community video game download android mobile The Best Android Game Development Platforms And Tools In 2020. Android Game App Development is a growing industry that is dominating the gaming world. The increasing user engagement towards mobile gaming apps making it more popular. The use of smartphone is not limited to, sending messages and taking selfies, but as a mean of entertainment too. The best way to kill the time when bored is to play a game in the app, this is the reason for the success of so many gaming apps. Mobile application games like Pokemon Go, PUBG, Alto’s Adventure, and Candy Crush are the most popular and best game app in 2020 that are ruling the mobile app gaming world. Moreover, mobile and tablets have become the first choice of people to engage in the virtual gaming zone. Users are introduced to so many games that this has become the best entertaining source for most people. The gaming industry is booming through Android Game Development . Although, mobile game development has always been a tough task for many individuals. There are various mobile app development companies in India that provide mobile game app development services . Since people use their smartphone the most, it is the perfect choice for developing more interactive and interesting games. Games that are created for the Android platform are the best way to earn more profits for this industry. Before diving into this booming business, you need to execute the process of making the app properly and use the best android game development platforms. Without thorough understanding this task is difficult, and the end result won’t come out as hoped. But no need to worry here is a list of 15 Android game app development tools or platforms that will help you develop interactive mobile game apps with ease. Unity. One of the best android game development platforms is Unity. Unity Technologies launched this cross-platform tool, which helps Android app development team to create their own mobile games. A whole team of developers can build a gaming app through unity’s 2D and 3D development features. You can either use the assets provided by the unity store (paid) or import assets from a 3D application such as Maya. Unity technologies provide a complete guide and tutorial to help the first-time android game development user. Pokémon Go and Angry Birds 2 were made using this platform. Other than Android it supports other platforms like- iOS, Windows Phone, Tizen OS and Fire OS. Price : Free- personal use, $125/month- pro edition, $25/month- plus edition. AppGameKit. The best part of this platform is that it has solutions for all developers- from experts to beginners that make creating a game app easy. It is user- friendly and uses a language that is quite similar to C++. It is cross-platform so a game app for all platforms can be made available at once. Including Android, AppGameKit supports iOS, Blackberry and Windows Phone platform. Price : average packet-$50, SDK- $39 to $99. Unreal Engine. Unreal engine is the perfect android gaming app development tool for a beginner. It has a user-friendly interface so without any programming skills, you can create an app using this. Without additional codes or changes in the programming, you can modify any feature of the gaming app . If you want to create an impressive game with good graphic without much hassle, this is the platform for you. Oh! Also, you can test the game inside the platform only. It supports obviously Android and iOS, Windows PC, Linux and many more. Price: Free for small projects, but if you earn $3000 + profit, there is a royalty fee of 5%. Corona SDK- the 2D game engine. Corona SDK is great if you want to use a platform with simpler language. It uses the Lua scripting language, this is pretty easy to learn, and do coding with. It is cross-platform and supports IOS, Windows Phone, Apple/Android TV and Kindle other than Android phones. The community of Corona is famous for their support and great documentation. Use its 2D features for making the game or use plugins from its marketplace. It also has a real-time stimulation so that after any changes, you can see how the app would look. Price: Core functions are free to use. Construct 2. This android game development tool is an HTML 5 platform that creates 2D games. It requires no coding and has many features that aid in building a visually appealing game. Construct 2 creates the game in less time and is multiplatform. Supported platforms other than Android are iOS, Windows Phone and Web platforms like Google chrome, etc. Construct 2: the next Penelope was made using this. Price : 159.99 euro. Marmalade. This android game development platform is famous amongst the top developers as it lets them create react native apps for both mobile and desktop. The language used in this platform is C++. Through Marmalade, you can create both 2D and 3D games. Programming and testing are easier in this as it lets you use many different libraries, codes, and tools. The platforms supported by it other than android are – iOS, Windows, Blackberry, Tizen OS and connected TV platform. Need for Speed, Shift, cut the rope and so on are the examples of games made using Marmalade. Price: $600. Fusion. If you want an event-based game, Fusion is the perfect choice for you. This Android gaming app development