallel processing. You will then delve into the fundamental layers of the Unity3D engine to discuss some issues that may be difficult to understand without a strong knowledge of its inner-workings. The book also introduces you to the critical performance problems for VR projects and how to tackle them. By the end of the book, you will have learned to improve the development workflow by properly organizing assets and ways to instantiate assets as quickly and waste-free as possible via object pooling. Style and approach This practical book will help readers understand the essentials of the Unity3D engine and how to build games while improving the performance of their applications.

Utilize proven solutions to solve common problems in game development About This Book * Untangle your game development workflow, make cleaner code, and create structurally solid games * Implement key programming patterns that will enable you to make efficient AI and remove duplication * Optimize your game using memory management techniques Who This Book Is For If you are a game developer who wants to solve commonly-encountered issues or have some way to communicate to other developers in a standardized format, then this book is for you. Knowledge of basic game programming principles and C++ programming is assumed. What You Will Learn * Learn what design patterns are and why you would want to use them * Reduce the maintenance burden with well-tested, cleaner code * Employ the singleton pattern effectively to reduce your compiler workload * Use the factory pattern to help you create different objects with the same creation logic and reduce coding time * Improve game performance with Object Pools * Allow game play to interact with physics or graphics in an abstract way * Refractor your code to remove common code smells In Detail You've learned how to program, and you've probably created some simple games at some point, but now you want to build larger projects and find out how to resolve your problems. So instead of a coder, you might now want to think like a game developer or software engineer. To organize your code well, you need certain tools to do so, and that's what this book is all about. You will learn techniques to code quickly and correctly, while ensuring your code is modular and easily understandable. To begin, we will start with the core game programming patterns, but not the usual way. We will take the use case strategy with this book. We will take an AAA standard game and show you the hurdles at multiple stages of development. Similarly, various use cases are used to showcase other patterns such as the adapter pattern, prototype pattern, flyweight pattern, and observer pattern. Lastly, we'll go over some tips and tricks on how to refactor your code to remove common code smells and make it easier for others to work with you. By the end of the book you will be proficient in using the most popular and frequently used patterns with the best practices. Style and approach This book takes a step-by-step real-life case studies approach. Every pattern is first explained using a bottleneck. We will show you a problem in your everyday workflow, and then introduce you to the pattern, and show you how the pattern will resolve the situation.

Build rich, high production value mobile games and distribute them across different platforms with Buildbox About This Book * Create captivating 2D & 2.5D (isometric) video games for all platforms * Leverage Buildbox to monetize and prepare your games for distribution * This step-by-step tutorial will get you generating complex and media rich games with no coding experience Who This Book Is For This book caters to those who have an interest or desire to create their own mobile games either as a hobbyist or who are looking to enhance their skills as a professional games developer. No coding experience is required. What You Will Learn * Create the illusion of a 3D background in your game using parallax * Add advanced controls and obstacles to our first world * Develop assets (graphic and audio) for the Buildbox engine * Design games based on the capabilities and limitations of Buildbox and their target platforms * Compile and distribute video games on various channels such as Steam, iOS store, Android stores, and the Mac App Store * Optimize your games to get the absolute best quality within platform restrictions * Conquer common issues experienced with Buildbox development In Detail Buildbox is an "any skill level" development platform to develop video games with no coding experience. It also exports these games to be compiled for any platform (from Windows to Mac to iOS to Android and Blackberry) all using the same graphic user interface. Using an example as a tutorial, we will relate the driving principles and you'll see how you can implement these principles to develop any games on the platform. We begin by setting expectations and providing a brief overview of the software. But it's not long before you "dive in" to creating your first video game. You will actually have a playable level ("world") by the end of the second chapter. Later on, you'll learn everything from basic graphics creation to advanced world design while you refine your first game, called "Ramblin' Rover." All along the way, you will see how certain functions could be used in tandem to create other types of games; hoping to spark imagination. We will follow the principles and process of monetization through ads and in-game rewards. Lastly, we will go through the process of exporting, compiling, and preparing your storefront to sell the games you will eventually create. Style and approach This book follows a tutorial-based approach that teaches through examples, while also providing the necessary principles to enable you to abstract these principles into any game you want to make.

