To fix a problem, Unity has now become one of the leading game development engines mainly due to the strong base of source code and templates it provides, which can reduce the development cycle. Statistically, numerous prosperous software applications have been constructed using Unity source codes, showing that developers can design prosperous commercial items by utilizing the whole corporation of available supply materials.
In the following section of this article, I will discuss several successful games that were developed using Unity source codes to give my audience an idea of how the developers used them.
1. Hollow Knight: Leveraging 2D Platformer Templates
Game Overview: Hollow Knight is an indie action-adventure game that has received excellent reviews from the players, though it was developed by the team Cherry. The game is a large connected world with good platforming mechanics, and the art style and fans of the game can testify to that.
Source Code Utilization: While Hollow Knight is a game that is rarely spoken of in terms of similarities to other titles, to start with, the creators used ready-made templates for 2D platformers in Unity. By starting with a basic platformer template, the team could put more effort into the game’s inherent design elements, such as combat, exploration, and art style. A template was a player movement and physics that the team used to create the basic structure of their game, which was then refined to fit the needs of their game.
Key Takeaway: Adopting this platformer template was beneficial to classifying the core mechanics of Yarns shortly; this would allow extra hours of refinement for Team Cherry. It is precious for teams with limited people or indie developers because it helps to plan resource usage.
2. Crossy Road: Building on Endless Runner Frameworks
Game Overview: One of the year’s games is Crossy Road, designed by Hipster Whale, in which users have to rely on infinite obstacles. It is widely popular for minimalism, voxel art design, and numerous creative revenue-generating methods.
Source Code Utilization: Crossy Road was developed based on endless running templates that exist in Unity. There are countless runners on the market available in the mobile gaming store. Unity has multiple frameworks available for the genre’s foundation, including but not limited to the generation of levels, obstacle placement, and characters’ controls. This design used one of the frameworks mentioned above, and Hipster Whale added their own touch with the “cross the road,” more types of road, and many different types of characters.
Key Takeaway: Instead of reinventing a new endless runner from scratch, the team at Hipster Whale could concentrate on exactly what set their game apart—the cuteness, the jokes, the clever integration of Google Play ads, and in-app purchases. This case demonstrates that source codes can be used as a foundation and build something new and interesting from the ground up.
3. Monument Valley: Enhancing Puzzle Mechanics
Game Overview: Monument Valley is an essential mobile game designed by Ustwo Games since it is an innovation packed with optical illusions and an impossible architecture game. The game is well acclaimed due to its original ideas, aesthetically pleasant look, and tranquil environment.
Source Code Utilization: Unity has a 3D component that was employed alongside templates from the puzzle games, resulting in Monument Valley’s creation. Here are some basic building blocks, such as grid movement, object manipulation, and camera system, which were very personal in the game’s crafting levels. Ustwo Games then took these basic ideas and added shift-changing mechanics based on the artworks of M.C. Escher.
Key Takeaway: Ustwo Games shows a great example of how starting with a puzzle template helps to concentrate on the core aspect of the game mechanic and art, as well as level design. This is perfect for developers who wish to mess with a particular genre.
4. Alto’s Adventure: Aim At Using Procedural Generation
Game Overview: There is a lot to say about the poster called Alto’s Adventure made by Snowman, it is a beautiful and collecting calm endless runner where one has to control a snowboarder that moves around procedurally generated world. The game has been acclaimed for its engrossing art, interestingly realized weather, and particularly simple and laid-back feel.
Source Code Utilization: Alto’s Adventure is created using a procedural generation framework under Unity by Snowman. It contained all the required instruments for creating an infinite number of terrains, commanding character physic properties, and incorporating advanced weather systems. One of the procedures that the team paid a lot of attention to was the qualification of the procedural generation aspect to make every play unique; the graphics and sound were also fine-tuned to suit the game.
Key Takeaway: For this reason, using procedural generation frameworks in Unity can be a priceless weapon when designing games that give a virtually limitless number of playthroughs. Therefore, by paying attention to the quality and variations in the generated content, the developers make it possible to develop qualitative and highly involved games.
5. Reigns: Adapting Card-Based Mechanics
Game Overview: Reigns, created by Nerial, is a combination of strategy and dating card game interfaces, where the player only swipes left or right in the cards, as on the popular online dating platforms. They lead to various outcomes, regarding a kingdom and its inhabitants, perhaps due to this chain of decisions.
Source Code Utilization: The creators of Reigns chose the card game as the primary concept for their project More. For card-based games, Unity has the option for shuffling, dealing, and playing cards, and they have several templates as well. Nerial simply applied these basic mechanics to their narrative-play approach, where each card is a decision that has a possible choice and high stakes.
Key Takeaway: Reigns demonstrates that a card game model can drastically alter depending on a specific theme and functioning mechanism. This is a good case to illustrate how source codes can be reused by developers to implement exciting new games.
6. Subway Surfers: Scaling a Mobile Game with Source Codes
Game Overview: Franchised by the Kiloo and SYBO Games, Subway Surfers is one of the most downloaded games on mobile devices. The most popular example is an endless runner that sees players racing across subway maps, ramping across tracks, dodging objects en masse, and picking up coins.
Source Code Utilization: The game form of Subway Surfers was developed through Unity’s endless runner template, just like Crossy Road. The developers actively used the readiness of mechanics of action of the main characters, creating obstacles and coins, typical for the genre of endless Runners. They then incorporated their features and developed others like the unique setting mode, the richness of the graphics used, and the constant update of the game’s content to keep the players hooked on the sites for years.
Key Takeaway: Developing games such as Subway Surfers is no exception to properly utilizing source codes in development. The challenges do not stop here; to score the product, there is a need to have customized features and, more so, constantly update the content offered to the game’s consumers.
7. Firewatch: Organizing the Use of First-Person Narrative Templates
Game Overview: Aforementioned, Campo Santo US based studio has created Firewatch a first person narrative adventure set in the wilderness of Wyoming. The greatest features that were mentioned about the game include the good story, characters, and environments.
Source Code Utilization: Firewatch worked with the first-person narrative template using Unity. This template gave me the fundamental functioning in the player movement, camera controls, and, most importantly, player interaction with the environment, which are core functionalities needed for an FPS. Only after that Campo Santo started to flesh out the story, build the environments, and define how the incident and characters in the game would progress in the narrative.
Key Takeaway: Firewatch explains that following the template can help a team preserve their focus on the aspects that can easily impact the player’s emotions – the story and the environment.
