Game development

After creating the 360 VR video, (previous article) exploring Unity3D was a logical step forward.

The initial goal was to create a custom interactive VR360 experience but soon more goals and ideas came up:

  • create a new tool for show control, interactive big-screen production (our core activity at Tonijn bvba)
  • create a game (indie game production)

Work on the bigger and smaller picture in parallel

I ended up building a smaller demo case (prototype) next to the bigger projects (the VR application, Interactive application for big-screen production,…) to be showcased later. This allowed me to test things in small scenes.

The goal of this experiment

Getting to know more about:

  • authoring in Unity3D
  • output to specific platforms
  • getting the details right
  • dealing with performance (draw calls, memory,….)

Most important for me:

getting the look right, trying to safeguard the concept art.

Stand-alone game (OS-X)

This was straight forward, you tweak the materials, shaders, animation all within Unity environment, what you see is what you get.

WebGL

No more fun… the way the shaders, materials, shadows behave. More investigating is needed if I want this to look right. At this moment not a priority for me, so move on to iOS.

iOS

After going through the procedures to become Apple developer, getting to know some Xcode basics and the disappointment with WebGL, this turned out to be a better experience. To be continued! I see lots of opportunities here being a “sole developer”.

The sole developer

Can you create a game on your own?

Can I create a game entirely by myself, with my given resources and experience?

I took a step back and thought of a simplified form of my impossibly ambitious idea and whilst I’m learning Unity3D, a bit of Xcode and following the necessary steps to become an Apple app developer…, I start to believe you can!

Diving into the community, I noticed that behind every independent game lies a story unique to its developers.

I see a lot of similarities with the early rave/techno scene. Often lacking in traditional resources, Indies make creative decisions to overcome challenges in crafting whatever they want to create.

Technological advances have always been a pivoting point in the cultural world, we are reaching that new pivoting point. This time it’s not loud techno music, it’s something else… and it’s about time.