Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Left a bit. Too far! Right. Right. RIGHT! Oh sorry, I didn’t see you there. I was just practicing telling Wasteland 2 developers inXile what to do with the assets I’m ready, willing, and prepared to generate for Wasteland 2. And because I’m lovely and like to share these things, I’m going to tell you how you can be in the position to have a building or prop in their upcoming apocalyptic RPG. Engine makers Unity and inXile are teaming up to allow gamers to take part in paid-for work for the game. Just, you know, be exceptional.
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Hey, developers! Erm. Just wanted to say hi, like. Also, you might be interested in the next version of the increasingly ubiquitous Unity engine, which is toting all sorts of hypermodern features (they even say ‘hypermodern’ themselves in their press release, so for once I’m not to blame for a superlative-based portmanteau) aimed at making it desirable to indies, mainstream, mobile and mucking-about devs alike.

DirectX 11 (as shown above, apparently), a new character animation tech called ‘Mecanim’ and publishing to Flash and Linux are the headline features of Unity 4, though there’s also (and less relevantly to this blog) a bunch of additional mobile gaming stuffs in there too. Basically, it’s Unity putting its arm around the Unreal engine’s girl, curling its lip into a knowing smirk and intoning those most sacred of words: Come at me, bro.
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I thought writing about else { Heart.break() } would prove to be a novelty, but three days later here I am, telling you about another game that lets you fiddle in its innards. I am now the official RPS expert, sorry “expert”, on games that allow you to alter their code: Code Hero is a Unity engine game where you have a code gun that shoots Javascript, and hopes the players learn enough from the action. According to the the devs: “Code Hero is an FPS where your Code Gun shoots code directly at a target and executes on impact. It references the target so you can act upon hitObject in your code or just hit.point if permissions are denied.” If you could see the face I’m making trying to comprehend that, you’d probably be calling for an ambulance. Video of it below.

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Yikes! This is the most impressive Unity-powered project I’ve seen to date. BeGone is a butter-smooth, not-at-all-ugly multiplayer FPS you can play right out of your browser. Click on the link, pick a server, wait some seconds and you’re off, engaging in hot manshoots with up to 11 other players. You hear that? That’s the sound of the past crunching under the heavy boot of Tomorrow. Go play, or watch some footage after the jump. News courtesy of the ever-independent Indiegames blog.
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While not exactly about playing games (this is more for the making of games) the launch of Unity 3, the third iteration of the free-to-use game engine, has me excited. Of all the game-making tools out there, Unity is the one I’ve spent the most time with, and it was actually responsible for the RPS game, RockPaperShotgunity, which we cobbled together last year. Also, I totally made some big spheres move about making booming noises. I am The Creator. People who know stuff are more excited about the unified editor, the post-processing and shader improvements, the occlusion culling, deferred rendering, and other tech stuff. Full What’s New list here, although some of that is for the paid-for Pro version, which I think is limited to a month demo, something like that.

Never made a game before? Spong In A Posty! Although that’s probably a bit out of date for Unity 3. Maybe it’s time to do another one.

A Friday afternoon distraction here. Langman is really just a conceptually pure thing. It’s a unity-powered combination between the word-game hangman and a platformer, so you have to jump between the letters to select them. Fall to your death, and you lose a guess. Guess wrong and you lose a guess. Guess right, and you may add another guess. Battling against my (perhaps predictable) intrinsic dislike of word-games involving spelling, this managed to charm me with its Retro aesthetics and chiptune sounds, plus increasingly complicated levels. Cute. Play here or watch a trailer below…
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Continuing my march through the tips folder, I hit upon Nir Gooday – and his brother’s – game. It’s Minesweeper. In 3D. It’s 3D Minesweeper. Which is the sort of thing which strikes you as totally pointless… but then you realise there’s a spark of genius here. There’s something oddly compulsive of taking that step. I mean, it’s become such a social staple that we don’t even think about of its name any more. Minesweeper. A game about stepping on mines, and actually physically doing it actually provokes a tiny shiver of anticipation. Alas, it’s an idea whose execution sells itself short – it demands bangs and whistles one goes off, the full on explosion and shaker-speaking noise. Add that, Nir, and you’re away. Make it turn-off-able for the wimps. Play here. There’s also a facebook app version, if that’s your sort of thing.

Cordy, as Simon Parkin rightly notes, is a Little Big Planet clone, crammed into Unity. Only a couple of demo levels here, but feature all manner of Rube Goldberg styled levels of spinning, falling and crushing stuff. Very quick to play, and hopefully more to come – though, obviously, to be a real Little Big Planet clone, it’d have to include some manner of construction elements. WELCOME TO OUR ROBOT GAME state Silvertree media, proudly. I would be too.

Have a dash of Nintendo in your PC tea, with Michael Johnston’s fan-made, browser-based reimagining of the second NES Legend of Zelda game as an FPS of sorts. Large, flat open lands, caves and floaty heart icons, all from the player-perspective rather than a bird’s eye view. Dedicated/clever/fiddly/oddly grindy, but quite lovely in its strange past-meets-present genre-bending.
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Courtesy of Leigh: A game for the days when you think that Valerie Solanas kinda had a point.
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Edge Online report that Unity have revealed their 3D engine running in Google’s Chrome browser without a plugin.

Described as a “potential game changer” by Unity VP Brett Seyler, Native Client is a security sandbox currently in development for Chromium which allows “the secure execution of native code”. Unity’s Web Player software is not required.

Dark magicks. And kind of a big deal. Lots more in a big post from Unity over here. “The future of games on the web,” indeed.