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Unity posts

Filed under: Gaming, iPhone

Unity engine to power iPhone gaming

by Michael Rose (RSS feed) on Mar 31st, 2008


At this time of year, every press release must be taken with a grain of salt, but sometimes products announced on or around 4/1 can prove to be real even when they seem a bit unlikely (1GB of free email? Must be a hoax). It's in the vein of strange-but-true (I hope) that Unity Technologies announced a beta program for Unity 3D on the iPhone.

Unity's dynamic game development system (used by some fairly big names), if it makes the leap to the iPhone and iPod touch successfully, will give game creators a spectactular platform for rapid development. Hopefully that will include the unique interaction modes (multitouch, accelerometer & maybe even location awareness) that we saw at the SDK announcement. Can't wait!

Thanks fursund

Tags: games, iphone, unity, unity 3d, Unity3d

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Hardware, Software, Apple

Current and future gaming on the Mac

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Feb 22nd, 2008

MacNewsWorld has a pretty good in-depth overview up about Mac gaming: where it's at and where it's headed. The basic story is that the three things that have historically held Mac gaming back behind PCs (the technology differences, the OS, and the smaller installed base) are slowly disappearing. With Apple's switch from PowerPC to Intel, the introduction of Boot Camp and increasingly easy development in OS X, and the growing popularity of the platform, gaming is actually bigger on the Mac than it's ever been.

But there is still a huge obstacle, and that is DirectX. Though there are ways around it (Freeverse actually mentions the Unity engine in the article), many developers are stuck developing in DirectX, and that leaves the Mac platform out of the loop. And there really isn't anything comparable to it in OS X, either. Graphics hardware remains a problem, but that just harkens back to the biggest problem of getting games on the Mac: support from Apple. Some developers say that there aren't games on the Mac because Steve doesn't want them there, and until Apple shows evidence to the contrary, PC will always be the gamers' platform of choice.

[Via IMG]

Tags: directx, freeverse, gaming, intel, mac, open-gl, os-x, powerpc, steve-jobs, technology, unity

Filed under: Gaming, WWDC, TUAW Interview, Developer

WWDC Video: Unity 2.0 sneak peek

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (RSS feed) on Jul 6th, 2007


The gang from Over the Edge gave us a sneak peek of two new features in Unity 2.0: a cool terrain tool and real-time dynamic shadows. Check out the video, but also check out their page of all the other features coming soon to Unity.

[Note: we'll have all these WWDC videos available for direct download soon!]

Tags: 3d, game, game design, game development, game engine, GameDesign, GameDevelopment, GameEngine, joystiq, over the edge, OverTheEdge, unity, unity3d, videogame

Filed under: Gaming, Software, WWDC, TUAW Interview

Video: Unity, the game dev tool for Macs

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (RSS feed) on Jun 14th, 2007


Click To Play

We've covered Unity before, but video speaks louder than words, so we were happy to have a demo of some incredible features in the latest version. Unity is a game dev tool, only for Macintosh, that allows you to create Mac games, Dashboard widget games, PC games, web games embedded on a page and (eventually) Wii games. What's really impressive about Unity is the ease-of-use. The FPS you'll see in the video was created by a 15-year-old with no previous programming experience-- using an eMac. Also, be sure to stay tuned on Monday for another video with team Unity as they unveil some amazing new features.

Again, here's the .mov version for everyone to enjoy in stutter-free format.

Tags: dashboard, game, game design, GameDesign, games, pc, unity, wii

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Widget Watch

Open Fire, a free casual Mac game

by Conrad Quilty-Harper (RSS feed) on May 30th, 2006

BlueTorch Studios in partnership with BlueGill Flame have released the final version of Open Fire, a casual top down shooter similar to the Linux game Barrage. Open Fire, which has been created using Unity's game editing software, was the winner of Unity's Dashboard Widget Competition.

Keeping with the theme of the game's widget beginnings, the developers plan to create a widget version of the game so that office workers can play while their boss isn't looking. Currently the game is available in both Universal Binary Mac and PC versions. One of the coolest features of the game is its online top ten leaderboard which you could, at the very least, consider a (weak) justification for spending so much time playing the damn thing! Must. reach. top. ten.

Tags: Barrage, Blue Torch, BlueTorch, Casual game, CasualGame, Dashboard, Free game, FreeGame, Leaderboard, Open Fire, OpenFire, PC, Top ten, TopTen, Unity, Universal Binary, UniversalBinary, Widget, Windows

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Universal Binary

Create universal games with Unity

by Dave Caolo (RSS feed) on Mar 30th, 2006

Unity is the game development platform for the Mac that really does make the job of building games (and Dashboard widgets) kind of fun. Today, Unity announces the availability of version 1.2.2, which will allow you to make sure that all of your projects are universal binaries. So go out and build the next best thing, and then run it on your Mactel.

Unity requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later, and features two pricing options: $250US for the "indie" edition, and $1,000US for the Pro version.

Incidentally, we posted our interview with Unity's David Helgason back in October.

[Via MacNN]

Tags: dashboard widgets, DashboardWidgets, game development, GameDevelopment, unity, universal binary, UniversalBinary

Filed under: Gaming, Software

Give the gift of Unity

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (RSS feed) on Dec 20th, 2005

unityxmasAs the Unity team prepares a new 1.2 release with mondo new features, like full-screen graphic effects, and a drop-in FPS controller, just in time for the holidays (hopefully), consider giving the game development tool as a gift. In fact, the Unity site posted a how-to on creating your own boxed version. Just print the templates, grab some scissors and blank media, and voilá! Unity, and perhaps a book on game development, would make any wanna-be game developer in your family happy. Except that most game developers use PC's. And since Unity can only deploy games on a PC, not create them, you might need to pick up a shiny new Mac for that loved one as well. No, I don't work for Unity, but I am a big fan.

Tags: boxed version, BoxedVersion, game developer, GameDeveloper, unity

Filed under: Gaming, Software

Unity Dashboard widget contest winners announced

by Dave Caolo (RSS feed) on Sep 19th, 2005

arenaUnity recently held a contest that challenged developers to create Dashboard widget games, using their development environment. Today, they have announced the winners, and they're all definitely worth checking out.

The widget Open Fire Beta 12 won the People’s Love category. From your perch high atop what looks like a Thomas the Tank Engine train table (what can I say?  I have kids), you can blast away at a hapless parade of tanks and jeeps. Hint: If you can't hit them, at least cause a multi-vehicle pile up. The good news is that they can't fire back.  It's like shooting fish military vehicles in a barrel.

The Grand Prix of the Jury winner was Overwhelmed Arena, a good, old-fashioned shoot-em-up in space. Choose from four ships, fly around the space station and blast bad guys out of the sky. Go into full screen mode and you forget you're using a widget.

There are more, of course, and they all deserve your attention. Check them out and have fun.

Tags: dashboard, unity, widget

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