Game Dev Digest — Issue #272 - Guides, Tutorials, UI and more

Issue #272 - Guides, Tutorials, UI and more This article was originally published on GameDevDigest.com Happy friday everyone. Enjoy! Unity: The Facade Pattern - The facade design pattern is used for hiding complexity behind simple interfaces. This article will walk through how we can use this pattern an a practical example, built in Unity 6. We will also see how we can use the pattern to decouple subsystems allowing for better, more maintainable code. Michael Quinn I analyzed 861 Steam capsules (Top 100 games from 9 popular genres) using ML - To dig into this, I analyzed 861 games across multiple genres, combining color theory, composition analysis, and text placement detection to better understand patterns that could help making better capsules. Here’s a breakdown of the process and some key findings. [See also steamcapsule.com] reddit Terrain Rendering - One of the major topics of developing an open world game is the terrain. It is the foundation on which all the beautiful details of the world are placed. Bending Time Height maps in top-down pixel art - For the 'engine' i developed for my game, i am using heightmaps on my pixel art to achieve various cool effects like dynamic water height, overlapping geometry, decals, 3D lighting and even the scene's z-sorting. rdotcdot.de Introducing SpacetimeDB 1.0 - What initially started as crude dream to improve the development process for a social media app, and became the inspiration for a completely new way of developing multiplayer games when we began working on our MMORPG, BitCraft Online, has culminated in a production ready, real-time, relational database sync engines for games and multiplayer applications. [Also check out Unity Tutorial – Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) Game with SpacetimeDB ] spacetimedb.com Naive GI: A Foundation - So we're going to build up our repertoire and knowledge and first build "naive" global illumination. Next time, we'll effectively get the same end result, but much higher resolution and much more efficient. jason.today Reverse Engineering Call Of Duty Anti-Cheat - I’ve finally decided to share my research regarding the user-mode anti-cheat inside the game] ssno.cc Mechdex - On February 25th, 2025, Mark Brown from Game Maker's Toolkit uploaded the following video in which he briefly displays a hypothetical "periodic table of game mechanics". The idea was really cool, and I saw some others who thought the same. I had a rudimentary idea on how to build it, so I tried. mechdex.github.io Videos Mastering Game Development - The Power of the 3Cs in Games - In this video, I dive deep into the concept of the 3Cs – Character, Camera, and Controls – and how these elements can transform a game from feeling static and disconnected to being immersive and thrilling. I'll discuss the critical role that the 3Cs play in game development, the common obstacles developers face, and share some tips to achieve perfect synergy among these elements. I'll also highlight examples from popular games and offer valuable insights for aspiring game developers and enthusiasts. Tune in to learn how to elevate your game's feel and player experience. Harvey Newman The Essential Game Dev Math (Get 80% Better in 20% the Time) - The Pareto principle also known as the 80/20 rule states that 80% of effects come from 20% of the causes and this is the goal of this video. It is to give you an overview of the essential math concepts that matter the most in game development AmrMakesGames How to Fund Your Game ft. Dino Patti, EX-CEO and Co-Founder of Playdead - GDC is around the corner, come learn about funding options, publisher relations and how to approach pitching your game with industry vet Dino Patti (Ex-CEO and Co-Founder of PLAYDEAD (LIMBO & INSIDE)). Join the stream live to ask your own questions and connect with others in the industry! Unity Unity Scriptable Objects Tutorial: Organize Your Game Data Like a Pro - Discover how ScriptableObjects can transform your Unity 6 workflow and save hours of development time! This tutorial shows you how to implement ScriptableObjects in Unity 6 to manage game data efficiently, prevent tedious prefab updates, and create more maintainable projects. Fist Full of Shrimp Create Powerful UI with UI Toolkit in Unity World Space - World Space UI is a powerful way to display interactive elements in a 3D scene, and in this video, we explore how to create it using UI Toolkit in Unity. We demonstrate a practical implementation with a Damage Numbers spawner, building a reusable WorldSpaceUIDocument class that renders UI Toolkit elements onto a RenderTexture. git-amend Shader Graph: UGUI Shaders Sample - The Shader Graph team is excited to announce the release of our newest set of samples - UGUI Shaders - available to import now in Unity 6. This set of samples contains over a dozen user interface widgets, buttons, and backgrounds - all generated procedurally using Shader Graph. Unity

Mar 7, 2025 - 16:09

Issue #272 - Guides, Tutorials, UI and more

This article was originally published on GameDevDigest.com

Happy friday everyone. Enjoy!

