Unity as a Cross-Development Platform

Cross development platforms are gaining a lot of popularity these days. Developing native apps for different devices requires a lot of time and effort. However, platforms like Unity have made engineering apps quite easy and simplified.

Unity is a cross development platform game engine with a built-in IDE developed by Unity Technologies. It is used to develop video games for web plugins, desktop platforms, mobile, consoles and a wide range of devices.

Here are some top stats about Unity —

• 34% of top games are created with Unity
• 770 million gamers play games made with Unity
• 2.4 Billion mobile devices are running games made with Unity

Unity continues to lead the mobile gaming market and is growing faster than ever.

Unity IDE stands for Integrated Development Platform which is composed of:

1. Game Engine — The powerful environment where games can be played and developed
2. An application — Where the game pieces can be visualized and interacted
3. Code Editor — Is where you can easily create and modify your game elements using C#, BOO or Javascript

Unity is a powerful artist friendly editor for designing high performance gameplay and implementing game logic. Some amazing features of Unity are —

• Easy to use and quick learning curve: Unity has a massive repository of tutorials and documentation. There are many online tutorials to get started with Unity. It has a thriving online community where developers can share their knowledge, experience and discuss any issues.
• The Unity graphic editor makes it easy to design, insert objects, scripts, light effects etc. This reduces development time significantly.
• Unity supports both 2D and 3D development with features and functionality for your specific game.
• With Unity 3D, you can export a game to 17 different platforms including — iOS, Android, Windows, Web, Playstation, Xbox, etc.. With Unity, you can easily port apps, taking advantage of the unique features and market share of each platform.

• Unity is the preferred development tool for Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality experience. Many top companies like Ubisoft, NASA and even Google use this platform.

• Unity has a massive and ever expanding Asset Store, where you can download game assets, components that you can integrate into your app. This is more cost and resources effective than hiring graphic designers and animators.
• Single player games can be modified to a multiplayer with few changes in the existing code. This is easy to implement and highly customizable for your specific needs. Unity has built-in support for real-time interaction, chat and score sharing.

• Artificial Intelligence is the latest fad in gaming. To make games more competitive, games are implementing AI to quickly adapt to players skills and make the Non Playable Characters(NPC) smarter. For this Unity has launched ML-Agents where you can code your characters, game levels or bots with your own AI.

• Unity Analytics offer fast and easy access to game information and user flow. This will help you track and analyze player experience and give you better insights in making improvements.
• Unity offers built in solutions to monetize your game. You can make a lot of money with ads and in-game purchases. Flappy Bird, a simple yet addictive game, used to make $50,000 per day.

CONCLUSION

Unity has become the go to platform for developing cross platform games. It is free to get started and there are plenty of online resources to get started developing games. If you want to develop any cool game or AR/VR app, you can contact us here. Be sure to check out some awesome games we have developed here.