Game architectures in Unity projects

Abstract

Game architecture is an important aspect of game development but rarely mentioned. A game architecture may be a factor for the success or failure of a game project. Video games are complex pieces of software and game architectures are guidelines for programmers to understand that complexity. This thesis is an attempt to give an overview of game architectures for Unity projects and provide a general view of architecture implementation in the Virpa2 project as a practical example. Virpa2 is an educational game that teaches children about fire safety. The project utilizes game technologies to enhance the learning experience and deliver the best possible result. The thesis presents how a game architecture can be built in a game application by specifically utilizing ScriptableObject, a built-in data type in Unity engine. The Virpa2 project is a case study to experiment and test the core idea of architecture design. In the end, the result of the game architecture implementation in the Virpa2 project is considered successful since it fulfilled all the technical requirements of its game design and provided a coherent guideline for developers to follow and contribute to the game.