unity posts

Announced some time ago, the Unity Technologies game development tools company has just announced the availability of Unity 3, the next version of the game engine that is becoming more and more popular with game developers. Among the new features of Unity 3 are a unified edtor, shown above, that allows developers to work on one project and move that project to any supported platform.

The company is still allowing its entry level tools, Unity, to be made available to use for free for commercial use. The more advanced version, Unity Pro, can be purchased for $1,500. Current Unity Pro members can update to the new version for $750.

While Epic Games' Unreal Engine licensing business is still the biggest in the game industry, the Unity engine has been gaining more and more customers as well, particularly for web based PC games. This week Unity Technologies announced that it has signed a deal that will see the Unity engine used by one of the biggest game publishers, Electronic Arts.

EA has already used the Unity engine for its web-based PC game Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online. This new multi-year agreement, according to the press release, will allow the Unity engine to be used by all of EA's development studios. EA will use the engine for the graphics behind "multiple franchises and genres". Specific games were not announced.

A few days ago we reported that a countdown had begun for Space Paranoids Online, a web-based version of the game that was shown in the original Tron movie. Now that site has officially gone live. The game, which uses the Unity web game engine, puts you in a tank to shoot other enemy tanks and Recognizers.

The game, which is a promotion for the upcoming Tron movie sequel Tron Legacy, is quite fun as you pilot the tank in first person mode through a series of maze levels. Your tank has only a limited amount of shots before it has to recharge at several stations in the maze. Of course all the high scores of the game are for Flynn, the Jeff Bridges character in both movies.

Will one of the best sci-fi TV series of all time finally get a good game tie-in? German-based game publisher BigPoint hopes to do just that with the announcement today at GDC 2010 of plans to release Battlestar Galactica Online, a browser-based MMO based on the the "reimagined" TV show that had a five year run on the Syfy Channel before shutting down.

The game itself is being developed by BigPoint which operates a lot of free-to-play browser based games. The company is opening up a US office in San Fransisco this year. Battlestar Galactica Online is expect to launch sometime in the fall of 2010 on the Syfy.com web site for a 30 day exclusive period. A teaser site for the game is already online. The final version will use the Unity engine and will allow players to pick between the human and Cylon races in a game that will combine space combat, missions and exploration. We just hope there will be missions with sexy lady robots. That's all we are saying.

Unity is a multiplatform game development tool, designed from the start to ease creation. This 30-day trial version gives aspiring developers a chance to build their own games without laying down thousands of dollars. It's available in both PC and Mac versions.

Download Unity Game Development Tool 30-Day Trial (162 MB)
Download Unity Game Development Tool 30-Day Trial [Mac] (290 MB)

It's always interesting to see how different developers interpret gravity, and Boxgame is one of these games. A unity-based browser game, it doesn't do any of the fancy, complex physics that one might associate with the average Unity game. Rather, it focuses on difficult, cerebral puzzles all based around the basic physical mechanic of gravity. And while it is short, and you can play the levels in any order, it's an absolute blast.

Boxgame takes place on platforms surrounding a transparent box. Gravity is determined on the box according the the edge you are on. This allows the player to travel around the box across platforms in search of the door. It's hard to explain, but easy to understand once you start the game. Then toss in color-matching and key-finding, and you've got Boxgame. There's nothing more to the game than this simple puzzle-platforming, so give it a try!

[Via IndieGames]

Socrates was known for his outstanding wit and deep philosophical arguments. His most famous saying is easily "I only know that I know nothing," and the method by which he came across the gem of humility is now known as the socratic method. But what if he didn't die? What if he was actually brought to the future to fight against a zombie army as a cyborg? This is the premise of Socratic Method, a Unity-based shooter made for the Experimental Gameplay Project's Unexperimental Shooters theme.

Socratic Method is easy to learn. You move around and gun down zombies. There's nothing fancy about it, just lots of gore-splattered action. Zombies spawn from portals at intermittent times, and once you have met your quota for zombies killed in the level, a ton of enemy portals open as well as the exit portal. Make it to the exit alive, and you've finished.

Independent Minds aims to take various aspects of indie gaming and present them to you each week. From game round-ups to design elements to interviews with prominent members of the scene, it's an exploration of what makes indie gaming great as well as what makes someone an indie.

There's quite a few options for the budding indie game developer. Do I go with this concept, or that one? What do I do about getting more teammates onto the project? Where am I going to get the money to live while I work on this? Where are my pants? One of the most important of all, though, is the question of doing a browser-based game or making a standalone game right off the bat. This week, let's take a look at some of the best browser game engines available for a developer to use on their way to indie stardom.

When considering an engine to use for the web, there are three primary engines that are used widely. This is not counting PHP-based browser games such as Tribal Wars, by the way. The engines are Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe Flash, Unity, and Sun Microystems Java. Each has their advantages and disadvantages, and appeals to a specific kind of developer or audience.

Welcome to the Indie Showcase, a semi-regular column on Big Download that takes a look at games we haven't covered on the site that we really think you should play.

There's a wide array of platforms to launch your awesome web games, from a simple Java applet to the animation-based Flash. There's a new contender on the scene with Unity, though, and the output by some truly creative people has managed to push it forward as a great platform for independent developers. This is the platform that Flashbang Studios is using for their games such as Jetpack Brontosaurus, Off-Road Velociraptor Safari, and Minotaur China Shop, and their support behind it and role in teaching new developers about it has brought Unity forward more and more as a good platform for web developers.

The developers behind the Unity platform recently hosted a competition for games made using the Unity platform. Among the list of participants are familiar faces such as the aforementioned efforts from Flashbang Studios, but there were some other efforts there that really amazed. Some were web-based, others were downloadable, but they were all incredible games that caught the eye and intrigued the brain. Here's some of the best that can be found, and the list of games in the competition can be found on the official Unity forums.

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

The team at Flashbang Studios seem to have a fascination with times long past. First there was Off-Road Velociraptor Safari, which is an action-puzzler with jeeps, a large spiked ball, and plenty of awesome cartoony violence visited upon feathery raptors. Now there's Jetpack Brontosaurus, or, as Flashbang puts it, "splendid jetpack dreams of a the apatosaurus named 'Brontosaurus'." There is no better description of the game than that. Thankfully, the game goes beyond the simplicity of its description in providing an incredibly fun browser experience utilizing physics gameplay and the Unity platform to their fullest potential.

The web platform that Jetpack Bronto is hosted on is Flashbang's new Blurst platform. Unlike Flashbang's personal site, Blurst is designed to showcase their own games such as Jetpack Bronto, Raptor Safari, or Splume. It's a good platform, supporting user registrations, achievements, and leaderboards. It is currently in soft launch mode, meaning some of the features (such as leaderboards) are not fully implemented. However, as this is the main place that their games will be posted, it is bound to be a great site as the content is fleshed out.