platform has an easy to use interface and uses a full graphics library to design the game. So, even if you don’t know how to code, you can develop the app. Static games are created using this platform. Other than Android it supports iOS and Windows. Price : Available free and paid version starts from $49.99 to $99.99. Game Marker Studio 2. GameMarker Studio 2 was launched by YOYO games to create 2D games. It lets you design the gaming app quickly with their drag and drop feature and language which is easy to use. Platforms that can use other than Android are iOS, Windows Phone, Amazon Fire, PS Vita, and Tizen. Price : a free version with no features and for purchasing features the price ranges from $150-$800. CocoonJS. Create HTML5 games using CocconJS, which is fully compatible with Cordova. Use any plugin without downloading it from the Cocoon cloud. After android, it supports IOS, Android wear and Amazon App store plugin. Price : Free for new projects, $8- silver edition, $69- gold edition and $199- platinum edition. MonoGame. It is a multi-platform and uses class architecture and C and met languages for android game development . It has many tutorials for helping the developer. IOS and Windows Phone are the other two platforms which it supports. Price : Free. Amazon Lumberyard. It is a game creating platform owned and developed by Amazon. It has free tools, and through Lumberyard’s twitch integration, a visually rich game can be created. It is cross-platform so launch the game on the supported devices at once. IOS, PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation4 are supported by this other than Android. Price : free. Cross2D-x. This android game development tool is a package of 2D development tools released by Facebook. Its best feature- creates small size game (1.5 MB). Large community with proper documentation to help you out. Supports: Android obvious, IOS, Linux and OS X platform. Price : free. It is a programming language similar to Java , C++ , and PHP . It has a library full of APIs (functions and procedures) and frameworks that help in game development . iOS is the only other platform that it supports. Price : Different plans. Gideros. Gideros is a free, cross-platform and open-source platform. It uses the language Lua for developing games. Build and launch amazing games on all platforms at once. Other than Android, it supports IOS, Windows Phone and many more. Price : Free. These are the best Android app development platforms and tools that will help you in amazing Android gaming app development. While choosing a platform, keep in mind the basic game idea, budget, and market trends. These few basic things will help you select the most suited android game development tools for you, and your mobile gaming app will be just perfect. Do you have any Gaming app idea? Discuss your idea with us and we promise to make it possible as we are a leading mobile app development company in India with excellent track records. Android 12 will let you play games as you’re downloading them. Google is announcing a big new feature for its upcoming Android 12 update on Monday: you’ll be able to play games as you’re downloading them. For particularly large games, this could be very useful, as it means you won’t have to wait as long to jump into a game and start playing. You can get an idea of just how much faster you might be able to hop into a game in the below GIF shared by Google. The difference, at least in this case, is quite noticeable, and Google says it is already “seeing games being ready to open at least 2 times faster.” The feature works with games that use the Play Asset Delivery system. If they do, developers won’t need to do anything to turn the feature on, according to Google. The news comes as part of the Google for Games Developer Summit 2021, which runs from July 12th through the 13th. At the event, Google also announced a new game dashboard for Android 12 that gives you easy access to utilities like screen capture and recording. The dashboard will be available on “select devices” later this year, Google says. Android 12 is also set to bring a bunch of other big changes to Android, including a major new design. The Most Recommended Game Development Tools and Engine of 2021 For Game Dev. Gaming is just not a game. And it’s not just a kids thing, The most of game player age is 35 years old…Shocking. Right? As augmented reality(AR), virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR) game development has become the new trend in the gaming industry. We have come up with the best game development tools and engines of 2021. Be sure to comment below and let us know which one is best gaming engines according to you. For beginners and game developers, it has been never easier to create gaming tools without the programming language. But nowadays several game development tools are available online through which developers can create games easily and quickly. Looking for new application ideas? Here are the 101 app ideas that need to be made!! Best Game Development Tools For Beginners. Construct 2. Construct 2 is a gaming tool which helps users to create specifically 2D games. HTML 5 based tool allows beginners to create the game without any knowledge of programming as well as it doesn’t require any coding. Professional developers, indie game