Unity Game Tutorial: Whack A Mole 3D

Import and set up mole animations in Unity by importing FBX files into assets folder, creating clips (come out, look around, get hit), and applying them with an animation controller.

Create an animator controller and an animator override controller for the mole, organize animations, and connect states like come up, look around, and get hit with transitions.

Learn snapping and prefab workflows in Unity by duplicating holes, configuring axis snap settings, and creating prefabs for hole, mole, and head to propagate changes across the scene.

Create a ground plane playfield with a brown material and decorate with flowers, stones, and grass. Adjust the camera to a 180-degree y-rotation and a downward tilt for mole hits.

Duplicate and rename the come down animation, create a separate animation for the mole’s descent, and use animation events to destroy the mole when it returns down.

Learn to implement a pool-based spawning system in Unity for Whack A Mole 3D, using a public array of moles, prefab instantiation, and random timing between 3 and 7 seconds.

Create a destroy script to remove moles after their animation ends, using an animation event to call a public destroy function, then test in a demo scene.

Add a capsule collider to the mole, adjust its size to fit the hole and head, set it as a trigger, and add a rigidbody with gravity off.

Learn to control a mole collider in Unity by enabling it at frame 15 during come up animation and disabling it at start and end, using a switch collider function.

Hit moles with the left mouse button by raycasting from the camera, detecting mole hits via tags, and triggering mole behavior animations while disabling colliders for repeat hits.

Configure the mole animation to trigger on hit with a hit trigger, transition to get hit, and destroy the mole via an animation event at the last frame.

Recapping the module, we cover holes that spawn moles in time, hit and destroy them, and disable the input manager's hit targeting to enable a score manager and particle systems.

Add a public hit points integer to the mole, decrement on hits, keep the collider enabled while points remain, and destroy the mole when points reach zero.

Prevent double spawning in a Unity whack-a-mole game by using a has more boolean, a parent object, and controlled spawn timing to ensure only one mole per hole.

Create a Unity score manager to track and modify the player's score with add and read functions. Use static versus non-static access and update the user interface via prefabs.

Create a user interface with a canvas and a text field to display and update the score, wired through a UI manager and score manager.

Implement a 60-second timer in a Unity game using a game manager and a coroutine. Update user interface with minutes and seconds to drive level progression when score is reached.

Implement win and lose checks by validating the score to reach with a score manager, calculating score as current level times base score, using a time-based end condition.

optimize show score by wiring the current score and score to reach into the UI update flow to show progress toward the next level.

Implement a level up system that persists the current level across scene reloads, increments on victory, and uses base score multipliers to scale points.

Enhance gameplay by adding more moles, including a golden and a time mole, with customized colors and varying scores and time bonuses.

Implement rarity-based spawning for moles in Unity, assigning weighted chances to normal, head, bad, and golden moles and wiring a rarity calculation.

Recalculate mole scores based on the current level to scale points. Use the game manager's current level to multiply base points, so level 2 normal mode yields two points.

Create a floating score text on a UI canvas, parent it to a pop up object, and animate its position and alpha to rise and disappear.

Wire up and display pop up text in Unity by accessing the text and animator components, instantiating the pop up text prefab, and position via world-to-screen.

Fix the displayed score across levels by reading from the score manager, and add a countdown before each new round using a Unity UI animation.

Use a public static game manager in Unity with an instance to access countdown and start the play timer, spawning enemies and advancing levels when time runs out.

Design and implement star and stripe particle effects for hits using a texture sheet, material shaders, and burst emission in Unity, then destroy the effect after the impact.

Instantiate the fx stars at the mole hit point using a public fx object in the input manager, with hit position and identity rotation, then destroy it after the timer.

Create a game over scene with a UI canvas, display final score and level, and pass data from the score manager to a score holder for display.

Reset the score and level on game over by updating the score holder, loading the next scene, and restarting the game with spacebar input.

Create a blinking press space to continue text in the game over scene by animating a Unity text element with show/hide, color transitions, and timeline keyframes, centered.

Create main scene for the whack a mole 3d game, add a play button, and connect it to a public script that loads the next scene via the scene manager.

Remove all debugging lines and console messages from the game by commenting them out, then build and test to finalize the main menu and game over screen.

Enhance whack a mole 3d by implementing level-up text prompts, a combo system, faster mole animations, dynamic scenes, extra holes, floating objects to collect, bombs, and time-based bonuses.