Adding support for XBOX 360, Android, PS3 and iPad

I agree completely that Unity seems to be a (very advanced!) 3D GameMaker-like thing, and that the $1500 is a big blow for part timers. Personally I feel that if I found a tool/engine that would enable me to cut down development time by several months it would be worth spending a lot of money on. But that the thing: Unity demands -more- time from me; it has wonderful capabilities, but in order to utilize them I would need to spend months and months on learning new skills.

Jon…

I’m not decrying unity here, I think it’s a wonderful setup (and as someone who’s used the $20 GameMaker app to produce a lot of content – I think of it as a 3D GameMaker on Steroids) but for part time dev’rs $1500+ can make a big difference when there is a “code only” approach that’s truly free – excluding the obvious $99 Apple Setup fee which is applicable in both cases.

Obviously this is iPhone centric but I think the point is still valid.

Jon…

1) 2D games are possible with Unity, but even with the Sprite Manager or other solutions it is not easy to do. As a small developer I have to focus on getting results quickly – I can’t afford to adapt my methods to the tool. If Unity had a “2D mode” it would be excellent. A few commands to set up the screen/camera in “2D mode”, a few commands for flexible sprite blitting, code-based methods to easily load sprites and so on – things like that is what’s needed.

2) Flash requires a plugin, of course; but it’s the de-facto standard that just about everyone has installed. That’s not true for Unity. 16,5 million is a great accomplishment but still not of any use unless “everyone” has it.

3) It’s great that portals are considering Unity! But if I release a game in six months and it’s not accepted by the major portals I’m not going to be consoled by the fact that they’re considering it, or working on it – I need the game to generate revenue instantly so that I can use it to work on my next game. So, unless I see “we accept Unity games” on major portals it’s still not any good.

4) Teaming up with someone is something that always sounds good, and I agree that it would be good. I’ve tried several times to find an artist partner – but never gotten any response to that. So I’ve come to the conclusion that artists want to get paid; not be partners on casual game projects. So, the IDE is still a major issue for me – see #1. (Oh, and C#/JS code is rarely used anywhere else so it would require a complete re-write of the game code if I wanted to port the game. Also, the major issue is that parts of the game aren’t defined in code – it’s handled in the IDE. Setting up cameras, handling assets etc. That makes it completely un-reusable.)

Finally, I did try to not be tooo biased in the actual blog post, but maybe I should have written “game engine choices for indie developers with little funding, a day job that takes most of their time, complete focus on code and not IDE based solutions, and who want to get results very quickly” instead, to make things clearer. No article like this is completely objective, but mine is – of course – definitely centered on my needs.

What I’m trying to say is: I can’t see how Unity would work for me, but thanks VERY much for replying and clearing up these issues! I’m sure that Unity is a perfect tool for some people; for indies that are in a different situation than I.

Let me briefly respond the your criticisms in comment 2:
1) We’ve got 16.5 million installs of our web plugin and counting. We’re also very interested in broadening our browser penetration. There are already some portals who do accept Unity content and we’re working on getting it acceptable on all portals. There is also more and more Unity content popping up on social networking sites.

2) I can understand your frustration; it is the opposite for me, learning the GUI is a cinch but learning a new programming language is intimidating! Maybe you could team up with an artist or a designer who could handle most of the visual stuff while you focused on the gameplay code?

Furthermore, if you ever wanted to repurpose your stuff later on, you’d have all of your art assets and your c# or javascript wouldn’t be too hard to modify.

All that being said, you’ve got to do whatever works for you! Best of luck with your future creations!

- Thomas

I am from Unity and wanted to clear up a few misconceptions.

First, I noticed that you didn’t put an X in the iPhone column for Unity. Unity is in fact the most popular engine on the iPhone, with over 400 games published to the app store using Unity.

Second, I wanted to address 2D games; there are two great solutions for doing 2D asset games within Unity:
The first is the technique used by Mika Mobile to create their best selling iPhone game (in the top 10 selling games of 2009) Zombieville USA and their recently released OMG Pirates! They talk a bit about their technique in the following two links:
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=37123
http://www.thecareergamer.com/?p=513

The other is an affordable Unity middleware solution for sprite based characters, entitled Sprite Manager 2 by Above and Beyone Software. You can watch videos of it in action at the following link:
http://www.anbsoft.com/middleware/sm2/

Third, Flash also requires a specific plugin.

Lastly, I wanted to mention that we have Wii support and Xbox 360 support is on the way!

I hope you will take the time to give Unity a second look. The base version is now completely free and available for download at http://unity3d.com/

Thanks!

- Thomas Grové

1) The web plugin makes its web presence non-existent in my view. If I want to make web games it has to be Flash – otherwise they won’t get accepted by any portals at all. Java and Unity are right out, for that reason.
2) Disregarding that, Unity is also focused on using the IDE. Seriously, I can’t devote any time to learn using stuff like that. Learning a programming language is a cinch, but getting productive with a GUI takes ages. Also, reliance on an IDE means that I’m completely locked in to that technology and can’t reuse anything anywhere else.

So, Unity is not for me. I’ve downloaded it and got so far as to present a 2D background after messing around with the camera for AGES. That’s just not working for me – I’ll leave that to the people who know how to use a 3D engine.