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分享Unity工具十天创建iPad游戏的经验

发布时间:2011-06-03 17:00:38 Tags:,,,

作者:James Bowling

数周前,我在网上与朋友聊天时,决定挑战下自己的能力。我想看看能否在1周时间内用Unity开发工具创建出一款游戏。我并没有丰富的Unity开发经验,因而绝大多数时间会花在学习如何实现目标的方法上。

Unity(downeu.com)

Unity(downeu.com)

我成功地做到了,尽管花了不止7天,但是相差不多。这款游戏不是我做过的最棒或最精致的游戏,但也不能算最差。游戏名为《Grey Out》,在这款配对游戏中,你可以看到各种形状的灰色调物品。游戏灵感来源于浴室的地板。严格来说,你有多少次在工作时尝试从瓷砖铺成的地板上寻找灵感呢?这种事情我做过很多次,有些与我交谈过的人说他们也会这么做。所以我觉得这里肯定可以挖掘到某些内容,于是《Grey Out》就诞生了。

首先我要做个小说明,我在开始设计游戏前已经做过某些准备工作。从巴西飞回澳大利亚是个漫长的旅程,我有许多时间来做设计。我还有数月前制成的游戏蓝本,在6小时左右的时间内便将它整理出来。不幸的是,大部分内容都用不上。在内容制作方面,我还得到了业务合作伙伴和女友的帮助,这确实让我省了不少工夫。下文将从头至尾描述我在如此短的时间内制作出游戏的基本流程。

1、确定游戏设计

我没有足够的时间来将概念具体化和探索最有效的方式。我努力调用自己最佳的判断力来快速决定何种游戏最有可能产生有趣的体验。起初我规划和设计的是竞速攻击类型(游戏邦注:指玩家争取在最短时间内消灭同等数量的怪物)的游戏。后来我认为制作带解锁模式的关卡类传统游戏更有保障,因为这种题材让我更有机会清楚地向玩家传达游戏内容。

2、选定主题开始制作

对于游戏主题,我需要更为小心谨慎。主题应该让我可以自行完成艺术设计,因为我并没有艺术家那般高超的技艺。很快,我选定黑白电影主题。对我而言,制作此主题中的物品较容易,而且也贴合黑、灰、白的游戏机制。我知道这个主题与行动间的联系并不密切,但这样足够了。我选定主题后,就开始工作。我还决定只以iPad为平台,因为没有足够的时间来设计两套界面和关卡背景。

3、制作定稿图像

我得不到那些高级且佣金昂贵的美工的帮助,我就只有自己和拙劣的Photoshop技术。现在我需要决定游戏的外观和图像。没有足够的时间来绘制初稿然后再慢慢修改。这个过程也使我的游戏概念变得充实。使用原有的图像并参考现有图像,我得以在很短的时间内将所有图像结合起来。将其导出后,美工方面的工作基本上就完成了。

4、制定核心机制

现在我已经制作出自己所要的图像,该是把它们用上的时候了。利用Unity、SpriteManager2和EZGui,我花了数天时间细致地完成导入、解决方案、配对工作和得分。这是个解谜游戏,因而此类工作并不是很难,系统间互动不多。Unity相当不错,我可以快速轻易地将上传游戏,从朋友处获得反馈意见。

5、编写内容框架

游戏机制设定完成并可正常运转后,我需要添置关卡。我本可以花时间在Unity中手动制作所有关卡,但工作量很大而且不够灵活。如果我可以将所有内容配置入XML中,这个过程就变得更为简单。制作和分析XML很容易,我制作了个库以供读取,使用外部文件来展示关卡内容。

6、制作某些工具

这些工具才是真正让游戏如此迅速地制作完成的功臣。因为我的关卡用XML来定义,所以我很快用C#和WPF制作出关卡制作器。关卡制作器让我可以快速地制作和修改内容,而不必在编辑器中煎熬或手工绘制关卡文件。

7、制作菜单和支持性游戏机制

现在我手头上已有数个测试关卡,我需要设计出让玩家在关卡间移动的方法。下一步我将时间花在许多无聊却很有必要的事物上,包括菜单、欢迎页面和标题页面。我用Unity制作关卡群(游戏邦注:下文称为“Reel”)和关卡(游戏邦注:下文称为“Scene”)的场景。首个Reel和Scene保持解锁状态,其他需要成功过关后方能解锁。

