Unity iOS Essentials Review

Unity iOS Essentials | Packt Publishing Technical & IT Book and eBook Store.

Packt provided me with a free copy of this eBook, and I was totally happy to give it a review! Unity is a strong interest of mine, and programming for an iOS device seems like the logical direction to start making actual commercial games. I feel like limitation drives creativity, and by limiting the power of the device your game runs on, you can really get to the heart of the gameplay.

So, on to the book itself!

Overall, I found its style incredibly informative, but a bit disjointed. It felt like I was sitting down with a programmer who has a lot of experience in iOS. This programmer would give some great technical insight, then digress onto some side topic about dungeons or health packs, then give another bit of technical advice.

For what it is, though, the book is very valuable. If you’re considering developing for iOS, but afraid of falling into a ‘newbie trap’, Unity iOS Essentials will quickly give you some red flags and some things to reconsider. A cloth cape? Not going to happen! A button that highlights on mouseover? What mouse?

A lot of time is spent discussing UIs, and making them slide and feel good. It might seem like a frivolous topic, but getting the ‘touch’ of an iOS device is critical. Your game has to feel like it belongs on the platform, and I was glad that Wiebe spent a good deal of time on the topic.

I’m not entirely sure how this book would work as a beginner’s book; I didn’t go through all the code, but it appears that there’s a complete game in here. Nevertheless, the tone definitely assumes you know a bit about Unity programming already, and you’re just looking to make the jump to iOS. Unless you have a real desire and immediate opportunity to create an iOS game, you won’t get very much out of this.

To summarize, I liked the book as an in-depth exploration of the quirks of Unity programming on the iOS! I look forward to the time when I’ll be ready to do an iOS game, and I can put all the information in Unity iOS Essentials to good use.

Unity 3D Essentials for iOS Games

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be reading and reviewing Unity 3D Essentials for iOS Games, by Robert Wiebe and Packt Publishing. http://www.packtpub.com/unity-3d-essentials-for-ios-games/book

Here’s the first chapter for a sample: http://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/1444EXP-Chapter-No-5-Interactions.pdf?utm_source=packtpub&utm_medium=free&utm_campaign=pdf

I’m pretty excited about this one. With game development, less is often more – that is to say, it’s easy to get distracted by the big, flashy 3D characters and special effects, and pay less attention to the basic gameplay – you know, the stuff that made Pac-Man great. Working on iOS should be a great way to stay focused, stay small, and actually produce a polished game.

More about the book as I start going through it.