developers, teachers and students can utilize this gaming tool. Through this tool, the teacher can guide animation, design and game logic to their students. Construct 2 Gaming Tool, has been used by the professional developers to create games for Android and iOS platforms. Features of Construct 2:- Construct 2, has been loaded with features like movements, fade, platforms, path- findings and many other facilities which guide beginners in creating gaming tool. Through this, you can view your game on the internet but before the compilation and it saves time. Likewise, other gaming tools, construct 2 comes up with the simple visual interface which helps beginners in creating games easily. Once you created the game, you can put it on several platforms and formats such as HTML5, Windows Store, Chrome Web Store, or Facebook without changing code with a paid version, users can also publish games on Android, Linux, Windows, and Mac. Here is the facility that developers can import drag and drop objects, design levels and add behavior or effects. This gaming tool has a spectacular visual effect, such as pixels-shader effects, blend modes, and particle system. Construct 2 is one of the effective gaming tools that beginners and developers must try once in their life. Game Maker: Studio. Game Maker: Studio is the world’s largest gaming development tool. It helps in creating 2D and 3D applications like multimedia tools, simulations, video games, various other software applications and virtual reality applications. Features of Game Maker: Studio. This development tool has everything that a developer looks for and comes with innovative features such as real-time analytics, multi-player networking, source control, and extensibility through third-party extensions. It is also loaded with built-in editors for animations, images, and shades. For professionals, this game development tool comes with a powerful programming language, while for newbie game developers there is a drag and drop interface, as coding not required while creating games. Once the developer creates the game, he is able to publish on several platforms such as Windows, iOS, Linux and much more without disturbing the code. The free version of Game Maker: Studio supports only on Windows platforms whereas the paid version supports on several platforms such as HTML5, iOS, and Android. Some of the popular games offered by Game Maker such as Murder in Hotel Lisbon (PC), Aces of Luftwaffe (Android) and Spelunky (PC). Still Confused Why You Should Invest in Mobile App Development?? Read this top 25 Reasons. Unity. Unity is a popular game development tool which is being liked by the game developers from a long time. This development tool initially started with the 3D engine but later on added 2D support in 2013. This gaming tool has everything that a developer requires to create 2D or 3D games as it supports both 3D as well as 2D games. Once you created the game, you can use it on several platforms such as Android, Windows, iOS, Mac, WebGL, Facebook, Linux and all types of VR Systems such as Oculus Rift, Steam VR and gaming platforms such as XB1, Switch, PS4 and Wii U. \Several tutorials are available on Unity website including how to use this development tool and also it has a great community to assist professional game developers and beginners. Features of Unity. It features powerful tools like Timeline and Cinemachine, which enables the artist to make impressive cinematic content and gameplay sequences without any engineering requirement. This gaming development tool has a large collection of games assets which are available in free and paid versions. You can set up a Cinemachine Confiner to save yourself the hassle of dealing with cameras moving too far out your scene! #unity3d #unitytips pic.twitter.com/ncQHgOf284 — Ethan Bruins (@Bruins1993) September 27, 2017. Some of the renowned games being developed by using Unity tool are – Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12, The Masters, Angry Birds 2, Angry Birds Epic, Lara Croft Go, Mini Metro, Temple Run, Fallout Shelter and much more. The Unity Gaming Development Tool is available in both paid and free versions. The user can choose any of the version as per their requirements. For using Unity gaming tool, you will be required to know C++ Programming Language. The best part is that Unity Software has been widely used by the game developers, professional and beginners. ClickTeam Fusion 2.5. ClickTeam Fusion 2.5 is designed for advanced game developers but doesn’t mean that it requires complex coding while creating games. It has been never easier to create gaming tools with less coding. The software tool featuring an excellent event editor system, it allows game developers to create games easily and quickly. Through this, developers will require less coding at the time of creating the game. Features of ClickTeam Fusion 2.5. This gaming tool featuring a Box2D physics engine and OUYA console, which allows developers to import games and apps on various platforms – Windows, Mac, iOS, HTML, Android and Adobe Flash Player. By Gigachess user request, added a toggle control that displays all Pawn attack ranges #indiedevhour #indiedev #indiegame #madewithfusion pic.twitter.com/1YdAemNQHv — Gigatross Games (@GigatrossGames) September 6, 2017. As such no complex