How to Split Up an Existing Unity Git Project into Smaller Unity Packages

Posted on April 29, 2020 by Taro Omiya

Update 4/29/2020: indicated new dependencies added in Template Unity Package under Step 8 that should be left in the asmdef files.

After years of making a ton of Unity games, I’ve accumulated a lot of tools that are gathered into a single Template Unity Project that I start every game jam project in. That said, the project is now much larger than I would like. Some tools, such as the web host domain list, is only applicable for projects intended to be exported to the web. In addition, since everything is built on the same project solution, compiling new scripts takes longer than necessary. So I figured it was time to split up this mammoth project into smaller Unity packages. But how?

True to Unity’s theme of democratizing game development, they have extensive documentation on how to utilize the new Unity Package Manager to better import other tools and projects. Furthermore, mob-sakai has an excellent tutorial on how to setup a Git repository with the command, git subtree split, such that the Package Manager can easily import the project. But all these information are only great for creating a single Unity Package; what if, like me, you have a sprawling Unity project that you want to split up into multiple, smaller Unity Packages? After doing some research, I’ve came to the conclusion that the best method is to use Unity’s local package directory structure, and more importantly, git submodule add to nest another Git project to easily drag-and-drop project files into. This post will go into more details on how this works.

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Strange Free Games: Souvenir

Posted on May 26, 2012 by Taro Omiya

New week, new game. Here’s an incomplete student game that still feels polished and playable. Souvenir is a meta-physical recount of a girl’s experience at college. It’s M.C. Escher-isque visuals best conveys the confusion one experiences when living away from familiar, and traveling into the new.

The game begins on a stage, portraying an unnamed girl starting to pack. Not after long, you end up in a greatly distorted world, bleak and twisting. As you choose the 8 “things to pack,” you start recalling various different memories, some mundane, some happy, and some depressing.

Souvenir plays like first-person puzzle game. Clicking on a surface causes you to fall to that location. Due to the twisting nature of the game, you frequently end up upside-down or sideways on various different surfaces. Collecting different items provides a fade-in text telling a recount of the character we’re playing. This slowly fleshes out our character’s personality, problems, and resolves.

Souvenir is playable at it’s own website.
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Strange Free Games: Global Game Jam Edition

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Taro Omiya

Alright, here’s a dump of all the games I ended up loving from the Global Game Jam 2012. Going in no particular order…

Susie’s Summer Home

Yay, my game! It’s a maze where you play as Suzie, attempting to escape her haunted summer house. Best played with no preconception of the game.

Largely inspired by Yume Nikki and Paper Mario. Seriously.

You Again?

Here’s a rather incomplete game that, despite seeming to have no ending, have an extremely promising gameplay. You Again? is a simple dodging game that changes music and graphics as you collect power-ups and collide into enemies. You Again? has an interesting transition: enemies makes you older, until you eventually die of old age. In the after-world, however, colliding into enemies reverses your age, therein allowing you to reincarnate again.

It’s hard not to like the excellent graphical and musical effects this game played. Where it lacks in gameplay, this game excels in presentation.

#Snake2

#Snake2 plays like a terrible Japanese advertisement, and it’s well worth your time to play it from start to finish.

Tenderizer

Typically in a game, you want to stay alive. In Tenderizer, it’s better to be dead. An excellent, moody platformer about a lone soul who wants nothing more than peace. Yet, in this grainy black-and-white world, death is the only way.

Eurydice

Here’s a call-out to my pals from IGDA DC: Eurydice is a game with absolutely no graphics, only sound.

Wait, what?

Yup, a game with no graphics. The entire game is narrated and played via audio, and you have to be careful in what choices you make. The narrator will provide the actions you can take, via a text-adventure fashion. It’ll confuse many new gamers, for sure, but the old text-based guys will feel right at home.

Immaturity

A strange game with a foreign gameplay. Immaturity is a puzzle game where your action is recorded as a ghost, and you use this to solve puzzles. It’s pretty short and uncomplicated, but as a prototype, it’s very promising.

