Creating An Android Java Plugin For Unity3D

Unity3D offers a ton of great features for Android projects, but often there are gaps that must be filled with plugins.

Let’s take the example of Toast popups for Android. In your game you might like to show a popup message that explains an error, or states that you are signed in to a server.

Monetize with Chartboost

I’ve recently switched from using Admob in my games to Chartboost. This switch made sense because most of the ads that were filling with Admob were not relevant to gaming. For example, many of the ads Turbo Prop was receiving were dating and real-estate related. This resulted in very poor eCPM.

The following is a great (and quick) way to get Chartboost ads for iOS and Android in your Unity3D 4.3+ game.

Floppy Clone Released

With the intention of writing a tutorial, I’ve gone ahead and created a Flappy Bird clone in Unity3D and named it Floppy Clone. The source code and all assets to this project can be found on GitHub.

Toggle Unity3D Sprites On Click

When creating a game there is often the need to create a toggle. An obvious example might be for a volume controller. Click the sprite to turn the volume on, and click the same sprite to turn the volume off.

The best way to accomplish this task is to create a sprite game object that has a script with two public sprite variables. In the Unity editor add one sprite that will represent the on toggle position and another sprite that will represent the off toggle position.

Seven Day Turbo Prop Stats

It has been exactly seven days since Turbo Prop for Android, iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, and Amazon Kindle Fire went live. This is a status update in regards to downloads as well as ad earnings for my first Unity3D game.

Google Admob with Unity3D

Monetization is desired by game developers and standard app developers alike. For the developers that would like to keep their work free to download, in app advertising is often a good choice. Admob by Google is convenient for ads because it is compatible with iOS and Android without changes to the Unity3D project.

Object Pooling For Efficiency

When it comes to computing, not all devices are created equal. An action intense game that runs at 500 frames per second on a computer may only run at 12 frames per second on a mobile device. To maximize your frame rate across all platforms it is very important to use your game resources efficiently.

One of the best things you can do for your game is to use object pooling. This conserves resources by recycling a pre-defined set of objects rather than dynamically creating and destroying them as necessary.