programming language will require learning this, anyone including beginners and game developers can program easily with Clickteam Fusion 2.5 on the go. Even you can learn the basics within a few hours and create games easily. Developers can avail the benefit of hardware acceleration, through this developers will be able to create games faster and quicker. The free version of this software tool will be available in the near future. The biggest advantage is that users will have to purchase individual software for Android and iOS versions and currently free version is not available. GameFroot. GameFroot is a completely online gaming tool. It has built a community where game creators and enthusiasts can share and discuss their effective ideas. This online software tool encourages gamers and professional developers for creating the web, mobile and HTML5 games. Several tutorials are available on its website in which it shows how to use this gaming tool. Features of GameFroot- GameFroot is a great online software for creating the pixelated game. If a user wants to monetize its game, he will have to pay money, get knowledge from learning sources such as tutorials, guides and publish games on Google PlayStore and AppStore. Students, Community Groups, and Families can take the advantage of GameFront and can create games easily with the help of tutorials and guides. It is suggested that you first try the free version of this if a creator is satisfied with the features, services, and interface then he can move to the paid version. Make sure to check out traditional Indian card game development like Rummy, Teen Patti, Poker Card etc is rapidly growing more and more. Sploder. Sploder is an online gaming development tool. Through this, beginners and game developers will be able to create web-based games by using the combination of toolsets without any programming language. Anyone can create its own platform games such as retro arcade games, complex physics-based puzzle games, and space adventures or shooters. For creating games online with the help of Sploder you will require only good imagination and creative skills. It is available in free versions. Features of Sploder. It features a graphics editor which helps in creating pixelated characters. The Developers can take the advantage of separate physics game creator for making the physics-based games. Sploder is an excellent platform where an individual can create a game of its own choice. It does not have a feature of app monetization as well as the creator will be unable to publish games on the mobile market. Developers and game creators can publish their games on its own website, Facebook or myspace profile and share the link to other members for ratings and reviews. Godot Engine. Similar to the Unity, Godot supports in creating both type of games 2D as well as 3D games. Godot is an excellent, feature-compact, multi- platform 2D and 3D open-source game engine. The 2D aspect of the engine was designed carefully by the team members of Godot resulting in better performance and less technical bugs. It is offering a large set of common tools, so the developer is able to focus on creating games without creating the code. With the help of tutorials, you can easily use Godot Gaming Development Tool and it doesn’t require any coding. Features of Godot Engine. Godot Engine comes with drag- and- drop interface to maintain scene elements, but all of those elements will spread with the help of inbuilt scripting system that used a custom Python-like language called GDScript. Hooray for side-projects! Working on a 3D remake of one of my older games. Powered by #GodotEngine 3.0 #screenshotsaturday #indiedev pic.twitter.com/HiAzt91AAs — Denis Comtesse (@ProbDenis) September 23, 2017. Once you created the game, you can import it on several platforms such as Windows, Mac, Linux, HTML5 and iOS. Godot is the only gaming tool which is available in free version as it gets registered under the MIT License. Even developers can download the engine’s source code and change it as per their requirement. Stencyl. Through Stencyl, Gaming Development Tool, Users can create games easily without coding. This gaming development builds on an intuitive support tool which enhances the efficiency level of game developers. Features of Stencyl. Stencyl gaming tool features a drag- and- drop interface, extensive support and no coding requirement at the time of creating games. Through extensive support, once you created the game you can publish it on several platforms including Linux, Mac, Windows, iOS (iPhone/iPad), Linux, HTML5 (experimental) and Adobe Flash. Through nifty Scene, Designer Tool developer can make designs as well and can also build words. With the help of the Actor Editor Tool, you can make special characters and NPCs. The biggest advantage is that Stencyl Gaming Tool has placed in top position in the Google Play Store as well as App Stores, and featured under the “Best New Game” Section in respective stores. The drag-and-drop interface is inspired by the successful MIT Scratch project. There is an option available in Stencyl by which, game developers can write their own codes, import libraries, and custom classes. Developers have full freedom to create games of their own choice. Some of the renowned games created by using Stencyl Gaming Tool