A game is one thing, but a book in a 3D environment? For all of you game developers, this may create a huge mental question mark right away.
3D Game Environments are for making games, not books.
That would be like a comparison of using Micosoft Word for a Power Point Presentation- in a way. Has anything like this ever been done? So far it looks as though it hasn’t happened before, so how in the world did this happen? How about we analyze the structure of this particular book first, before hammering the author.
It turns out that this story is Multi-Option, so that is one point in its favor. Multi-option reading is pretty much like a game anyways, since there are choices involved.
So what was the motivation in making it even more game-like?
Well, it turns out that there is a tiny, almost unnoticeable tendency that shows us that literature is less popular with our younger generation. Games and Social Media are on the rise, so you could say that this particular GameBook style is in anticipating a future market.
The platform for the Game Version of Realms is Unity 3D, which is quite an interesting concept. In reality it’s overkill, but the whole idea and the graphics are pretty cool and straight forward, so it did add up. The menus are simple enough, and the Windows Installer is even easier.
Here we can see the actual text. What is really cool about this is that there is no zoom.
That’s right… Since this is a First Person game, all you have to do is walk up to the text or walk away from it – it’s that easy.
It would be like reading a page that had been printed on your wall. Sounds a bit strange I know, but the whole idea works perfectly, and is completely readable.
Just in case you were wondering…
There is no interruption or delay between pages or chapters, like you would expect in an ordinary game with obstacles. Realms Game Version actually keeps the continuous reading experience of the story, even with a huge game environment – just as long as you don’t get shot that is, or fall off a mountain.. lol
So How About The Gaming Mechanics?
Starting on the left, we see that all we have in the beginning is a bunch of empty space. For a sci-fi writer, this should be more than enough to get started though. In reality it’s a dream come true, seeing all of that potential there, just waiting to be filled. Image #2 on the right is the player. You cannot have a gamebook like this one without a player, so here you have it. It’s not much to look at, but it’s loaded with all kinds of controls to get you around the environment, as if you were there yourself. Image #3 is just a block, but not just any kind of block. These blocks have physics in them, and are essential to building entire scenes.
Image #4 is a text screen. It has been designed with extreme precision, to give a complete and comfortable reading experience, apart from looking cool as well. Image #5 is an example of a small environment, where the player can move and do things. This may sound logical enough, but the design is essential for younger readers, so that they don’t lose interest. Image #6
Thanks to Unity 3D, all of this was possible.
Here’s a video on how Realms Of Forgotten Worlds works in Unity 3D.
Think that was pretty cool? Well Realms Of Forgotten Worlds Game Version is already on the market. You can find it on Payhip, which uses Paypal for secure transactions. Having Payhip sell the book for me makes me a much smaller target for hackers, and that’s definity a very positive thing.
And you could be thinking that all this Gaming Stuff is just a bit too much. Don’t worry.
There’s something for everyone.
Realms Of Forgotten Worlds is also available in Interactive PDF Format. It’s much easier to read and you won’t get zapped by lasers.
Unity 3D (Learning Curb)
So was designing a book in Unity 3D easy or hard? To be truthful, it proved to be a really big challenge in the beginning. About a year passed, without being able to produce anything good, which was extrememly frustrating to say the least. After covering the aspects of C++, Javascript, animation, and designing in Unity 3D, the second year had bit more success. The final touches to the story started flowing and the 3D environment started to come together quite nicely as well.
Interested in using Unity 3D for your project? Here’s some info in the link below:
This is of course from the point of view of a complete noob, without previous knowledge of any of the listed abilities, like C++. Getting the scaling of models and decorations turned out to be a big challenge, though a bit more merciful than the effects of a bad script on a scene. Another challenge turned out to be FPS and Drawcalls. Without knowing anything about these concepts, a complete noob just goes crazy and starts creating incredibly complex scenes, jam packed with all kinds of stuff. After a whole lot of trial and error, hard lessons were finally learned, and the scenes were eventually balanced. That was kind of a drag, simply because almost everyone wants to see stunning visual effects with a lot of stuff, and as a designer, you want to give it that special touch. Details come at a price in game designing though – that’s just reality.
