The Game Machine for Unity
Makinom is a powerful game development toolkit for Unity. You can create all kinds of 2D and 3D game genres using Makinom, like first person shooters (FPS), adventures, jump’n’runs, beat’em’ups, arcade shooters and more!
See the demo projects for game examples.
You can use Makinom for:
Controls
Cut-Scenes
Game Mechanics/Logic
HUDs, Menus, Dialogues, …
AI and Behaviours
Paths and Waypoints
etc.
Other features:
Extensive editor with in-editor help for every single setting
Save Games and custom save data support
Pooling
Supports multiple languages
Variables with different scopes (local, global and object)
Formulas
Game States
Extend Makinom with custom Nodes and Plugins
Supports UNET
Supports the new UI and legacy GUI system
Supports Mecanim, legacy animation and custom animation systems
No Scripting
You wont have to touch a single line of code to create your game - but you can, if you want.
Create your game mechanics with Schematics - a node-based, flow chart like blueprint of what you want to do. Bring your game to life with Machines - they play schematics and put them into action.
Fast Prototyping
Got a game idea stuck in your head? Quickly create a prototype using the huge amount of ready to use schematic nodes for all kinds of tasks.
Ease Game Development
Build upon your prototype and fine-tune your gameplay. The reusable schematics and machines for all purposes will save you time and effort and cut your development time.
Tutorials
There’s a wide range of tutorials available.
The how-tos cover basic topics and ways of doing things, while the game tutorial series cover creating whole games using Makinom. I’d recommend starting e.g. with the Space Shooter game tutorial series to learn using Makinom.
Get Makinom Makinom Free is the free, unlimited version of Makinom - available for everyone, no watermark, no limits, commercial use allowed! Makinom Pro is available in the Unity Asset Store for $35 and contains the gameplay source code.
Check out the version comparison for details.
If you’re enjoying Makinom, the free updates and support I’m providing, please consider supporting my work on patreon.com!
Supported Platforms
Makinom officially supports publishing to Windows, Mac OSX, iOS, and Android.
Can you please say a little bit about connectivity to other assets from the store?
There are some that i want to use with makinom.
So what i mean is, can i use for example the third person controller, behavior designer, inventory pro, aventure creator, ufps, and others with your great tool?
Are there any ways how to connect this kit with others?
You can use the Function nodes (e.g. Call Function, Change Fields, etc.) to call any kind of 3rd party functionality, as long as there is either a static function/field/property or a component available - and the parameters (or field/property type) aren’t any special classes. Currently supported are string, bool, int, float, Vector2/3, Quaternion, Color, LayerMask, GameObject (also prefabs), Audio Clip, Audio Mixer, Audio Mixer Group, Sprite, Texture2D, Material, PhysicMaterial and PhysicsMaterial2D.
For everything else, you can create custom nodes or use the plugin system. The first plugin to connect Makinom and ORK Framework will be out next week
Connecting other things to Makinom pretty much depends on them - Makinom’s functionality is accessible from everywhere, see this how-to on scripting basics with Makinom.
This update brings new schematic nodes, multi-node selection in the node editor, animation machines supporting animation events and other new features, changes and fixes.
See the release notes for details.
You’re using ORK Framework or Makinom? Why not both!
Connect Makinom and ORK with this free plugin - allows cross saving, forwarding control blocks and adds new Makinom schematic nodes and ORK event steps (e.g. for variable transfers or starting Makinom machines in ORK).
You can find more information and infos on the setup (and functionalities) here.
Long time Playmaker user here, not an expert but as a non programmer (ex-flash animator) PM is vital for me. How would you compare (i’m asking, because i’m interested in getting Makinom for real) , learning curve, complexity, usability for different game genres (imagine sega’s arcade catalog from the 90s: racers, shooters, etc)? Pros and cons?
I haven’t really used Playmaker myself, so my knowledge of it is only based on glancing through the documentation and watching some tutorials
Makinom and Playmaker are tools for the same tasks - the difference is in the workflow and how results are achieved. Playmaker is a finite state machine, while Makinom works like a flowchart. I’ve made Makinom as easy as possible without sacrificing possibilities, and focused on reusability.
In Makinom, you’ll create Schematics - node-based flowcharts/blueprints of what you want to do, e.g. player controls, an NPC dialogue or enemy AI. In schematics, each node performs a task - to make things easier, there are a lot of ready to use nodes doing complex tasks, e.g. you can move a gameobject to a position over time in a single node and either wait for that or continue with the schematic, or send a raycast into the scene and store a filtered list of hit objects for later use (and additionally store hit points, etc).
The schematics are played by Machines - components that put your schematics into action. There are a lot of different machines for different purposes available, e.g. tick machines for stuff that’s regularly updated (like controls), or trigger machines for starting something when an object enters a trigger.
I’d say the learning curve is moderate - you don’t need any programming knowledge, but you still need to know your way around Unity and have a general understanding for game development (e.g. moving stuff, inputs, etc.). There are several game tutorial series available to get you started from scratch.
Makinom is intended to be usable for all kinds of game genres - it might not yet be there, but if something is missing, I’ll add it in future udpates. I’ll regularly add new game tutorial series for different genres and see what’s missing
I’ve only experimented with the test version a bit so far but Makinom looks like a really nice system. I actually like it better than Playmaker in some ways. I hope it gets more attention as it is developed further.
Is it possible to combine ORK, Makinom and a custom AI system ?
Is it possible to extend or create a new AI system and use it as one of the nodes for example ?
The goal would be to keep ORK structures, action triggers and battle calcs, but control the AI with a full sustom system when the creature is about to move.
I guess the same question applied to other things, like moving a fireball, is it possible to create a custom code node to handle it, than the ones provided by ORK for example, through Makinom ?
About the pooling, is it possible to be used for ORK items, like the defined prefabs for a spell etc ?
That should be possible - ORK and Makinom can be connected using the connection plugin. Connecting to 3rd party products can be done using the function nodes in Makinom and ORK.
I’d need more infos on that question - generally, yes, you can create AI systems in Makinom, using the connection plugin you can also use it to do stuff in ORK (the just released ORK 2.5.1 allows firing battle actions in game events).
Yes, that’s possible. You don’t need custom nodes for that - all that’s needed is already available (but you can write your own nodes if you’d like). With the connection plugin, you can start a Makinom machine/schematic in ORK do handle that.
Currently not, unless you’re doing the prefab spawning in Makinom and use pooling there. Pooling for ORK is on my todo list
@Licarell
Thanks - to integrate Love/Hate you’ll either need to write custom nodes, or use function nodes (e.g. the Call Function node) if calling it’s functionality doesn’t require special classes.
Makinom nodes work similar to ORK Framework’s event steps, which are already supported by Love/Hate. Using them as a sample for new nodes will probably make it easier.
Learn creating a mouse orbit camera (with zoom) in this schematic tutorial.
In case you want to write your own custom nodes, check out this scripting tutorial.
@Licarell
Probably the better choice - I’ll contact him about that
This update brings new terrain schematic nodes (e.g. allowing changing the terrain in-game), new UI components, automatically stop machines and other new features, changes and fixes.
See all details in the release notes.
Makinom 1.0.3 is already available in the Unity Asset Store (requires Unity 5.1).
Meaning you can change the height and textures of a terrain while playing the game. E.g. leaving a crater after an explosion.
Also, you can do stuff like checking which main texture is used by the terrain at a position, e.g. to play different footstep sounds based on that.