includes Impossible Pixel and Zuki’s Quest (iPhone and Android) and Making Monkeys and Dangerous Dungeons (PC). Flowlab. Create games online with Flowlab and publish it on Android, iOS, online, and windows. All the Indies, Studio Community and Education sector can take the advantage of Flowlab Gaming Development Tool but all of them have to pay some amount of money for using this gaming tool. Through this developers can create their own Flash and iOS games online and is beneficial for those who don’t have a knowledge of coding. This gaming tool includes all the features which an amateur game developer will require. It is easier for the developers to share their formulated games with others as the toolset is stored online. Features of Flowlab. Flowlab Gaming Development Tool comes with built-in animation and drawing tools that allow users to create graphics, animations, characters, and NPCs. With flow-based programming feature allow developers connect behaviors or creating sophisticated game logic. GameSalad. Through GameSalad developers can create games easily and quickly. It has a community that helps developers and newbies in creating games. Various Tutorials are available on its website which helps newbies in creating games. Features of GameSalad. It has been loaded with the integrated physics engine, drag-and-drop interface, a large behavior library and some other excellent which features allow users to create game effortlessly. Once you had done with the game, you can test the game by using an amazing previewer. The free- version of GameSalad provides freedom to users to create games, preview games and import games in Web and iOS Platform, whereas the paid allows you to monetize the games and publish to the Windows 8 and Google Play Store. Once you created the game you can share it with the world including Windows, Android, Linux, HTML 5. Conclusion: – Above we have mentioned the Gaming Development Tools which are famous nowadays. All of the above require less programming and a great platform for students, teachers, and developers. How to make an Android game – for complete beginners. Right now, the Google Play Store is stuffed full of pay-to-win garbage, while iOS enjoys a smorgasbord of excellent indie titles. We need aspirational developers like you, and stat! If you’ve never made a game before, it’s hard to know where to start. What tools do you need? What programming language should you learn? Will it be difficult? Read on and let’s get you on your way to make an Android game! Where to start – coming up with your game idea. When you make an Android game, the best place to start is with a vision for what you plan to create. It might sound obvious, but choosing the right tools and workflow will depend on the type of game you have in mind, be it a puzzle game, a 2D platformer, or a VR experience. My advice is to start with something relatively simple. Indie game devs tend to choose game styles that minimize the amount of time and work they need to invest. Look at Limbo for example, which uses silhouettes — rather than detailed sprites — and an eerie, music-less soundscape. Decisions like this not only help to set a game apart, but also allow the developers to cut down on man-hours. Puzzle games and endless runners that let you build a simple game loop that can be played ad-infinitum take this concept even further! Set out to make the next PUBG and you’re looking at years of development for a large team. Start with something small as a way to learn, and you’ll be able to start building a fan base and gaining experience. You can also attempt a bigger project in future, once you’ve gained some momentum! Write down some ideas: What genre will this be? What is the hook to set it apart? What is your elevator pitch? What will the graphical style be? What tool will you use to make the graphics? What about sound? How will you create/acquire music tracks and sound effects? For a few tips, check out this post on level design in Android Games . Or why not spend a little time browsing other games in the Play Store for inspiration? How to make an Android game with Android Studio – and why you shouldn’t try. Once you know what you want to make, you need to decide how to make it. There are a few different options depending on your skill level and the nature of the project. The “traditional route” as it were, is to make an Android game using Android Studio. Android Studio is the official tool for Android development, which comes directly from Google and supports a huge range of projects. To use Android Studio, you will need to learn either Java or Kotlin – the two officially supported languages. Either way, you’ll also need to download the JDK (Java Development Kit), and familiarize yourself with the Android SDK (software development kit), and probably a little XML. The SDK is a set of libraries and tools from Google that allows Java to interface with the Android OS, and that helps Android Studio to turn your code into a working APK file. Android Studio will provide the interface where you’ll type all of this — what’s known as an IDE or “integrated development environment.” It’s a lot to learn, and if you want to make a platform game or something else graphically intensive, you’ll have a lot you need to create from the ground up. This tutorial will provide you with