Unity and Browser Based Games.

News & General Discussion
1

Hello,

First of all I already saw Unity in action in several browser games and I have to say I`m impressed.

For the past 3 month or so I have been intrigued about the idea of starting to design my own browser game. I`m still in the process of writing my design documents and, seeing I am not a game programmer of any sorts and never did anything like this before, I am pondering on what route should I take for this.

I can tell from what I saw and read around this site and the Internet that the Unity engine is a very powerful tool. So I am very much considering starting my project (when the time comes, thinking through the actual design will eat some time up) using this engine.

But, before I ask for an opinion let me put some information about my project. I have been playing and seeing a lot of RTS-like browser based games lately. Some of them are decent, some of them are awful, some of them are good. But I’m looking to improve what I saw so far and bring a bit of originality. From the start, I will be very honest. I am still considering doing this as a stand-alone application because it might prove more appropriate for the scale I am thinking on. But from the start I wanted to go towards the browser based area because it’s fast and easy to connect and play, it’s available for a whole lot of people and it targets a wider range of people because it doesn’t require any actual download and installation.

My project consists basically of a online RTS game. It is a Sci-Fi where the action is placed in a galaxy. Users will be able to choose from 4 different races, each with its back story and each race will have another 3 specializations a user can choose from. Each user will start off with his capital planet in a sector of the galaxy. As time passes, players will grow and will have the opportunity to take advantage of a number of actions like: building fleet, planet-side and orbital-side building development, building space stations in their controlled star systems, building asteroid mining facilities, terraforming and colonizing other planets, attacking other planets to pillage or conquer, attacking fleets in space, interacting with NPC factions (there will be a few of those with, hopefully, a working AI), interacting with other players, attacking other players, etc. The game will have 2D graphics and map control similar to the one in Warcraft III for example. There are many more things users will be able to do beyond those I have suggested above.

A piece of development I want to see if I can introduce is a real-time combat system where players can take control of their own fleets when battling other players or NPC’s.

This and other features like items, experience, research and a whole lot more I want to implement.

My question is this: Is Unity the best choice suited for me and the project I want to create? Either as a browser game or as a stand-alone application I get the feeling Unity could get the job done. But are there easier ways of pulling this off? Do I need such a powerful tool for this kind of game? The graphics would look awesome with Unity I give you that.
And another question is what do you think of the basics of my project?

Thanks for taking the time to read,

Pyro,

2

Are you asking this in an Unity forum?Unity is the best choice for browser-based games,easy,powerful and free you don’t need anything more do develop you game(ok a 3d modeling program will be needed but you can use Blender).So that’s my answer do you game in unity:smile:

3

Yeah ironic isn’t it to ask this on an Unity forum?

I just wanted to know what other people think about what approach should I take and of the basic principle of the game per say.

Thanks for your opinion and trust me when I say I too am leaning towards Unity (80% there just need a bit more convincing).

4

You don’t actually have to choose: you can do both browser and stand-alone with Unity, with minimal changes. That way people can pick which way they’d rather play.

From what you described, yes, you need something more than a basic game-maker app, and Unity doesn’t really have any particular limitations.

That’s more a matter of the skill of the artists than Unity, though since it’s a 3D engine, you’re not limited to sprites and can use many different effects without too much effort.

Sounds quite interesting, though it also sounds like a very large project, and I would recommend starting with a smaller game or two first instead of jumping into the deep end, so you can spend some time building the necessary programming skills.

–Eric

5

It sounds very feasible, maybe ambitious for an inexperienced person but would be a good learning project.

6

I considered starting of with a few basic projects to get a hand of this, seeing that I never went into game development and programming until now, and of course I will do this. But on the long run this will be the project I would like to pursue.

Thank you for your feedback and nice points made.

7

I would go like this: If you are planning to buy code from other people, then go for the project. If you are planning to learn coding yourself, then think what you will need to pull of such big game. Make a basic RTS, where you have one level, couple of types of units and an enemy. Then make some kind of game that has multiplayer. By doing such smaller projects, you see how coding works, how to approach your game. Then abandon the small project and start the big one from scratch. I’m sure you will be able to do a lot of things much better than when you first tried it with the smaller projects.

So basically, start with smaller, but similar projects, and then when you feel you’re ready go for the big one.