Gamification with Unity 5.x : build exhilarating gaming experiences using a wide range of game elements in Unity 5.x / Lauren S. Ferro.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ferro, Lauren S., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Unity (Electronic resource).

Computer graphics.

User interfaces (Computer systems).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (321 pages) : color illustrations

Edition:

1st edition

Other Title:

Build exhilarating gaming experiences using a wide range of game elements in Unity 5.x

Place of Publication:

Birmingham, England ; Mumbai, [India] : Packt Publishing, 2016.

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Build exhilarating gaming experiences using a wide range of game elements in Unity 5.x About This Book Achieve your goals in a fun-filled way by creating gamification projects from scratch Leverage the Unity 5.X toolkit to create stunning and appealing projects Make your transition towards a pro project manager/ developer by learning tricks and techniques Who This Book Is For If you are a project manager, game developer, or programmer who wants to create successful end-to-end gamification projects from scratch, then this is the book for you. You do not need any previous experience of working with Unity 5.X. All the details required to make the most of gamifying your projects are provided in the book. What You Will Learn Assess your learners' abilities by setting up challenges and quests Implement the game elements that relate to the project into Unity Publish your own task management application to better engage readers Improve your design using methods of playtesting and iteration Issue OpenBadges to recognize achievements and set up an online database to store your users achievements. In Detail Are you looking at implementing gamification techniques for your business and wondering where to get a complete rundown of all the tricks and techniques? Well, you have come to the right place! This book will start right from the basics such as gameplay elements and their functionalities before gradually moving onto creating your first gamification project from scratch. You'll be given the tools and shown how to perform various techniques for creating gamified applications in different contexts. Finally, you will implement various game elements into Unity, publish your own task management application, and get to know the best practices and approaches when designing gamified experiences. Style and approach This book takes a real-world case studies approach, moving ahead in a step-by-step tutorial manner. You will create your own project from scratch, and the practical examples will help you create a successful gamification project.

Contents:

Cover

Copyright

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewer

www.PacktPub.com

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: The Anatomy of Games

Not just pixels and programming

Finding your preferred type

Playing to learn

Minecraft

Kerbal Space Program

Sid Meier's Civilization

Stop kidding around, be serious!

America's Army

Foldit

Moonbase Alpha

Keeping it real with simulations

Virtual Heroes

SimCity

From Dust

Gamify all things with gamification

Language learning with DuoLingo

Game elements and mechanics

Becoming a better human with Habitica (HabitRPG)

Shop till you drop with AliExpress (mobile application)

What is game design?

Conjuring the elements

Getting elemental

Getting mechanical

Difference between gameplay and game mechanics

Competency and complacency

where do we draw the line?

Examples of feedback and reinforcement

The internal flame for doing…anything

Read this and you'll get candies

A little bit of conditioning to control user behavior

Classical conditioning

Operant conditioning

Avoid spoiling the player

Summary

Chapter 2: Who or What Am I? Understanding the Player

The players - who are they and where do they come from?

Getting contextual

Who is our application targeting?

The user

The amount of dedication

Defining the role of your player

Deciding on what you want your users to achieve

Getting the player to achieve it

Engaging the player

Getting loopy about engagement

Engagement loops

Progression loops

Creating a user profile system in Unity

Setting up the Unity project

Getting personal with some profile information

Showing off that beautiful smile

Chapter 3: An Engaged Player is a Happy Player.

Keeping 'em engaged

How am I doing?

Keeping it visual

What's that noise?

Someone call a doctor!

Circular health bar

Lives counter

On point!

You've come this far, keep going

Making progress

Showing off how awesome you are

Badges, badges, badges

Achievement unlocked!

Implementing an achievement system

Example of usage

Taking in the view with dashboards

There is no I in team

Adding an element of fun to agile frameworks

Chapter 4: Organized Chaos - Getting Ideas Out of Your Head and on to Paper

Brainstorming - getting it all out on the table

Tools and methods for getting ideas out and organizing thoughts

Start pinning with Pinterest

Starting with a fresh slate

Never forget with Evernote

Brainstorming activities

Spinning the wheel of randomness

Getting in and among it

Game on with Gamicards

The great exchange

Getting moody with mood boards

Creating the ideal ideation sessions

Implementing a brainstorming tool in Unity to shuffle ideas

Making a new friend with editor scripts

Creating an editor script

Opening a new editor window

Drawing something inside our editor window

Adding a scrollable text area

Inserting a button and implementing the shuffle function

Showing the extracted idea

Testing our brainstorming tool

Chapter 5: Sculpting the Conceptual Beast

Creating a Game Design Document

Google Drive

Word (and Microsoft Office)

InDesign

Creating a prototype - what you'll need

Gathering your humans

Having a plan!

