Technicalities

Posted on December 13th, 2013

I think I’ve settled on all the technical stuff for Jenny’s game. I’ll be using Unity3D as the game engine. The graphics will be rendered in Blender. It’ll be a 2D sidescroller, albeit with graphics made in a 3D program. And the game itself may have some platforming, but technically, it’ll be more of a beat ’em up.

One reason I picked Unity (well, besides it being free) is because there’s a crapload of info and tutorials for it out there. If you’ve got a question, someone’s likely got the answer and it won’t be hard to find. With Construct Classic and especially IG Maker–which I assumed would be a good program since it came from the RPG Maker folks—not so much. (I’ve been kicking myself for months for not having gone with my first thought and bought RPG Maker instead. Oh, well.)

As far as Construct Classic goes, that has similar problems. I’m sure it’s fine for what it is, but there’s just not enough resources and support. But at least that one is free, and it IS easier to find tutorials for it than it is for IG Maker.

I also find Unity’s interface more intuitive in some ways, which is funny since working with Unity takes a decent amount of scripting and the other two programs are mostly WSIWYG. And if I’m going to have to learn a whole new system anyway, I might as well learn programming, too.

But the best thing about Unity is it makes cross-platform downloadable games while Construct Classic and IG Maker only export to Windows and Flash. With Unity, my Mac and Linux-using friends won’t be left out. 🙂

I decided to go with rendered graphics because despite the learning curve and initial time investment, I think it’ll ultimately be easier for me than drawing/animating sprites by hand. I know how I work and what I [don’t] have patience for. I could easily spend ages perfecting a 3D model, but drawing the same thing over and over would eventually drive me bonkers. Besides that, there are ways to make 3D art look cartoony—and that would be a lovely look for what I have in mind.

As for why the game will be a beat ’em up (think old school Splatterhouse), that’s because it suits the main character and what I’d like to do here—namely make something that’s fun to me with plenty of gratuitous violence.