I’ve been aware of Unity3D for a long time, even dabbled in a few tutorials to try learn it over the past couple of years or so, though I never made it past the point where it became intuitive enough for use on a project.
There always seemed to be a barrier.. until now.
Recently after making a 2D platform game in Flash called Blind Escape, released on Desura December 2013. I decided my next game dev challenge should be a 3D game.
I started out with the usually YouTube tutorials and Unity learning resources. Downloaded the latest Unity build v4.3 and re-familiarised myself with the IDE interface and basic workflows.
I made progress as expected by building a concept of my previous 2D game ‘Blind Escape’ in 3D – (Playable Here).
Though this experience was fun and I did make something playable even if it was only a concept level, I was happy to of done it all in Unity with the ‘Free’ version.
I did however stumble upon a few restrictions only remedied with either buying the Pro Unity licence or purchasing assets from the Unity store. Something I’m not use to encountering coming from a Flash background.
I’ve always had the opportunity to develop outside the platforms own commercial IDE if I wanted to, for me that was using Eclipse for actionscript, I found Eclipse more than adequate and rarely used Adobe Flash Pro or Flash Builder. But Unity is different as it’s not a pure code environment and relies on the Unity IDE to make stuff.
At the moment I’m reluctant to invest in a Pro licence until I can justify it can make me some money back, so as a temporary measure I did invest in some assets that would increase my workflow in the Free version.
The aim now is to build a few small games to develop my proficiency in using Unity, once happy I can produce something that can return my investment I will buy into the Unity Pro subscription model and build something more commercial.
In the meantime I can only hope to look to return on my Unity assets investment by making small games to list on some Indie Game outlets, all fuelled by getting involved with the One Game A Month challenge and some Game Jams to focus my attention on Game Dev.