Unity 3D: Now in TWO Dimensions!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 14, 2013

It’s kinda funny how Unity 3D has now made such an effort to support 2D gaming. But this week, 4.3 released, with a whole bunch of 2D tools in an ongoing effort to make the engine more universally useful to game developers – particularly the indies.

Here are the changes for Unity 4.3

It’s a pretty beefy update. Besides the introduction of a ton of 2D tools, there’s an all-new version of the script editor (MonoDevelop), which fortunately isn’t taking me too much time to get used to. Plus new animation tools. And some pro-only features that I’m not messing with yet.

The funny thing for me is how 2D appears at first blush to be a subset of 3D (after all, just draw everything flat, right?), but when you get down to it, there are a bunch of tools and special requirements 2D game developers need in order to make a good, modern 2D game. A lot of these have to do with how you optimize for modern hardware, and a lot is “just” for workflow. (I say that noting that workflow is often the #1 critical factor in getting a game built and out the door. Or, at least, it becomes the #1 thing impeding all that if it’s not working right.)

Anyway – I haven’t played with its new 2D abilities yet, so I’ll leave that to others to report on. I think they probably have a ways to go before they catch up to the likes of Game Maker. BUT… as I’m a guy who loves having 2D mixed with 3D, it would seem like Unity would be a super choice.

But then, back in the day, I thought the same thing of Torque 2D. Which, in the end, was still a pretty decent 2D gaming engine, IMO.

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