A quick overview over the project and setting up the basics of the breakout game.

This game tutorial series will teach you how to create a simple breakout game. The player moves a paddle at the bottom of the level and uses a ball to destroy bricks.

In this tutorial we’ll take a quick look at the project and set up some basics in the Makinom editor.

The Unity Project

By now you should’ve downloaded the project, unzipped it and opened it as a Unity project (i.e. don’t import it). You can open the project using the Unity menu: File > Open Project…

The project contains the following folders:

• Finished
  The finished game, containing the complete Makinom project and all schematics, prefabs and the level.
• Gizmos
  The Makinom gizmo icons.
• Makinom
  The free version of Makinom.
  You can import the full version to replace it.
• Tutorial Resources
  The resources the tutorial will be using, i.e. the ready to use level and prefabs that haven’t yet been set up for Makinom.
  The level is located in Assets/Tutorial Resources/.
  The prefabs are located in Assets/Tutorial Resources/Prefabs/.

Setting up Makinom

We’ll now set up some basics in the Makinom project. Open the Makinom editor (Window > Makinom) – this will create a new Makinom project at Assets/Makinom/Project.asset, in case no project has been created or opened yet.

Check if you’re working on a new project (i.e. not using the Finished Project) in Editor > About in the Project Summary. The Currently Loaded project should be Assets/Makinom/Project.asset, if not, please click on Create New Project and save it at this location.

Input Keys

First, we’ll set up the input keys to control the game. Navigate to Base/Control > Input Keys. The default controls are already set up for us, but we’ll need another input key for firing the ball from the paddle and pausing the game.

5: Fire

6: Pause

That’s it for the input keys.

Game Controls

Now we’ll set up pausing the game. Navigate to Base/Controls > Game Controls and change the following settings.

Base Key Settings

Game Settings

Next, we’ll set up an initial global variable to hold the player’s lives. Navigate to Game > Game Settings and change the following settings.

Initial Variables

Click on Add Variable to add an initial variable.

Now our player will have 3 lives at the start of the game.

GUI Boxes

We’ll use the GUI boxes later when we set up the HUDs, game over and victory notifications. Navigate to Menus > GUI Boxes and change the following settings.

0: Lives HUD

The GUI box will later be used to display the player’s lives in a HUD at the lower left corner of the screen.

1: Score HUD

The GUI box will later be used to display the player’s scroe in a HUD at the uper center of the screen.

2: Message

This GUI box will later be used to display the pause HUD, game over and victory notifications in the center of the screen.

And that’s it – click on Save Settings to save the changes.

Scene Setup

Finally, we’ll add Makinom to the scene. Open the Level 1 scene (found at Assets/Tutorial Resources/).

Adding a Game Starter

To add Makinom to the game, we’ll need a game starter. You can learn more about game starters in this how-to.

Add the game starter using the scene wizard (Windows > Scene Wizard). Click on Add Game Starter, select the Makinom project if it’s not already selected (found at Assets/Makinom/Project.asset) and click on Add Game Starter again. The scene wizard will create a new game object and attach the game starter to it.

Move the new game starter object out of the way, e.g. to X=-20, Y=0, Z=0.

And that’s it for now – save the scene.

The next tutorial will handle the player controls.