a starting point and show you how to set up a canvas and a thread to handle the graphics. Theoretically, it would be possible to make a 3D game this way too. In this case, you would use the OpenGL or Vulkan APIs to achieve hardware-accelerated graphics. For a simple puzzle game, Android Studio is an option. For anything more complex there are much easier methods. Not even “professional” devs go with Android Studio for game development, and complete beginners face an uphill struggle in terms of the learning curve for even simple games. Unity and Unreal – the smarter choices! For the reasons stated above, savvy devs typically opt for either Unity or Unreal when it developing a game. These tools combine an IDE with a game engine. In other words, they provide an interface for you to handle code, and offer a lot of ready-made physics and behavior to mess around with. Instead of needing to program how something falls through the air for instance, Unreal or Unity will simply let you tick a box saying “gravity” and it will be handled for you. Moreover, adding graphics to these tools is as easy as dragging and dropping them into your scene! These tools make it so easy, you can theoretically make an Android game in a very short span of time (even seven minutes!). Even creating VR apps is supported. You’ll need a little code in both cases. Unity uses C#, which is similar to Java, but you can get by knowing very little. Unreal uses C++, but also gives you the option to use a kind of flow chart instead of actual script. Although Unity and Unreal use the Android SDK (meaning you still need to download it), they handle it in the background. Both these tools are free, and they’re customizable enough that you can pretty much make whatever you want. They’re also cross-platform, meaning you can easily port your game to other platforms like iOS, PC, or even Xbox One and PS4! Unity is preferred by most professional devs on the Play Store, so there’s really no limit here in terms of what you can achieve. As to which is superior — Unity or Unreal — that depends on who you ask. To cut a long story short, Unity is slightly easier to use and better suited to mobile and 2D games in particular. Unreal is capable of slightly superior 3D graphics, though this is more likely to affect PC and console development. Game builders – the easy way out. If you really want to keep your coding to an absolute minimum when you make an Android game, you might prefer a game “builder.” These tools let you build games by dragging and dropping various different elements into place, and potentially doing just the smallest amount of coding. GameMaker: Studio is one such tool and it’s simpler than even Unity or Unreal 4, relying on a watered-down code called GML or “GameMaker Language” for basic scripts. While it’s not free, it won’t cost much for a basic license. While GameMaker: Studio has been used to build some commercially successful titles, devs might encounter some performance bottlenecks and limitations in what can be accomplished. Other GameMakers will limit your options further, forcing you to adhere to templates, or use generic predefined graphics. I think it’s better to stick with Unity for most Android game projects. The only exceptions are if you want to learn Android Studio with a basic puzzle game project, or you want to make something cross-platform with top-tier graphics via Unreal 4. Starting your project. After familiarizing yourself with whichever set of tools you plan on using, the next step is to start your new project. Staring at that blank screen for the first time can be rather daunting, but if you keep things simple you can start seeing results pretty early on. Most games require a basic set of mechanics and rules first, so start by designing your game’s feel (how fast does the main character move, what are their skills?). During this stage you will likely use placeholder graphics and probably a kind of “sandbox” level for experimentation. Once you have a playable game in place, the next steps will be to design levels and implement your graphics and resources. Level design is a lot of fun, but play test things vigorously with friends and relatives. Remember: that hard doesn’t always equal fun! Make sure there are some easy levels early on to help your players learn the mechanics. Creating graphics and sound can likewise be a lot of fun, but also time consuming and challenging. If you have skills in art and graphic design, you may wish to handle this yourself and dedicate some time to it. If not, you’ll probably be better off using another designer. You could ask a friend to handle graphics for you, or even outsource the process using sites like 99Designs or Fiverr. This is also a good way to get graphics for your store listing and promotion. Once the graphics and levels are in place, all that’s left is to create some kind of interface. You’ll need a title screen, a menu, a way to save your progress, and so on. The great thing about deciding to make an Android game is you can keep on updating your project even once it goes live. Don’t be a perfectionist and put off releasing the game. Get it out the door early, and improve on it if it finds an audience. Build your first basic Android game in just 7 minutes (with Unity) Making a fully working game for Android is much easier than