Unity: The Facade Pattern - The facade design pattern is used for hiding complexity behind simple interfaces. This article will walk through how we can use this pattern an a practical example, built in Unity 6. We will also see how we can use the pattern to decouple subsystems allowing for better, more maintainable code.
Michael Quinn

I analyzed 861 Steam capsules (Top 100 games from 9 popular genres) using ML - To dig into this, I analyzed 861 games across multiple genres, combining color theory, composition analysis, and text placement detection to better understand patterns that could help making better capsules. Here’s a breakdown of the process and some key findings. [See also steamcapsule.com]
reddit

Terrain Rendering - One of the major topics of developing an open world game is the terrain. It is the foundation on which all the beautiful details of the world are placed.
Bending Time

Height maps in top-down pixel art - For the 'engine' i developed for my game, i am using heightmaps on my pixel art to achieve various cool effects like dynamic water height, overlapping geometry, decals, 3D lighting and even the scene's z-sorting.
rdotcdot.de

Introducing SpacetimeDB 1.0 - What initially started as crude dream to improve the development process for a social media app, and became the inspiration for a completely new way of developing multiplayer games when we began working on our MMORPG, BitCraft Online, has culminated in a production ready, real-time, relational database sync engines for games and multiplayer applications. [Also check out Unity Tutorial – Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) Game with SpacetimeDB ]
spacetimedb.com

Naive GI: A Foundation - So we're going to build up our repertoire and knowledge and first build "naive" global illumination. Next time, we'll effectively get the same end result, but much higher resolution and much more efficient.
jason.today

Reverse Engineering Call Of Duty Anti-Cheat - I’ve finally decided to share my research regarding the user-mode anti-cheat inside the game]
ssno.cc

Mechdex - On February 25th, 2025, Mark Brown from Game Maker's Toolkit uploaded the following video in which he briefly displays a hypothetical "periodic table of game mechanics". The idea was really cool, and I saw some others who thought the same. I had a rudimentary idea on how to build it, so I tried.
mechdex.github.io

Videos

Mastering Game Development - The Power of the 3Cs in Games - In this video, I dive deep into the concept of the 3Cs – Character, Camera, and Controls – and how these elements can transform a game from feeling static and disconnected to being immersive and thrilling. I'll discuss the critical role that the 3Cs play in game development, the common obstacles developers face, and share some tips to achieve perfect synergy among these elements. I'll also highlight examples from popular games and offer valuable insights for aspiring game developers and enthusiasts. Tune in to learn how to elevate your game's feel and player experience.
Harvey Newman

The Essential Game Dev Math (Get 80% Better in 20% the Time) - The Pareto principle also known as the 80/20 rule states that 80% of effects come from 20% of the causes and this is the goal of this video. It is to give you an overview of the essential math concepts that matter the most in game development
AmrMakesGames

How to Fund Your Game ft. Dino Patti, EX-CEO and Co-Founder of Playdead - GDC is around the corner, come learn about funding options, publisher relations and how to approach pitching your game with industry vet Dino Patti (Ex-CEO and Co-Founder of PLAYDEAD (LIMBO & INSIDE)). Join the stream live to ask your own questions and connect with others in the industry!
Unity

Unity Scriptable Objects Tutorial: Organize Your Game Data Like a Pro - Discover how ScriptableObjects can transform your Unity 6 workflow and save hours of development time! This tutorial shows you how to implement ScriptableObjects in Unity 6 to manage game data efficiently, prevent tedious prefab updates, and create more maintainable projects.
Fist Full of Shrimp

Create Powerful UI with UI Toolkit in Unity World Space - World Space UI is a powerful way to display interactive elements in a 3D scene, and in this video, we explore how to create it using UI Toolkit in Unity. We demonstrate a practical implementation with a Damage Numbers spawner, building a reusable WorldSpaceUIDocument class that renders UI Toolkit elements onto a RenderTexture.
git-amend

Shader Graph: UGUI Shaders Sample - The Shader Graph team is excited to announce the release of our newest set of samples - UGUI Shaders - available to import now in Unity 6. This set of samples contains over a dozen user interface widgets, buttons, and backgrounds - all generated procedurally using Shader Graph.
Unity

Steam Next Fest Feb 2025 Wrap-up - Welcome to the wrap up for Steam Next Fest
How To Market A Game

So, you want to be a game designer - A lot of people don't actually know what a game designer does, and I relate to that. I did not know what a game designer was until midway through my interview to become a designer at Halfbrick Studios. So how did this happen?
Luke Muscat

Trim Textures for Games | Save Time and Improve FPS - Join Senior Environment Artist Julio as he explores texture trim usage in AAA game development. Focusing on large-scale sci-fi environments, he shares advanced techniques that save time and improve FPS performance. Get a behind-the-scenes look at the planning and execution of efficient environment design with expert tips and tricks!
3DBrushwork

Assets

The Best of Synty Game Dev Assets #4 Bundle - Turbo charge your game dev skills.

