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Unity has used GDC 2011 to release the Unity Android and Unity Android Pro versions of its popular game engine.
As well as offering support for a number of upcoming Android devices including Tegra Tablets and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, thanks to Unity’s single authoring environment the new version of the engine allows developers to port their iOS titles to Android.
"We’re amazed of how easy and fast it was to port our latest iOS game Stupid Zombies to Android," said Marc Andreoli, Partner at GameResort. "It took us less than two days to fully port the game and do some fine tuning."
"We were very impressed with how simple it was to port our iPhone game Drift Mania Championship to Android. The complete process took less than a week, which consisted of minor graphic adjustments and some fine tuning," added Pat Toulouse, president of Ratrod Studio. "Because of Unity’s cross-platform feature, we’re able to reach a much larger audience which multiplies our chances for continued success. Unity is the ultimate game development swiss army knife for developers."
Unity Android comes as an add-on to the free version of Unity and costs $400. Meanwhile Unity Android Pro is an add-on to Unity Pro and available for $1500.
"It’s awesome to be doing the full launch of our Android support. Our Pro-only pre-release version has already been a huge success in its first half year," added Nicholas Francis, chief creative officer at Unity.
"Now we’re doing the full launch of our product and can’t wait to see what kind of amazing things people will develop. I think getting Unity out to the Android developer base will vastly improve the range of quality games on the platform.
As detailed in a press statement from Unity issued at GDC 2011, Unity Android includes the following features:
• Integrated Editor – Users can deploy a single project to multiple platforms, including Android, using a one-click solution that just works. Porting a game from iOS to Android can be as simple as changing the target platform and clicking ‘Build’.
• Support for upcoming Android devices, including Tegra Tablets and the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play Smartphone – Users can be among the first to benefit from releasing games on the exciting range of Android-based gaming platforms.
• Highly Optimised Graphics Pipeline for OpenGL ES 2.0 – Unity Technologies has been working directly with hardware manufacturers such as Nvidia and Qualcomm to get every last bit of performance out of Android so that users can create stunning games without worrying about the subtle difference between devices.
• Android Remote – Developers can use their actual Android phone as an input device to view and test their game directly within the authoring tool.
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