Setting a date

Scoping it out

Keeping it short and to the point

What's your poison?

Getting your jam on!

Failing is an option

Touching base

Methods of prototyping

Paper prototyping

Rapid prototyping

Tools for prototyping in Unity

Placeholder sprites.

Composing figures

Arrow

Star

Assets mock-up

Substituting the temporary assets

Using labels

Gizmos

Getting basic core concepts into Unity

Quick navigation

Revisiting the prototype

Testing with the closest people

Testing with external people

How to test

Revisiting your prototype and iterating

Chapter 6: Breathing Life into Your First Creation - Creating and Importing Assets for Your Application

Designing the application

Creating the game elements

Adobe Illustrator

Vector graphics

An introduction to Illustrator

Creating badges in Illustrator

Getting all rounded

Using the Shape tool

Using the effect

Showing the best of you with badges

Aiming above the bar

Putting it all together with sprite sheets

Importing and setting our assets in Unity

Importing assets

Import Settings

The Sprite Editor

Testing our settings

Testing the packing tag

Testing the dimensions of the sprites

Chapter 7: Get Your Motor Running

Designing our application

Getting started

Creating the application interface

The lateral menu

The interface

Opening and closing the menu

Adding items to the menu

The Home page

The Tasks page

Navigating through the different screens

Defining tasks

Object-oriented

The Task class

Dealing with tasks

A prefab as Task panel

The Task manager

Allowing the user to create new Tasks

Create Task button

Delete task button

Adding the icon

Inserting the title

Inserting the Due date

Selecting the Task priority

Setting up the Tasks page

Chapter 8: Break, Destroy, and Rebuild - the Art of Playtesting and Iteration

Playtesting

Methods of playtesting

Going solo

Group testing

Open or controlled

Getting the info - have a plan!.

Recruiting the chosen ones!

People you know

People you don't know

The people who you are targeting

Setting up the play-date for playtesting

A little goes a long way

Getting everyone on the same page

Play time!

Methods of playtesting - game time!

Observing how testers are playing

Asking the right questions

During the playtest

After the game

Asking them to explain the game to you

Keeping it balanced with rules

Interacting and the interface

Post-mortem - evaluating the playtest

Reflecting at the end of it all

Iteration

The iteration cycle

When to stop?

Data persistence in our application

PlayerPrefs in Unity

The Set function

The Get function

Erasing an entry

Erasing all the data

Saving local data in a custom file

Using a database

Connecting our application to a database

Why are databases important for playtesting?

Services for databases

Playfab in Unity

Downloading the SDK from the website

Importing and setting the SDK in Unity for databases

Creating a login system for your users

Exchanging data

Chapter 9: Graduating Your Project to Completion

Finishing the application

Optimizing the project for a mobile platform

Processing the power

For 2D games

For 3D games

Other considerations

Test, test, and test again

Don't have access to many devices? Not a problem

Getting it ready to publish

Don't be modest, promote your game!

Sharing is caring

Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Instagram

Snapchat and Vine

YouTube

Blogs and websites

Documenting the process

Describing updates

MailChimp

Paying attention to statistics

Engaging with your audience

Rewarding engagement

It's a hoot! Managing social networks

Remembering time zones

Tag! You're it

Getting commercial.

Terms, conditions, policies, and agreements

The publishing checklist

Now it's time to press the Build button

Where do I begin?

Short-term

Long-term

Towards new horizons

Chapter 10: Being the Best That You Can Be!

Getting your game on without overdoing it

Understand what gamification is and what it is not

Kids see through chocolate covered broccoli, and so do adults

Using gamification in moderation

Getting tangential

Be prepared to fail

Test it!

The iterative cycle

Backup…everywhere

Teamwork…play nice

New and future directions

Uses within education

Homework management

Who wants to be a knowledge-aire?

Hide and seek

The ultimate race

Uses within business

Uses within personal life

Improving your skills once you have finished this book

Become a researcher

Make design a daily habit

Redesigning your favorite games as board games

Never. Stop. Learning

Play to win and play to explore

Read game guides

Participate, compete, and get together

Index.

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed February 28, 2017).

OCLC:

966617012