Master the Unity Game Engine to Design and Develop Games for Web, Mobile, Windows, macOS, and More!
If you want to design and develop games, there’s no substitute for strong hands-on experience with modern techniques and tools―and that is exactly what this book provides. The first edition was frequently the top-selling game design book on Amazon, with more than 70% of the reviews being 5 stars. In a testament to the iterative process of design, this new edition includes hundreds of improvements throughout the text, all designed to make the book easier to understand and even more useful. This book was written with Unity 2017; the book.prototools.net website will cover changes for later versions of the software.
Award-winning game designer and professor Jeremy Gibson Bond has spent more than a decade teaching game design and building great games. In that time, his most successful students have been those who combine knowledge of three critical disciplines: game design theory, rapid iterative prototyping, and practical programming. In this book, Bond distills the most important aspects of all three disciplines into one place.
Part I: Game Design and Paper Prototyping
• The Layered Tetrad framework: a synthesis of 50 years of game design theory
• Proven practices for brainstorming and refining game designs through the iterative process of design
• Methods and tools to manage game projects and small teams
• Processes to make playtesting and feedback easier
Part II: Digital Prototyping with Unity and C#
• Chapters that guide you through learning C# the right way
• Instruction that takes you from no prior programming knowledge through object-oriented programming
• Deep exploration of Unity, today’s most popular game engine on both macOS and Windows
• Methods for understanding and debugging code issues you encounter
Part III: Game Prototype Examples and Tutorials
• In-depth tutorials for seven different game prototypes, including a simple action game, a space shooter, a solitaire card game, a word game, and a top-down adventure
• Instructions to compile these games for PC, web, or any of the dozens of other release platforms supported by Unity
• Improved structure and layout that makes the steps of each tutorial easier to follow
• A completely new Dungeon Delver prototype not present in the first edition
Jeremy Gibson Bond is a Professor of Practice, teaching game design and development in the Media and Information Department at Michigan State University (http://gamedev.msu.edu), which has been ranked a top-ten game design program for the last several years. Since 2013, he has served the IndieCade independent game festival and conference as the Chair of Education and Advancement, where he co-chairs the IndieXchange summit each year. In 2013, Jeremy founded the company ExNinja Interactive, through which he develops his independent game projects. Jeremy has also spoken several times at the Game Developers Conference.
Prior to joining the faculty at Michigan State, Jeremy taught for three years as a Lecturer in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, where he taught game design and software development. From 2009 to 2013, Jeremy was an Assistant Professor of Practice teaching game design for the Interactive Media and Games Division of the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, which was named the number one game design school in North America throughout his tenure there.
Jeremy earned a Master of Entertainment Technology degree from Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center in 2007 and a Bachelor of Science degree in Radio, Television, and Film from the University of Texas at Austin in 1999. He started his career as a programmer and prototyper for companies such as Human Code and frog design; has also taught classes for Great Northern Way Campus (in Vancouver, BC), Texas State University, the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Austin Community College, and the University of Texas at Austin; and has worked for Walt Disney Imagineering, Maxis, and Electronic Arts/Pogo.com, among others. While in graduate school, his team created the online game Skyrates, which won the Silver Gleemax Award for Strategic Gaming at the 2008 Independent Games Festival. Jeremy also apparently has the distinction of being the first person to ever teach game design in Costa Rica.