8、指导、关卡和反馈

现在,它感觉挺像个游戏了。有了关卡制作器和支持性游戏机制,我可以开始制作内容。前两个Reel采用缓慢和带有教程的游戏机制,第三个Reel中制作了某些简单的谜团。这样,我就做出人们可以玩的东西了!此刻,我开始让他人玩这款游戏并从中获取反馈意见,然后修改和增加重点特征。我强烈推荐用TestFlight来开展这项工作,它可以为你管理iOS设备应用的测试提供很棒的服务。而且,你也可以共享web版本!Unity很不错,要知道并非所有人都有苹果设备。

9、声音

这个过程很麻烦,因为我在该方面的经验较少。声音对游戏来说非常重要,而且要做好也很难很费钱。正是基于上述考虑,我决定不在游戏中使用背景音乐。音乐要是做好了会很棒,但要是做不好会让人感到厌烦。最好还是别去动这块内容。音效提取自旧音效包Last Level Games,这是以前做另一个游戏时购买的。虽然不是很完美,但够用了。与音乐不同的是,有普通音效比毫无音效要好。

10、内容

内容制作很费力。如果没有得到女友和业务合作伙伴的帮助,我不可能在最终游戏中呈现出130多个关卡。之前制作的工具此刻发挥作用,使用这些工具无需掌握复杂的游戏知识,甚至连丝毫无技术基础的女友也懂得使用。在整个游戏制作过程中,这也是压力最大和最累人的阶段。

11、测试和修改

内容和游戏完成后,我在最终提交游戏前花了些许时间来测试和修改关卡。此刻游戏核心已趋于稳定,我们通完所有关卡进行测试,也就是花点时间确保关卡间不互相矛盾。

12、向苹果提交应用

最后的步骤是将游戏提交给苹果。这个过程会有些棘手,情况有可能会更加糟糕,当然也有可能很顺利。提交游戏后,你所要做的是等待苹果的审核。需要注意的是,某些Unity制成的游戏在iPad 2上运行可能会出现错误。尝试使用4.2 SDK来构建xcode 3.2.5。确保配图准确,而且游戏网站上需要有支持页面。正是上述要求导致我们首次提交失败。

13、休息

接下来要做的就是休息了。尽管整个游戏制作过程让人精疲力竭,但我学到了很多东西。游戏并不完美,难度设置不甚合理,没有iPhone版本,音效也不是很棒,图像看上去就像是个程序员做出来的,但游戏终归做出来了,而且还很有趣!游戏定价99美分,如果有足够的玩家选择这款游戏,我们会开发iPhone版本并定期免费提供更新内容。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Making a Game in 10 Days

James Bowling

A few weeks ago, while talking to a couple of friends online, I decided to issue myself a challenge. I wanted to see if I could use unity to build and submit a game in a week using Unity. I hadn’t had much prior experience with Unity, and largely it would be a learning exercise in exactly what it would take to get everything done.

I managed to pull it off, too. Not exactly in 7 days, but pretty close. Not the finest or most polished game ever created, but certainly not the worst either. I made Grey Out – a pattern matching game where you find shapes using like colour shades of grey. I was inspired by my bathroom floor. Seriously. How many times have you sit down doing your… umm… business… and tried to find shapes on the tiled floor? I do it a lot – others I spoke to did it too – so I thought there must be some meat there, and Grey Out was born.

I’ll start with a small caveat – I had some prep work done before I started. While on a long flight back from Brazil to Australia, I had plenty of time to work on some design. I also had a prototype I’d thrown together in about 6 hours, months earlier. Buggy as hell, I threw most of it away. I also had help from my business partner and girlfriend with content creation. Roping in others really saved my arse. This describes the basic process I went through to go from start to end in a very small time frame.

1. Snap game design

No time for lots of prototyping concepts and seeing what works best. I used my best judgement to quickly decide on what had the highest likelihood of creating a fun experience. My earlier prototype and design was a time attack style game. Decided it would be safer to go with a more traditional level based game with unlocks, which would also give me an opportunity to teach the game transparently.

2. Pick a theme and run with it

I wanted to be careful with my theme – I needed to be able to do the art myself, and I most certainly am not an artist. I very quickly chose a black and white film theme. The assets would be easy for my to create and fit with the black, grey, and white mechanics. I know it wasn’t too closely tied to the action, but damn it, close enough. Once I picked it, I stuck with it. I also decided iPad only. Not enough time to design two interfaces and level sets.

