Create Flappy Game Mechanics with Unity & PlayMaker
What you'll learn
- quickly develop small prototype games with the basic mechanics in place
- set up the basic mechanics for a small Flappy-like game
- understand the basics of PlayMaker in Unity
- react on object collisions
- manage the game progress with a basic Game Manager
Requirements
- This is not an introduction to Unity, so you should at least understand the basic concepts of GameObjects, Components, Scenes, Transforms and the Physics Engine
- You should have access to PlayMaker, an addition to Unity. No other software is required.
Description
Update: May 2020 - the Flappy Game is updated using Unity 2019.3
This course is a gentle introduction to small interactive games like Flappy Birds or other classics. Instead of making a clone, we will only go through the game mechanics: flapping or jumping, gravity and collisions, using Unity Physics.
The graphics will be deliberately crude: a white capsule and a few boxes. There are no textures, sprites, sounds or particle effects. We encourage you to make something of your own.
You'll need to know the basics of Unity: creating GameObjects, navigating the 3D Window and adjusting components. We'll use the popular Playmaker extension from the Asset store, which is a visual coding system, providing a Finite State Machine implementation, requiring no custom scripting. We go through every step from scratch, although the final result can be downloaded as a package for you to study.
So if you want to add some interactivity and make something fun, but don't know where to start, this is a good opportunity. And please share your results and make something unique.
Who this course is for:
- This Unity course is meant for beginning game designers, who know the basics of Unity, but want to apply PlayMaker, a visual programming system
- This course explains the game mechanics, but skips any art or imagery.
- This is not a course in custom C# programming.
- We keep everything rather basic, so you understand every step of the way.
Instructor
Stefan Boeykens is an architect-engineer from Belgium.
After graduation, he worked a few years as a professional architect, for several local offices, where he was involved in design, building permits, drafting, site supervision, visualisation and IT management.
At the end of 2000, he got the opportunity to return to his former university (KU Leuven), at the Department of Architecture, where he started teaching Computer Aided Architectural Design. Initially AutoCAD and 3D Studio VIZ, but step-by-step, he introduced SketchUp, Rhinoceros + Grasshopper, ArchiCAD, Artlantis, Unity, Processing and Cinema 4D. He completed a PhD on Building Information Modelling in 2007 and worked a few years as a post-doc, focusing on the use of BIM throughout the design process. He became familiar with a wide variety of IT skills: Windows, OSX, Linux, VBA in Excel, php, C++, Java/Processing, Autolisp and C # in Unity.
At the moment, Stefan is a part-time guest professor at KU Leuven, teaching Building Information Modelling.
In parallel, he is working as a senior Innovation and BIM manager/consultant for D-Studio, a Belgian company focusing on BIM middleware and consultancy. He is a frequent speaker at BIM-related events and is actively involved in different professional working groups on BIM standardisation, including CEN/TC 442 (Europe) and TC BIM & ICT + CLUSTER Digital Construction (Belgium).
He is father of three boys and enjoys reading, cycling, loosing time online and learning.
If he has some additional time, he likes to compose music, mainly focusing on guitar, but occasionally with vocals, synths and laptop drums.