Unity is the game engine and set of tools that is widely becoming the game development platform of choice. If you have checked out many of our Cheerful Ghost interviews, Unity is quite popular in new Indie Game Development. Since Unity is becoming a cornerstone of how games are made I decided to contact Unity Technologies and ask them a few questions about what they were up to. I was put in contact with Aurore Dimopoulos the Unity Community Manager.
Since Unity is a engine used by game developers I asked a local game designer to help me with the interview. Clifton is the lead designer of Clobbr, an upcoming mobile puzzle game written in Unity.
jdodson: Unity is an awesome set of tools to help people build games that run everywhere and has been particularly embraced by the Indie community. I wonder how you look at this success and how it has impacted the next steps of Unity itself?
Aurore Dimopoulos: We are truly humbled by how warmly Unity has been embraced by the development community, Indies in particular. We have such a large and wonderful community of developers who report bugs and request a wide range of features, that we have a dedicated area of the community site just for feedback. As a result, we have been ramping up our capabilities by employing new staff across all departments, signing exciting deals with technology partners such as Nintendo, Sony and BlackBerry and adding features that are highly requested by our community. Our community’s passion for their craft is what drives and inspires us to create a better overall product.
Clifton: Nicholas Francis just announced that he’s stepping down from the CEO of Unity to become a game developer, and after helping make Unity one of the greatest game platforms, he’s going to start making games. Are others on the Unity team making their own games as well?
Aurore Dimopoulos: Generally, the people working at Unity are pretty excited about the technology and love games. There are more than a few that do play with Unity to make their own game projects.
Clifton: What would you say is the single greatest Unity tutorial out there, either for beginners or advanced users?
Aurore Dimopoulos: We’ve actually just opened up a new Learn area on the Unity website. For now, beginners will find a lot of awesome tutorials and example projects to help them understand the basics of developing with Unity. You can find the tutorial on our website with intermediate and advanced lessons on the way soon. http://unity3d.com/learn
Clifton: Unite, the annual Unity3D event, is happening August 28-30 in Vancouver. What would you say to people who are on the fence about attending this year? Is it geared mostly toward developers, or would gamers get much out of the event?
Aurore Dimopoulos:Unite is definitely an event geared towards developers that are already making or intend to make interactive experiences, games or otherwise, with Unity. It’s designed to be an incredible environment to learn more about Unity, not only from Unity employees but from developers who are currently in production or have released titles. It’s about seeing the practicality of development from all angles like engineering, design, art, marketing, and monetization.
Clifton: What would you say to someone who’s interested in getting into games? What other tools would you encourage them to look into alongside Unity?
Aurore Dimopoulos:It’s always good to find the tools best suited for a project or development need but we’re pretty proud of the fact that Unity is suitable for so many of them. We also think that Unity, while a very complex program with a deep set of development tools, is the most approachable thanks to it’s elegant design and friendly community.
jdodson: As you are looking forward I am wondering what the next steps for Unity is? Any though to support the current and next gen consoles?
Aurore Dimopoulos: As you probably have seen, we already have announced support for Nintendo Wii U and all of Sony’s current and next generation platforms. These are exciting platforms for developers to be sure and we’re happy to help make the path a little bit clearer to getting their games onto them. We also just announced that basic deployment tools for mobile devices are free starting with iOS and Android. This year’s going to be a big one for us so keep your eyes out for lots of news!
Since Unity is a engine used by game developers I asked a local game designer to help me with the interview. Clifton is the lead designer of Clobbr, an upcoming mobile puzzle game written in Unity.
jdodson: Unity is an awesome set of tools to help people build games that run everywhere and has been particularly embraced by the Indie community. I wonder how you look at this success and how it has impacted the next steps of Unity itself?
Aurore Dimopoulos: We are truly humbled by how warmly Unity has been embraced by the development community, Indies in particular. We have such a large and wonderful community of developers who report bugs and request a wide range of features, that we have a dedicated area of the community site just for feedback. As a result, we have been ramping up our capabilities by employing new staff across all departments, signing exciting deals with technology partners such as Nintendo, Sony and BlackBerry and adding features that are highly requested by our community. Our community’s passion for their craft is what drives and inspires us to create a better overall product.
Clifton: Nicholas Francis just announced that he’s stepping down from the CEO of Unity to become a game developer, and after helping make Unity one of the greatest game platforms, he’s going to start making games. Are others on the Unity team making their own games as well?
Aurore Dimopoulos: Generally, the people working at Unity are pretty excited about the technology and love games. There are more than a few that do play with Unity to make their own game projects.
Clifton: What would you say is the single greatest Unity tutorial out there, either for beginners or advanced users?
Aurore Dimopoulos: We’ve actually just opened up a new Learn area on the Unity website. For now, beginners will find a lot of awesome tutorials and example projects to help them understand the basics of developing with Unity. You can find the tutorial on our website with intermediate and advanced lessons on the way soon. http://unity3d.com/learn
Clifton: Unite, the annual Unity3D event, is happening August 28-30 in Vancouver. What would you say to people who are on the fence about attending this year? Is it geared mostly toward developers, or would gamers get much out of the event?
Aurore Dimopoulos:Unite is definitely an event geared towards developers that are already making or intend to make interactive experiences, games or otherwise, with Unity. It’s designed to be an incredible environment to learn more about Unity, not only from Unity employees but from developers who are currently in production or have released titles. It’s about seeing the practicality of development from all angles like engineering, design, art, marketing, and monetization.
Clifton: What would you say to someone who’s interested in getting into games? What other tools would you encourage them to look into alongside Unity?
Aurore Dimopoulos:It’s always good to find the tools best suited for a project or development need but we’re pretty proud of the fact that Unity is suitable for so many of them. We also think that Unity, while a very complex program with a deep set of development tools, is the most approachable thanks to it’s elegant design and friendly community.
jdodson: As you are looking forward I am wondering what the next steps for Unity is? Any though to support the current and next gen consoles?
Aurore Dimopoulos: As you probably have seen, we already have announced support for Nintendo Wii U and all of Sony’s current and next generation platforms. These are exciting platforms for developers to be sure and we’re happy to help make the path a little bit clearer to getting their games onto them. We also just announced that basic deployment tools for mobile devices are free starting with iOS and Android. This year’s going to be a big one for us so keep your eyes out for lots of news!
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It's impressive how Unity has opened the floodgates for indie developers, and even a few bigger releases. I love the ease of cross-platform support.
I haven't messed with UDK or Source, or any of the 'bigger' developer platforms, but what I've experienced in Unity in a relatively short amount of time allowed me to create things that I didn't think I was at all capable of. The community and resources that are available make it that much more accessible to anyone. Aside from the above mentioned Learn section of the Unity website, another great resource is the Walker Boys Studio site: www.walkerboystudio.com/html/tutorials.html .