BIG HELL

Here’s a strange HTML5 game that I personally wasn’t sure what’s going on myself. BIG HELL is a simple communication game where you talk to other characters, and learn about their story. Then…you become that person.

I’m not sure if there’s an actual ending to this game. Still, its presentation and narrative are truly commendable.

Ascent | Descent

Another call-out to my pals from IGDA Albany! What’s a game that’s programmed by you? Well, the Game of Life, of course! Ascent | Descent adds an extra twist where Game of Life are the blocks you have to use as stepping stones to your final destination.

GPS: Gracius Princess Savior

OK, I couldn’t resist this sorta-strange, sorta-not game, since it’s very fun. Here’s GPS: Gracious Princess Savior from South Korea. It’s an adorable 2D puzzle game, where death is a necessity. An all-around adorable game.

Day of our Lives

Day of our Lives is a strange visual novel, where your choices leads to a different conclusion at the end of the day. Game’s story is with little surprises: you wake up, go to high school, meet up with your girlfriend, and then the school explodes.

And then you wake up. Then go to high school. Then meet up with your girlfriend. The school explodes.

…then you wake up.

An extremely intriguing story, with a rather disappointing ending. As they say, though, it’s the journey that counts, and this game certainly has one!

Don’t be square aka “The revenge of the psychedelic boring boxes” aka “vice versa”

Most people don’t like abstract art…unless it’s moving. Well, it’s a lucky day for you guys, because D.B.S. is most definitely a moving art. Granted, the gameplay is a little pointless: collect all the shape, and move on to the next level. Worse, the game loops itself, really deprecating the art factor. Despite this, it’s a visually pleasing game, and I definitely recommend giving it a spin.

Past Life

Past-Life is another game where you have to die. Unlike the last few games, though, you trigger your own death, rather than succumb to it. It’s a very neat 2D puzzle game, where you can die only so many times.

Trapped! In the Chamber of Eternal Darkness

And my favorite game from Global Game Jam 2012 is…Trapped!

Seriously, awesome game all-around. A simple (if typical) gameplay with excellent music, artwork, and presentation. I’ve got no complaints on this game. Well done, team Miniboss of Brazil!

Note: yes, I admit, this really doesn’t classify as a strange game, but I recommend it all the same.
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About Boomshakalaka

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Taro Omiya

Games-I-made-in-Global-Game-Jam ramble, part 2. In 2011, I just moved into Maryland. To get used to things, I decided to take a supporting role in a team, rather than work by myself. Our creation was Boomshakalaka, a bomb-dropping game controlled by dropping objects on the keyboard.

The game is downloadable here.

The theme this time was “extinction.” A seemingly deep topic. In fact, the five of us literally wrote out every dictionary definition of it, and attempted to outline every possible game idea on the whiteboard. This process was…excruciating. We sat there for 3 hours, just thinking. Since I’m a gameplay-over-graphics kind of guy, I finally proposed that they make a game that uses an entire keyboard. Each key can be hit only once within the game, thus acting as the primary resource of the game. We’ve finally decided on a tower-defense game where you detonated a grid of mines as the monsters approached your base.

But like last time, this entire idea was thrown away. It was Ruben Brown, this time, that came up with the final game idea: drop whatever on the keyboard. This eventually evolved into a bomb-dropping game under his direction. I remember vehemently rejecting the idea, not because of it ruining my original game design; but rather, the physical harm the control scheme could do to the precious keyboard. Yeah, I’m a stickler for my computer. Regardless, Ruben assured that only his laptop would take the abuse.

In the final runs, we started having merging errors working with Unity and Subversion. Sadly, the explosion effects all disappeared; none of the courses and assets got added in, and the only thing that compiled was the one level displayed in the web link above. It’s a bit sad, really, as we had tanks, jeeps, and mannequins models to completely destroy. Regardless, the game turned out to be a simple casual game that many not into intense gaming could enjoy. It’s simply the lack of content and special effects that really hindered us badly.
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