3. Mock up with near-final art

I don’t have one of those fancy expensive artists. I have me and my wussy photo-shop skills. I wanted to get the look and feel of the game nailed down now. No point spending time mocking stuff up and fixing it up later. It also firmly solidified my concept for the game. Using a combination of original art, and using existing art as a reference point, I managed to very quickly put everything together. Slice it up and export it, and that’s most of the art work done.

4. Create the core mechanics

Now I had my art, I needed to put it to use. Using Unity, SpriteManager2 and EZGui, I spent a good few days getting the input working nicely, solution scanning, the matching working and the scoring. Being a puzzle game, this wasn’t too difficult. There aren’t too many systems interacting with each other here. Unity was great because I could quickly and easily throw it in a web browser and get some immediate feedback from my friends.

5. Write the content framework

Once I had my board all set up and running, I needed a way to get levels into it. I could have taken the time to create them all by hand in Unity, but really, too much work – also not flexible enough. It’s much easier if I can configure everything in XML. XML is very easy to create and parse. I created a library to read in and display level content using external files.

6. Hack together some tools

Tools. These were what really got the whole game done and dusted so quickly. Because my levels are defined using XML, I very quickly hacked together a level builder using C# and WPF. The level builder allowed me to very quickly create and tweak content without fighting an editor, or having to manually hand craft the level files.

7. Create the menus and supporting game mechanics.

So now I have a few test levels? Okay, I need a way for the player to move through them. Next I spent time on all the boring, but very necessary, menus, splash screens and title screen. I created scenes in unity for the high level groups of levels (called Reels) and the levels themselves (called Scenes). The first Reel and Scene would always be unlocked, and be unlocked through successful play.

8. Tutorial, Levels and Feedback

I’m now reaching the point where it’s starting to feel like a game. With my level builder and supporting game mechanics, I can start creating content. I spend the first two Reels starting slow and teaching mechanics, then create a third Reel of some simple puzzles. Now I have something people can play! At this point I started getting people to play it, get feedback, then tweak and add important features. I highly recommend using TestFlight for this – it’s a great service for managing your test builds on iOS devices. Also, you can just share the web version! Unity is awesome, and not everyone has an iDevice.

9. Sound

This is a tricky one, because this is something I have the least experience with. Sound is something very important to a game, it’s also hard and expensive to do well. With this in mind, I decided to not bother with music. Music done well is awesome, music done poorly is annoying. Better to just not bother. Sound effects were dug out of an old sound pack Last Level Games had purchased for another title. Nothing perfect, but close enough. Unlike music, average sound is better than no sound.

10. Content Sweatshop

Content creation is exhausting. If I hadn’t enlisted the help of girlfriend and business partner, I couldn’t have created all the 130+ levels to go into the final game. This is where the tools really paid off. It was something that required no detailed knowledge of the game to use, and even my non-techy-girlfriend could use it. This was easily the most stressful and tiring part of process.

11. Test and tweak

Content done! Game done! Before finally submitting I spent some time (not as much as I would have liked) testing and tweaking levels. The core game seemed pretty stable at this point, and we had all play tested our levels, this was just spending a little time making sure it all hung together.

12. Submit to Apple – and wait.

Finally, time to submit to Apple. A mildly painful process, but could be worse. Could be better too. Once you submit you start waiting for apple to get around to looking at it. Couple of things to be careful of – there is a bug where some Unity games can crash on an iPad 2. Try building with xcode 3.2.5 with the 4.2 SDK. Also make sure you’re icons all match up, and you have a support page on your game’s website. We were rejected on our first submit for those reasons.

13. Relax!

And that’s it! It was an altogether exhausting process, but I learned an awful lot about what it takes to get something to market from (mostly) scratch. The game isn’t perfect by any means – the difficulty is a bit over the place, there is no iPhone version, the sound isn’t so great and the art looks like a programmer did it, but it’s there, and still fun! We’re selling it for 99c, and if we get enough people actually playing it we’ll look at an iPhone version and regularly creating new content as free updates.

If you want to, you can check it out. I’m curious to know what people think about it. Do you think it was worth the effort? (Source: Gamasutra)


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