
Unity 3D is free on Android and iOS until April 8th - njs12345
https://store.unity3d.com/index.html
======
itsboring
We've been using Unity for the past year to develop a couple of games and
we've had very good success with it so far.

The best part, for us, is the fact that it uses Mono as its scripting engine
(if you want to call C# scripting). This unlocks things like LINQ, iterator
coroutines, .NET sockets, etc. It also allows us to share code between client
and server. We can reference the same core DLL on both, as well as share game
logic between client (for offline play) and server (for multiplayer anti-
cheating).

We tend to do most of our development in VS, but we deploy to Linux servers
and will be deploying clients to web, iOS, android, and possibly steam. The
way we use the actual Unity editor, it ends up being just an asset pipeline on
steroids; but many other users use the drag-and-drop scene building features.

We've found Unity to play nice with git, especially with the 3.5 release which
lets you use a textual format for asset metadata. They were previously binary
making merges impossible.

In all, this offer is very worth checking out if you are interested in game
development.

~~~
buff-a
But of course, to be allowed textual format for asset metadata, you have to
buy the pro version. Or did they change that in 3.5?

~~~
itsboring
You do need pro to make scene files and stuff text, but the most important
thing for source control (the use of .meta files) can be enabled in the free
version now.

------
0x0
Note that you cannot use the non-pro version if your company has a turnover
above $100k/year.

~~~
epaga
...at which point the $1500 dollar version doesn't sound like a bad deal...

~~~
dangrossman
Lots of assumptions. If you happen to be be self-employed selling something
with a 3% margin and $100k gross revenues, then Unity+iOS+Android costs more
money than you made all year. Gross revenue tells you nothing about profits.

~~~
dugmartin
Its a pretty good assumption given the market. If you are selling software or
services at a 3% margin you have a bigger problem than license costs. You
might as well go open a grocery store.

~~~
wallflower
Yes, I remember a grocery store manager telling me if someone steals a pack of
cigarettes - that they have to sell about $200 in groceries to make up the
difference.

------
JoeH
I am currently in SF at the Game Developer Conference, and I have been using
Unity w/an iOS license for the last year for a side-project. The timing is
great for us, since we are just now working on re-deploying our project to
Android for testing.

If you have ever considered doing any type of game development, I would
strongly encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity.

Unity has allowed me to be immensely productive working relatively few hours a
week. Being able to prototype up a game idea in a few hours and experience
that on your mobile device is hugely powerful.

------
seclorum
Wow, this is truly amazing .. I'm currently running the sample app "AngryBots"
on my iPad, and I'm sold: I'll be upgrading to Unity3D with iOS and Android
PRO licenses as soon as I can.

Nice move, Unity Technologies! You've got a new convert!

~~~
wlesieutre
What were you using before?

~~~
seclorum
The Blender3D game engine, as well as hacking on my own 3D engine (mainly a
curio, nothing great) .. but Unity is just so much more productive. After an
afternoon spent on the Unity tutorials and hacking on AngryBots, I'm sold.

------
xymostech
I'd like to point out to anyone on the edge that they don't even take credit
card information, just an email and a physical address.

This seems like an amazing deal.

~~~
talmand
Yep, I was happy to see I didn't need to feed them a CC number to get it. I
may not use it but I snagged it anyway, you never know. It'll probably serve
it's purpose since I'm more inclined to fire it up to play with it.

Plus I'm contemplating getting RageSpline in the asset store as it's on sale
for 66% off to correspond with the module giveaway. That's a strong looking
tool for $25.

------
jasonlotito
Getting to the review order page, I get:

Temporarily Down for Maintenance You are seeing this message because the page
that you were trying to visit is down while we make some changes to our
servers. This is a temporary thing, and we hope to have things restored
quickly, so please check back in a few minutes.

~~~
rooster8
Looks like it's back up now.

------
soofaloofa
I recently bought an iOS Basic licence and got an e-mail from Unity stating
that I get 25% off my next purchase just because I missed this sale.

Great customer support!

------
brador
Is this a license/sub type of thing or an "I get it permanently for free" once
I've downloaded it once type of thing?

~~~
kranner
The latter, from what I understand.

------
acron0
This is totally legit. 100% free - for the 3.x releases. Can't recommend this
enough....especially as I just dropped £300 on an iOS licence a month back :E

------
Herald_MJ
What's the normal price?

~~~
kranner
$400 each for iOS Basic and Android Basic.

------
nextparadigms
How does Unity 3D compare to the Unreal Dev Kit?

~~~
colkassad
UDK is more friendly to large dev teams (collaboration and source control).
There was a great comment on reddit[1] by a professional developer on why this
was the case but sadly he has deleted his comment.

[1][http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/nua84/from_a_profes...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/nua84/from_a_professional_game_dev_point_of_view_why)

------
rainboiboi
Temporarily Down for Maintenance You are seeing this message because the page
that you were trying to visit is down while we make some changes to our
servers. This is a temporary thing, and we hope to have things restored
quickly, so please check back in a few minutes.

Thanks for your patience, The Unity Team

------
neovive
How does Unity compare to something like CoronaSDK for 2D games? Unity clearly
seems geared more towards 3D gaming, but I've seen some references to locking
the Z-axis to create 2D experiences.

~~~
alvivar
There a lot of plugins to handle 2D (2.5D) games on Unity, I am currently
using 2D Toolkit ($50) for sprites and it's awesome. I also recommend to check
RageSpline and RagePixel, this tools provide features totally integrated with
the IDE and really easy to use.

I haven't try CoronaSDK but I can see a lot a potential in 2D games with
Unity, not just 3D. I fact, you can see a lot of nice 2D games in his
showcase, for example Zombieville USA and Max & The Magic Marker.

\- <http://unikronsoftware.com/2dtoolkit/>

\- <http://ragepixel.com/>

\- <http://ragespline.com/>

\- Max & The Magic Marker <http://goo.gl/H9Hl0>

\- Zombieville <http://goo.gl/fzZP0>

\- Showcase <http://goo.gl/g4uux>

------
epaga
Is anyone able to compare and contrast this with the UDK which seems to be a
similar license (free until you make six figures)?

~~~
stonemetal
I have fooled around with both, but I am probably not competent to speak on
the matter. The UDK is just the UDK, the free Unity is missing features that
the paid version has. Unity has more ease of use features.

