Best tutorials: hyper casual game dev in Unity

Hello hyper casual game developer!

Hopefully by now, if you have been following our previous articles, you are well motivated and already on your way to building a successful and fun game that many players worldwide will be able to enjoy.

On the other hand, if you are still starting, or maybe feeling a little lost with so much information that is available online (no shame there, we all go through that sometimes!) you might find that a few pointers in the right direction will be just what you need to unlock the upcoming steps. And usually, those first steps can be the hardest; you might find that once you get past the initial frustration, other pieces start to fit and everything will move smoothly.

We have all been there, and we often see plenty of questions from aspiring game developers asking for the best ways to get started right away. Of course, with many areas and game development is one such case, it is very important to see the results of your work early on, for extra motivation. Otherwise, it can get quite dull and frustrating.

For this exact reason, we are now gathering here some of the tutorials that have helped us the most, hoping these will serve you too! We are now focussing on Unity tutorials as it has arguably become the most used engine for these games, probably one of the easiest to get started with, and because there is so much information already from its community!

Runner

One of the most common subgenres used for a hyper casual game is the runner style.

You should know or be able to guess, but these are games in which the player controls a character throughout a course laden with obstacles; the objective is then to dodge those objects and reach the end of the level, or just go as far as possible (in this case, the game can be called an "infinite runner" or "endless runner", as there is no end to the course).

This tutorial will take you through the very basics to get such a game running. In this particular case, we like that this video is super short (only 5 minutes!) and nicely covers everything that you need without wasting any more time than necessary. And with all that you get to learn from this video, you would already be able to start seeing some nice results and get pumped to continue improving your new game ;)

There are some very popular games in this style, like Subway Surfers, Temple Run, or Canabalt (the first two in 3d, and the last in 2d). Whatever your choice of visual style and perspective, the key is to get the controls to feel responsive and the levels challenging but not impossible.

Puzzle

By now everyone has played a mobile puzzle game or a dozen, making these some of the most downloaded genres of games of all times. And for good reason! Puzzle games tend to be quite simple in both visual and interactive terms, which works very well for mobile games (after all, mobile touch screens have been made exactly for touches and swipes, and not so much to replicate a console controller).

This (also very short) tutorial will help you get going with a super simple image puzzle game, with everything that you need to know to get it running on your own mobile phone, from importing the art to scripting its behaviour.

And once you have this running for one image it will be very trivial for you to multiply that into hundreds of levels with different images if you desire! That's a nice way to get an interesting game out there.

Arcade

Also a very popular choice to start with, arcade gameplay works great with hyper casual due to easy controls and (hopefully!) engaging and addictive mechanics.

One very popular take on this type of game is the successful Helix Jump that maybe you have played before, or at least seen in advertising. It is indeed quite popular!

This video will show you exactly what you need to do in order to kickstart such a game! It is slightly longer than the videos in the previous post, but for good reason: you will get to learn how to use flow states, tags, and plenty other tools from Unity that will surely come in handy for this and future projects.

Hidden Object

These games have existed for a very long time, and recently started to re-emerge on mobile platforms once again. The reason? Again, simple gameplay which is very adapted to a mobile phone, of course!

Also very interesting with this games, is that the same project can be used for so many different themes! You can have the exact same behaviour, features, and menus, for multiple projects that will cater to a wide array of audiences (remember this tip from the article about expanding your portfolio?) The exact same code can be used for a kids' game with cartoons, and for another one with err… little more mature content ;)

This great tutorial will take you through all the required setup for building and expanding one game like this, with lots of details that will help you on your overall journey as well. Might be another one on the lengthier side when compared to the shortest tutorials we have shared before, but you will get lots of detailed information and a good understanding of everything that is happening on screen.

Advertising

Ok, this is not a game at all, but there is no denying that monetisation is an important part of making games, right?

You can, of course, be making games just for fun and giggles, but wouldn't it be better if, on top of that, your projects would start generating some revenue? That could mean some extra help in acquiring new equipment or, if you get super successful, actually starting your own studio and team!

Alright, it might take a while and it is better to keep your feet on the ground before going crazy with expectations, but regardless of all that, this is an important aspect of current mobile game development and, if nothing else, will further contribute to your knowledge about how everything works together.

This simple and short tutorial will cover the differences between Rewarded vs Interstitial Ads and then carry on with implementing them, together with the necessary setup to be done on your Unity account to enable all this.

And there you go, a few more ideas for you to check and further improve your knowledge about creating mobile games.!

It goes without saying that, even if you do not want to build a game like one of the ones you see here, the knowledge that you get by going through some of these will be invaluable to help you build the game of your dreams.

Also, you might get some additional new ideas by watching these, or even combine parts of the different games into a single, new, and ambitious idea that might become the next big mobile hit ;)

We really hope that these tutorials are helpful on your journey to build an awesome and brand new hyper casual mobile game!