Game developers, build amazing worlds with this bundle of Synty polygon assets and more! Bring your projects to life quicker and make your dream game a reality while supporting a great cause. Synty assets are fully customisable and easy to use, making them accessible for game developers of all levels. Compatible with Unity and Unreal game engines—this high-quality collection features environments, characters, meshes, models, animations, and more for use. These Synty game dev assets are sure to inspire beginners and seasoned developers alike!
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95% off: Fantasy, Reality, Beyond: Triple Mega Bundle Sale
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Becoming a C# And Unity Game Developer - Software Bundle - A+ courses to master C# and more. Become a C# and Unity game developer with our latest super bundle by Packt! Our comprehensive collection will help you level up your skills in game creation, with hot course like Build an Endless Runner Game in 3D - Unity 6 Compatible and Create Minecraft-Inspired Voxel Worlds - Unity 6 Compatible. This 15+ course bundle will give you the knowledge you seek to begin an exciting new career.
Take your passion for gaming to a new frontier and help support Alzheimer’s Research UK with your purchase
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UnityEventBus - Generic Unity event system (event bus pattern)
NullTale Open Source

UnityEventReferenceViewer - Simple tool for finding UnityEvent references to behaviour methods in scene
recstazy Open Source

scene-loader - Enhance your scene loading experience with Unity.
mygamedevtools Open Source

Unity-Utils - Extension Methods and Utils for Unity Game Dev
adammyhre Open Source

Unity-GrassAndFur - A comprehensive solution for rendering grass and fur in Unity Engine
Propagant Open Source

UnityMultiplayerARPG_AimAtCursorController - This controller was made for 3D and 2D games, character will aimming to cursor.
suriyun-mmorpg Open Source

Serializable-Dictionary-Unity - Create a serializable dictionary in Unity with all necessary error detections
EduardMalkhasyan Open Source

Cigen - A procedural city generator built for Unity.
gregoryneal Open Source

TsukiSuite - A toolsuite created to make Unity development easier
LunariStudios Open Source

Mesh-Toolkit-Unity - With the Mesh Toolkit package you can use your 3D world-building skills to create fully customized multi-user 3D experiences.
microsoft Open Source

vertexform3d-unity-vr-starterkit - Open Source unity vr multiplayer framework
Vertex-Form-3D Open Source

UnityURP-RadianceCascades2DGI - A 2D implementation of Radiance Cascades in Unity URP
Youssef-Afella Open Source

Event Systems - I talk about how event systems work and why you might want to use them in your RPGs.
Timothy Cain

KrasCore-Mosaic - Mosaic is a Next Gen Runtime Unity ECS Tilemap solution, heavily inspired by LDtk, built using Entity Component System and Odin Inspector
Fire-Aalt Open Source

Shop up to 50% off Léo Chaumartin - Léo Chaumartin is an independent video game tools developer, specializing in mesh optimization and technical art in Unity. His tools are widely used for their unmatched versatility, short learning curve and friendly interfaces. PLUS get Seamless - Shader Graph Extension for FREE with code LEOCHAUMARTIN
Unity Affiliate

XmlStorage - Saving data and Loading data into an XML File
a3geek Open Source

GeoJsonCityBuilder - Unity Package to recreate a 3D-city from a specially crafted geojson file.
ElmarJ Open Source

UIEffect - UIEffect is an open-source package that allows you to intuitively apply rich UI effects directly from the Inspector or via code. Combine various filters, such as grayscale, blur, and dissolve, to decorate your UI with a unique visual style!
mob-sakai Open Source

BlackHole_Urp - Blackhole rendering in Unity Universial Render Pipeline
Reach036 Open Source

unity-camera-multi-target - Unity library to dynamically keep multiple objects in camera view
lopespm Open Source

unity-raytracing - Raytracing by compute shader in unity
airliang Open Source

The Ultimate Game Dev Music Bundle - The sweet sounds of our latest bundle. The right soundtrack will elevate your prized project to new heights. Create the perfect audioscape for your game with The Ultimate Game Dev Music Bundle. This 50+ asset bundle features slick samurai music, scary slasher sounds, and others like Paranormal Evening, Beyond the Horizon, and The Invincibles. Don’t short your game’s soundtrack—get the ultimate collection of assets you need to achieve the sound you’re looking for, and help support Make-A-Wish with your purchase!
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Computer Science The Fun Way - Book Bundle - Master computer science the fun way. Learn the skills and knowledge you need to succeed when you take on computer science the fun way. Our latest bundle by No Starch features 15+ books with expert insights on the foundational and advanced skills you need to start a new career in computer science. Standout books like Graph Algorithms the Fun Way and Data Structures the Fun Way will help deepen your understanding whether you’re a novice or seasoned professional. Plus, your purchase helps support the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
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All-In-One VR Game Dev Bundle - Unity, Unreal, Godot + 1001 Assets - Game development in a new dimension Opportunities like this don’t come often! Learn how to create your own VR games with this bundle of courses from Mammoth Interactive! This comprehensive curriculum will help you level up your skills in VR game development, with Humble Bundle exclusives like Godot 4 VR Development with WebXR and VR Unreal 5.5 Game Development Bootcamp. This 30+ course bundle will give you the expert advice and knowledge you seek. Create in a new dimension and help support Children's Miracle Network with your purchase!
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Spotlight

Poltergeist Prodigy - You are a new ghost, and to continue existing and uncover how you died you must haunt the living. Delight in being a mischievous ghost in this first person haunter.

[You can get the demo on Steam]
Greg Giddens

My game, Call Of Dookie. Demo available on Steam

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