FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil is one of the major holidays this year. The game developers couldn't stay behind and even though I am just a small fish, I am getting football and soccer related games to review, too.

I wrote about one football game before. It is called Nation Soccer and its source code is available as well. One of the submitted games is basically a highly polished variant of this game. It might be worth checking the source code out!

Anyway, here are the games submitted before the event starts in Brazil.

Miniball Tap Football by Naked Penguin Boy UK

A simple reaction/puzzle game that I have seen before, but the football theme suits it quite well. A good timewaster, but it got low ratings. Probably the levels get too repetitive after a while. 



Google Play Store

Puppet Soccer 2014 - Football by NOXGAMES

This game is the one similar to Nation Soccer. The original game was fun and this one brings a lot of new elements. The game even has real footballers drawn as caricatures, really cute. The only thing missing is Brazuca! Well played with the keywords in the title.



Google Play store

Super pocket football by Inlogic Games

Finally a football game, when you actually play football :) It is 2.5D and it reminds me of games I used to play when I was little. The game play can't match games like FIFA 14, but not bad for a change.



Google Play store


 

Unity's popularity is still rising. The active development, new features, the fact it's multiplatform and recently even the increased effort to fix all the bugs and tie the loose ends, this all makes Unity the number one choice for many developers. And the new 2D tools included in the standard package help to bring even more developers who used to work with 2D only engines to Unity. And just in time, Packt released a new book about making 100% 2D games in Unity.

The new book is thinner than other books from Packt on engines and it is also a bit cheaper. It reads well, but it feels too short and it doesn't explain much of the code.

The author used a different narrative than most other technical books. It will certainly appeal to those who prefer a more friendly and less technical approach, but unless you can read the code well, you might not understand everything.

The book is full of illustrations and code examples and at the end of the book, the readers will end up with an almost finished game ready to be shipped. The code examples in the book and the code attached is C# only, but the code is simple and it was easy to understand for me.

Summary

The new book about Unity 2D from Packt is easy to read quick guide that will teach you to create a simple and functional 2D game. It is written in a friendly and approachable style but it somewhat lacks important explanations. It's keenly priced right now, so it might be worth the buck. It's available on Packt website and also Amazon as always.

Free e-book giveaway

Thanks to the kind people in Packt I have three copies of the e-book to giveaway (with source codes). Submit your name and email here if you want to enter the contest.

Three lucky winners will be picked randomly on 19th June and Packt representative will send them access to the Packt library. Visit Packt website for more information about the book.

May is over, time for another indie game round-up. This time there were a lot of really simple games submitted and still a lot of flappy bird clones. Seriously, it's time to stop flappy madness!

I present four games this time. It was really hard to pick only three again, so here are my top four candidates from the submitted games in May.

The Little Brave by Little Brave Studio

This is flappy bird kind of game done right. Insance difficulty, but different gameplay. Love the retro graphics. Reminded me of the old Dizzy from Codemasters! If you want to torture yourself a little (in a good way), definitely play it!

I got my hands on a copy of this new book about 2D games development in Unity called simply Unity 2D Game Development. Since Unity is now much friendlier to 2D game devs even with just the basic package, I decided to make a game in it too and this book might be just what I need. A review is coming soon, maybe this week.

In the meantime, I decided to open the giveaway contest already. Thanks to the kind people in Packt I have three copies of the e-book to giveaway (with source codes). Submit your name and email here if you want to enter the contest.

Three lucky winners will be picked randomly on 19th June and Packt representative will send them access to the Packt library. Visit Packt website for more information about the book.