you might think. The key to successful Android development— or any kind of development— is to know what you want to achieve and find the necessary tools and skills to do it. Take the path of least resistance and have a clear goal in mind. When it comes to creating games, the best tool in my opinion is Unity. Yes, you can make a game in Android Studio, but unless you’re experienced with Java and the Android SDK it will be an uphill struggle. You’ll need to understand what classes do. You’ll need to use custom views. You’ll be relying on some additional libraries. The list goes on. Unity on the other hand does most of the work for you. This is a game engine, meaning that all the physics and many of the other features you might want to use are already taken care of. It’s cross platform and it’s designed to be very beginner-friendly for hobbyists and indie developers. At the same time, Unity is a highly professional tool that powers the vast majority of the biggest selling titles on the Play Store. There are no limitations here and no good reason to make life harder for yourself. It’s free, too! To demonstrate just how easy game development with Unity is, I’m going to show you how to make your first Android game in just 7 minutes. No – I’m not going to explain how to do it in 7 minutes. I’m going to do it in 7 minutes. If you follow along too, you’ll be able to do the precise same thing! Disclaimer : before we get started, I just want to point out that I’m slightly cheating. While the process of making the game will take 7 minutes, that presumes you’ve already installed Unity and gotten everything set up. But I won’t leave you hanging: you can find a full tutorial on how to do that over at Android Authority. Adding sprites and physics. Start by double clicking on Unity to launch it. Even the longest journey starts with a single step. Now create a new project and make sure you choose ‘2D’. Once you’re in, you’ll be greeted with a few different windows. These do stuff. We don’t have time to explain, so just follow my directions and you’ll pick it up as we go. The first thing you’ll want to do is to create a sprite to be your character. The easiest way to do that is to draw a square. We’re going to give it a couple of eyes. If you want to be even faster still, you can just grab a sprite you like from somewhere. Save this sprite and then just drag and drop it into your ‘scene’ by placing it in the biggest window. You’ll notice that it also pops up on the left in the ‘hierarchy’. Now we want to create some platforms. Again, we’re going to make do with a simple square and we’ll be able to resize this freehand to make walls, platforms and what have you. There we go, beautiful. Drop it in the same way you just did. We already have something that looks like a ‘game’. Click play and you should see a static scene for now. We can change that by clicking on our player sprite and looking over to the right to the window called the ‘inspector’. This is where we change properties for our GameObjects. Choose ‘Add Component’ and then choose ‘Physics 2D > RigidBody2D’. You’ve just added physics to your player! This would be incredibly difficult for us to do on our own and really highlights the usefulness of Unity. We also want to fix our orientation to prevent the character spinning and freewheeling around. Find ‘constraints’ in the inspector with the player selected and tick the box to freeze rotation Z. Now click play again and you should find your player now drops from the sky to his infinite doom. Take a moment to reflect on just how easy this was: simply by applying this script called ‘RigidBody2D’ we have fully functional physics. Were we to apply the same script to a round shape, it would also roll and even bounce. Imagine coding that yourself and how involved that would be! To stop our character falling through the floor, you’ll need to add a collider. This is basically the solid outline of a shape. To apply that, choose your player, click ‘Add Component’ and this time select ‘Physics 2D > BoxCollider2D’. Do the precise same thing with the platform, click play and then your character should drop onto the solid ground. Easy! One more thing: to make sure that the camera follows our player whether they’re falling or moving, we want to drag the camera object that’s in the scene (this was created when you started the new project) on top of the player. Now in the hierarchy (the list of GameObjects on the left) you’re going to drag the camera so that it is indented underneath the player. The camera is now a ‘child’ of the Player GameObject, meaning that when the player moves, so too will the camera. Your first script. We’re going to make a basic infinite runner and that means our character should move right across the screen until they hit an obstacle. For that, we need a script. So right click in the Assets folder down the bottom and create a new folder called ‘Scripts’. Now right click again and choose ‘Create > C# Script’. Call it ‘PlayerControls’. For the most part the scripts we create will define specific behaviors for our GameObjects. Now double click on your new script and it will open up in Visual Studio if you set everything up correctly. There’s already some code here, which is ‘boiler plate code’. That means that it’s code that you will need to use in nearly every