Trash Dash is an exemplary mobile game that showcases how to effectively incorporate Unity Services and cutting-edge coding techniques. In this tutorial, we'll embark on a comprehensive exploration of the code behind Trash Dash, highlighting its innovative architecture and problem-solving strategies.
Introduction
As developers, we're constantly seeking ways to optimize our projects for better performance, ease of maintenance, and enhanced user experiences. Trash Dash is an exemplary mobile game that demonstrates how to achieve these goals by leveraging Unity Services and AI-driven coding techniques. In this article, we'll delve into the code behind Trash Dash, uncovering its architectural secrets and problem-solving strategies.
Unity Services
Trash Dash utilizes Unity Services to seamlessly integrate features like ads, analytics, and in-app purchases (IAPs). By employing these services, our team was able to focus on building a high-quality game while effortlessly incorporating crucial features. To see the code used to integrate IAPs, check out IAPHandler.cs. For ad handling, explore AdsForMission.cs and UnityAdsInitializer.cs. Analytics code can be found throughout the project, with notable examples in GameManager.cs.
Architecture
When we discuss architecture, we're referring to how the code is organized. Effective architecture helps prevent common issues like poor performance, long load times, or code that's difficult to maintain. The best architecture for any game depends on its unique characteristics. For instance, a large-scale online multiplayer game has different requirements than a single-player offline game.
Let's examine key points from Trash Dash's architecture and see how it addresses these challenges. We'll explore the organization of the code and the problems it solves.
Game Manager
GameManager.cs is the class that controls the overall flow of the game, utilizing a Singleton design pattern to ensure there's only one instance of this crucial class. This approach makes it easy for other classes to access this instance using a public static reference. The Game Manager also employs a Finite State Machine, which ensures the game can be in only one state at any given time and manages transitions between states.
Object Pooling
In Trash Dash, hundreds of coins may be spawned during a single play session, leading to performance strain due to frequent object creation and destruction. To mitigate this issue, the game employs an object pooling technique, where objects are temporarily deactivated and recycled as needed instead of being created and destroyed.
When the game begins, a pool of inactive coin GameObjects is spawned and placed in a "pool." When a new coin is required, one is requested from the pool and enabled. When a coin is collected or leaves the screen, it's disabled and returned to the pool. To see the object pooling code in Trash Dash, explore TrackManager.cs, Coin.cs, and Pooler.cs.
Techniques
While architecture decisions often affect multiple classes or parts of our game, techniques are smaller in focus, affecting only a single function or file but still helping us solve problems. Let's examine a couple of techniques used in Trash Dash and see what challenges they address.
Origin Reset
In games where the player travels great distances – such as space exploration games or "infinite" games like Trash Dash – developers must decide how to handle the player's position. If we simply move the player GameObject, the values in the player's transform.position will increase over time, leading to issues due to floating point imprecision.
Floating point imprecision means that larger values become less precise, a limitation of how computers store numerical data not unique to Unity. In games with large or infinite playable areas, these imprecise values could cause problems. To solve this issue, Trash Dash employs an origin reset technique, which ensures the player's position remains within a manageable range by moving everything in the Scene back towards the origin.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Trash Dash is a prime example of how Unity Services and AI-driven coding techniques can be leveraged to create engaging mobile games. By exploring its architecture, problem-solving strategies, and innovative techniques, we can gain valuable insights into optimizing our own projects for better performance, ease of maintenance, and enhanced user experiences.