Get to know techniques and approaches to procedurally generate game content in C++ using Simple and Fast Multimedia Library About This Book * This book contains a bespoke Simple and Fast Multimedia Library (SFML) game engine with complete online documentation * Through this book, you'll create games that are non-predictable and dynamic and have a high replayability factor * Get a breakdown of the key techniques and approaches applied to a real game. Who This Book Is For If you are a game developer who is familiar with C++ and is looking to create bigger and more dynamic games, then this book is for you. The book assumes some prior experience with C++, but any intermediate concepts are clarified in detail. No prior experience with SFML is required. What You Will Learn * Discover the systems and ideology that lie at the heart of procedural systems * Use Random number generation (RNG) with C++ data types to create random but controlled results * Build levels procedurally with randomly located items and events * Create dynamic game objects at runtime * Construct games using a component-based approach * Assemble non-predictable game events and scenarios * Operate procedural generation to create dynamic content fast and easily * Generate game environments for endless replayability In Detail Procedural generation is a growing trend in game development. It allows developers to create games that are bigger and more dynamic, giving the games a higher level of replayability. Procedural generation isn't just one technique, it's a collection of techniques and approaches that are used together to create dynamic systems and objects. C++ is the industry-standard programming language to write computer games. It's at the heart of most engines, and is incredibly powerful. SFML is an easy-to-use, cross-platform, and open-source multimedia library. Access to computer hardware is broken into succinct modules, making it a great choice if you want to develop cross-platform games with ease. Using C++ and SFML technologies, this book will guide you through the techniques and approaches used to generate content procedurally within game development. Throughout the course of this book, we'll look at examples of these technologies, starting with setting up a roguelike project using the C++ template. We'll then move on to using RNG with C++ data types and randomly scattering objects within a game map. We will create simple console examples to implement in a real game by creating unique and randomised game items, dynamic sprites, and effects, and procedurally generating game events. Then we will walk you through generating random game maps. At the end, we will have a retrospective look at the project. By the end of the book, not only will you have a solid understanding of procedural generation, but you'll also have a working roguelike game that you will have extended using the examples provided. Style and approach This is an easy-to-follow guide where each topic is explained clearly and thoroughly through the use of a bespoke example, then implemented in a real game project.

Master the advanced concepts of game development for iOS to build impressive games About This Book * Create a complete game with advanced techniques through the course of the book using in-depth, hands-on instructions * Learn how to multi-task and improve performance optimization in your game playing experience * The author, Miguel, has 11 years of iOS game development using xcode and has released over 10 games to the Apple AppStoreMaster player movement using touch controls as well as discuss motion controls Who This Book Is For This book is for those who have created an iOS game already and want to hone their skills. A reasonable level of knowledge and an understanding of the core elements and applications would be helpful. What You Will Learn * Blast off and start developing fun games * Optimize the assets for the best performance in the game app * Master player movement using touch controls as well as discuss motion controls * Perform bug Squashing by testing and debugging * Design interesting various characters and enemies for your game * Test your game on both, the simulator on the computer and on real devices * Tweak and fine tune the code and graphics before the release of your app * Uncover some awesome new gameplay by adding in multiplayer elements, to get more people playing together In Detail iOS is an operating system for Apple manufactured phones and tablets. Mobile gaming is one of the fastest-growing industries, and compatibility with iOS is now becoming the norm for game developers. SpriteKit is part of the native SDK from Apple, and enables developers to make simple entry into game development without unnecessary overhead and a long learning process. SpriteKit also provides other functionality that is useful for games, including basic sound playback support and physics simulation. In addition, Xcode provides built-in support for SpriteKit so that you can create complex special effects and texture atlases directly in Xcode. This combination of framework and tools makes SpriteKit a good choice for games and other apps that require similar kinds of animation. Become a master in iOS game development through this fast and fun guide! In the beginning, we'll tell you everything you need to plan and design your game. You'll then start developing your game through step-by-step instructions using the various built-in technologies of Xcode. From there on, we discuss how to deploy your game to the iOS App Store, as well as monetizing it to make more revenue. You will also learn advanced techniques to improve your game playing experience, including better multi-tasking, improved performance optimization, battery management, and more. To end the book off, we'll show you how to update your game with different features, then port the update to the App Store. Style and approach This book provides an easy-to-understand and fun approach to game development, with step-by-step instructions and detailed explanation of each block of code. The topics covered range from easy to advanced, so buckle up for a fast-paced ride!