Games are everywhere. They're no longer niche nor esoteric and their pervasive, widening appeal is evident both in popular culture and the tools used to create them.
The 'gamification' buzz word has been appearing more and more in recent times but I believe there is greater opportunity to learn from the underlying methods of how games are put together rather than the morally dubious attempts to use principles of play to re-enforce wholly negative behaviour ( such as racking up debt or consuming copious amounts of unhealthy products ). Videogames by their very nature are the most highly interactive, complex and engaging of all applications created. They represent a high water mark for any kind of interactive medium. For any projects that have aspirations to use anything more than minimal interactivity, taking lessons from how game developers manage a complicated build process is essential. Now is a great time to learn since increasingly the programs used across industries are no longer exclusive to specific disciplines. This is particularly evident with the game development tool, Unity and its recently added feature that exports projects to Flash, making using of the new hardware accelerated 3D graphics in Adobe's web plugin. This pairing means high-end game development can now be deployed to target the common browser with production values matching that of a modern game console ( Providing the end user has a comparatively modern computer ). This essentially ups the ante for what web based applications are capable of. There has been a continued merging of tools thanks to the on-going information and technological revolutions, not to mention the heated competition between platforms like Flash and HTML5. Core technologies are converging to the point that the kits used to create websites have become the same languages and tools we use to build apps, games and other high-end interactive experiences. Any developer worth their salt has already broadened their skill set and with a little forethought projects can be deployed onto multiple platforms without having to start from scratch each time. However, despite having a rich set of options to create digital work, simply having a great set of features at our disposal isn't enough to create an exceptional, engaging experience. As an interactive application reaches a certain level of complexity it becomes essential to have a robust method and structure to manage it. The games industry have long understood this and as a result almost always use standardised sets of software and systems known as 'game engines'. These engines provide basics functionality used in most games from rendering and physics to sound and artificial intelligence. They rapidly speed up development allowing much more time for teams to spend on creative design rather than having to deal with common, fundamental technical difficulties. Unity is arguably one of the best 3D interactive editors available. It is a solid, professional game engine, provides a great authoring environment, it's well supported, hugely popular and has been delivering high quality games and applications to native mobile, desktop and console platform for years. Other game engines are available such as ImpactJS ( A HTML5 Game engine ) and as more emerge they should start to be embraced as an important part of digital workflow. Of course, in many cases adding a game engine and this level of complexity will be wholly unnecessary to simple sites and apps, but as demand for more sophisticated applications grows it makes sense future proof and prepare for the next level of complexity.
The 'gamification' buzz word has been appearing more and more in recent times but I believe there is greater opportunity to learn from the underlying methods of how games are put together rather than the morally dubious attempts to use principles of play to re-enforce wholly negative behaviour ( such as racking up debt or consuming copious amounts of unhealthy products ). Videogames by their very nature are the most highly interactive, complex and engaging of all applications created. They represent a high water mark for any kind of interactive medium. For any projects that have aspirations to use anything more than minimal interactivity, taking lessons from how game developers manage a complicated build process is essential. Now is a great time to learn since increasingly the programs used across industries are no longer exclusive to specific disciplines. This is particularly evident with the game development tool, Unity and its recently added feature that exports projects to Flash, making using of the new hardware accelerated 3D graphics in Adobe's web plugin. This pairing means high-end game development can now be deployed to target the common browser with production values matching that of a modern game console ( Providing the end user has a comparatively modern computer ). This essentially ups the ante for what web based applications are capable of. There has been a continued merging of tools thanks to the on-going information and technological revolutions, not to mention the heated competition between platforms like Flash and HTML5. Core technologies are converging to the point that the kits used to create websites have become the same languages and tools we use to build apps, games and other high-end interactive experiences. Any developer worth their salt has already broadened their skill set and with a little forethought projects can be deployed onto multiple platforms without having to start from scratch each time. However, despite having a rich set of options to create digital work, simply having a great set of features at our disposal isn't enough to create an exceptional, engaging experience. As an interactive application reaches a certain level of complexity it becomes essential to have a robust method and structure to manage it. The games industry have long understood this and as a result almost always use standardised sets of software and systems known as 'game engines'. These engines provide basics functionality used in most games from rendering and physics to sound and artificial intelligence. They rapidly speed up development allowing much more time for teams to spend on creative design rather than having to deal with common, fundamental technical difficulties. Unity is arguably one of the best 3D interactive editors available. It is a solid, professional game engine, provides a great authoring environment, it's well supported, hugely popular and has been delivering high quality games and applications to native mobile, desktop and console platform for years. Other game engines are available such as ImpactJS ( A HTML5 Game engine ) and as more emerge they should start to be embraced as an important part of digital workflow. Of course, in many cases adding a game engine and this level of complexity will be wholly unnecessary to simple sites and apps, but as demand for more sophisticated applications grows it makes sense future proof and prepare for the next level of complexity.