script, so its ready-populated for you to save time. Now we’ll add a new object with this line above void Start(): Then place this next line of code within the Start() method to find the rigidbody. This basically tells Unity to locate the physics attached to the GameObject that this script will be associated with (our player of course). Start() is a method that is executed as soon as a new object or script is created. Locate the physics object: Add this inside Update(): Update() refreshes repeatedly and so any code in here will run over and over again until the object is destroyed. This all says that we want our rigidbody to have a new vector with the same speed on the y axis (rb.velocity.y) but with the speed of ‘3’ on the horizontal axis. As you progress, you’ll probably use ‘FixedUpdate()’ in future. Save that and go back to Unity. Click your player character and then in the inspector select Add Component > Scripts and then your new script. Click play, and boom! Your character should now move towards the edge of the ledge like a lemming. Note: If any of this sounds confusing, just watch the video to see it all being done – it’ll help! Very basic player input. If we want to add a jump feature, we can do this very simply with just one additional bit of code: This goes inside the Update method and it says that ‘if the player clicks’ then add velocity on the y axis (with the value 5). When we use if, anything that follows inside the brackets is used as a kind of true or false test. If the logic inside said brackets is true, then the code in the following curly brackets will run. In this case, if the player clicks the mouse, the velocity is added. Android reads the left mouse click as tapping anywhere on the screen! So now your game has basic tap controls. Finding your footing. This is basically enough to make a Flappy Birds clone. Throw in some obstacles and learn how to destroy the player when it touches them. Add a score on top of that. But we have a little more time so we can get more ambitious and make an infinite runner type game instead. The only thing wrong with what we have at the moment is that tapping jump will jump even when the player isn’t touching the floor, so it can essentially fly. Remedying this gets a little more complex but this is about as hard as Unity gets. If you get this down, no challenge will be too great in future. Add the following code to your script above the Update() method: Add this line to the Update method above the if statement: Finally, change the following line so that it includes && onGround: The entire thing should look like this: What we’re doing here is creating a new transform – a position in space – then we’re setting its radius and asking if it is overlapping a layer called ground. We’re then changing the value of the Boolean (which can be true or false) depending on whether or not that’s the case. So, onGround is true if the transform called groundCheck is overlapping the layer ground. If you click save and then head back to Unity, you should now see that you have more options available in your inspector when you select the player. These public variables can be seen from within Unity itself and that means that we can set them however we like. Right-click in the hierarchy over on the left to create a new empty object and then drag it so that it’s just underneath the player in the Scene window where you want to detect the floor. Rename the object ‘Check Ground’ and then make it a child of the player just as you did with the camera. Now it should follow the player, checking the floor underneath as it does. Select the player again and, in the inspector, drag the new Check Ground object into the space where it says ‘groundCheck’. The ‘transform’ (position) is now going to be equal to the position of the new object. While you’re here, enter 0.1 where it says radius. Finally, we need to define our ‘ground’ layer. To do this, select the terrain you created earlier, then up in the top right in the inspector, find where it says ‘Layer: Default’. Click this drop down box and choose ‘Add Layer’. Now click back and this time select ‘ground’ as the layer for your platform (repeat this for any other platforms you have floating around). Finally, where it says ‘What is Ground’ on your player, select the ground layer as well. You’re now telling your player script to check if the small point on the screen is overlapping anything matching that layer. Thanks to that line we added earlier, the character will now only jump when that is the case. With that, if you hit play you can enjoy a pretty basic game requiring you to click to jump at the right time. If you set your Unity up properly with the Android SDK, then you should be able to build and run this and then play on your smartphone by tapping the screen to jump. The road ahead. Obviously there’s a lot more to add to make this a full game. The player should to be able to die and respawn. We’d want to add extra levels and more. My aim here was to show you how quickly you can get something basic up and running. Following these instructions, you should have been able to build your infinite runner in no time simply by letting Unity handle the hard stuff, like physics. If you know what you want to build and do your research, you don’t need to be a coding wizard to create a decent game!