Started recently to play with Unity 3D, an IDE/Platform to develop games. I’ve heard about it because they recently decided that the indie version to be free. And because this version is quite similar to the Pro version and the Pro version is affordable, I decided to give it a try.

I am really impressed with the package. It is solid in features but what impressed me most is the easy user interface. Generally, programs that strive to be easy to use also make things too restrictive. Unity 3D is not one of them. It is a super intuitive IDE but also can be changed through code.

As I discussed before, the competition of engines should be irrelevant to game makers because we have a lot of data demonstrating that while the technology might help, the actual implementation is what matters. Good games with old/bad engines and Bad games with state-of-the-art engines are quite common.

The main reason to choose one is� current knowledge. Learning things all over again is costly, and Unity address this by adopting several standard technologies. For scripting, you can use C# (very close to Java and C++), JavaScript or Boo. For 3D models, it imports the most used formats (3DS, Max, Ma, Blender�). The same goes for 2D (which also includes importing Photoshop native files), sound and music. All that means that your workflow and suite of programs will remain basically the same.

With the indie version being free, a huge increase of documentation and community support is expected. The same for professional assistance. I’m happy to move from Torque (which uses several conceptual dogmas that I’ve never liked) to Unity.

PS: with the web player, its possible to create games for web pages just like Flash� take a look in the demos.

I could not (but I really wanted) play Heavy Rain. The core feature is the very flexible story. Players can end up with a very different experience. It’s focused in the storytelling and reviews say that the lack of game over� the story always progresses.

_Lack of game over? Where is the challenge?__ ;Ok, here we go: Heavy Rain is a game? A more profound question: what is a game? This is the difference between a game and a puzzle? Or a simple challenge?

So let me define:

• Movies and books are not games. Games are interactive
• Jigsaws and puzzles are not games. Games must have multiple players;(even if they have different role). Not that we could assume that an AI could be considered a player as well
• Racing and swimming are not games. Gamers must interfere in the performance;of the other players
• Toys and sandboxes are not games. Games must have rules and objectives

So, games should be interactive, multiplayer, competitive, defined by rules and they have a goal. Clark Abt defines _“A game is an activity among two or more independent decision-makers seeking to achieve their objectives in some limiting context”.

The curious thing is that if we take this concept to actual games, mane famous video games are not� games. Sim City, The Sims, Monkey Island, City Ville, Portal, World of Goo and Heavy Rain and several others fail in at least one aspect that makes a game.

Knowing this is a good way to correct position products against each other.

2009 was a great year. I had the opportunity to watch/play/read/listen several great games, films and books. This list is what I could remember.

Games

Most, but not all, I finished

1. Braid - PC
2. Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Wii
3. The Beatles: Rockband - Wii
4. Dawn of Discovery - Wii
5. de Blob - Wii
6. Dragon Age - PC
7. Drakensang: The Dark Eye - PC
8. Machinarium - PC
9. Neverhood - PC
10. Planescape Torment - PC
11. Race Driver: GRID - PC
12. Torchlight - PC
13. The Witcher - PC

Movies

1. 5cm Per Second
2. Akira
3. Amadeus
4. Army of Shadows
5. Citizen Kane
6. Cowboy Bebop
7. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
8. Doctor Zhivago
9. Drag Me to Hell
10. Ghost in The Shell
11. The Hangover
12. Helvetica
13. Home
14. The Hurt Locker
15. Lady Vengeance
16. The Manchurian Candidate
17. Oldboy
18. The Sinning
19. Star Trek
20. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
21. Tokyo Godfathers
22. Up

Books

Some of them I used the audiobook

1. David Allen - Getting Things Done
2. David Allen - Making It All Work
3. Malcolm Gladwell - The Tipping Point
4. Malcolm Gladwell - Blink
5. Malcolm Gladwell - Outliers
6. Peter F. Hamilton - Fallen Dragon
7. Peter F. Hamilton - The Dreaming Void
8. Peter F. Hamilton - The Temporal Void
9. Raymond Kurzweil - The Age of Spiritual Machines
10. Stephen King - The Dark Tower: The Waste Lands
11. Stephen King - The Dark Tower: Wizard and Glass
12. Umberto Eco - Foucault’s Pendulum

And 2010 might be even better.

200 megabytes is the size of the entire game. And yet, probably one of the most surprisingly good games in some time.

Braid tells the story of Tim and his journey to find the princess. It’s a basic platform game, with the controls just like old Mario, except one thing: you can control time. By pressing a button (and further in game, by some other situations) you can turn back time. Even after you died. If the controls are similar to the famous plumber, the game dymaics is completely different. It is a puzzle game.

Braid is an action-puzzle game about manipulating the flow of time. To rescue a princess, the player journeys through a series of worlds; in each world, time behaves differently. The game provides a mind-expanding experience that is filler-free, treating the player�s time as precious.

The puzzles are very well designed and the difficult progression is a state-of-the-art. Considering that it is an one-man work (Jonathan Blow. did it alone, except for the music, which he licensed, and graphics, which he hired a guy for the job), it’s amazingly good.

I simply don’t get the point when the game producers advertise the engine behind a game. Engine, for those are not familiar with, is the piece of software that deals the core functions in a game: 3D rendering, sound, network, etc. They usually say that their own home-made engine is capable of more graphics in the scene, with more details or more effects (mostly about the graphics power). But more than what?

Unless the company license their engines as core business, like Epic’s Unreal Technology, Valve’sSource�or id’s id Tech, there is absolutely no point on advertising it or even giving it a name but creating it some pseudo-credibility to the project.

WOW!! Mafia 2 are going to use�Illusion Engine! What the heck is Illusion Engine?

These pieces of software are complex to create. However, there was a lot of people that were capable to create one from scratch. Today, there are several of them, with different purposes (some are for hookies, some are for 3D pros or only for FPS games) and different quality (some are slow, some have incomplete documentation or lacking of tools). But there are enough that it might be considered almost as commodity.

Unreal Engine is, by far, the most popular among the big companies. Many bestsellers were created using its tools and libraries. But don’t even think about using it: it costs a fortune! So various companies had the same idea about position their owngame engines free. Some are worthy to mention: Garage Games’ Torque, Blender/Crystal Space and Radon Labs’ Nebula Device.

Some good games came from they: Torque is quite inexpensive, and it was used on the Penny Arcade Adventures; Nebula Device is completely free with the most permissive, the MIT license, and its behind Drakensang, which I’m going to play really soon.