Create Flappy Game Mechanics with Unity & PlayMaker

Course details

Update Jan. 27th: info and link to non-commercial version of PlayMaker added.

Update Feb. 1st: A new chapter was added on re-creating Breakout. Have fun with it! Course was extended to more than twice the size.

This course is a gentle introduction to small interactive games like Flappy Birds or other classics. Instead of making a clone, we will only go through the game mechanics: flapping or jumping, gravity and collisions, using Unity Physics.

The graphics will be deliberately crude: a white capsule and a few boxes. There are no textures, sprites, sounds or particle effects. We encourage you to make something of your own.

You'll need to know the basics of Unity: creating GameObjects, navigating the 3D Window and adjusting components. We'll use the popular Playmaker extension from the Asset store, which is a visual coding system, providing a Finite State Machine implementation, requiring no custom scripting. We go through every step from scratch, although the final result can be downloaded as a package for you to study.

If you need help in setting up PlayMaker, you can start with the bonus chapter in the end, which also points you to a free non-commercial version of PlayMaker, if you are an educational user, but the regular version has regular sales on the Unity Asset Store, so pay attention.

So if you want to add some interactivity and make something fun, but don't know where to start, this is a good opportunity. And please share your results and make something unique.