NYT a game of Shark and Minnow in unity

Hello everybody,

I'd like to write articles based on the same model as the new york time a game of Shark and Minnow :
http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2013/10/27/south-china-sea/index.html

That is to say, interactive articles that evolve as the user scrolls through the article. The evolutions can be audible and visual. I was thinking of making an android version to start with but is it possible to make web applications with Unity?

I am studying different solutions to realize this project. Do you think Unity is a good solution to realize this project? What do you think would be the strong and weak points of Unity in this case? Which assets will you use?

Best Regards,
Le Rouge Gorge

 

It's easily possible to create something that looks similar in Unity, but I don't believe Unity would be a good fit for this type of content due to it being a game engine.

A Unity web build exist on a page as an embedded window-type thing. It will still run at 30+ frames a second, as far as I know- so it will run heavier than people will expect when simply reading an article online. In mobile it will use more battery power faster.

Secondly, all of the text will be embedded in a proprietary binary data file and rendered as graphics, so search engines will not have access to the text, nor bots that automatically pull abstracts and such (You could still create your own meta tags, though). Apps that people use in browsers for accessibility, like text-to-speech, will not have access to the text either. People will not be able to copy/paste text from the article either.

 

Thank you for that detailed opinion I had not thought of these kinds of limitations at all, and they are indeed to consider. Now, "It's easily possible to create something that looks similar in Unity" interests me. JavaScript solutions like ScrollMagic and Greensock are quite tedious and hard to handle.I'm really not sure it's a good solution as you say for me but I'll at least try to do the basic Unity tutorials to realize the potential of the thing.
What tutos or assets do you think could be useful?

 

yeah, don't use unity for making websites,
should be able to buy similar ready templates from wed design market places.
(at that point you only need to replace the template content with your own)

unity webgl build could also have issues like,
- slower (at least initial) loading
- uses/requires more memory
- difficult to make fully responsive (and cross browser support might have issue)
- mobile support is limited, older devices wouldnt work at all
- you need to code separately mouse & touch support (and (multi)touch screens might need even own custom code)
- more work to do updates (need to build whole project), or to add translations etc

while there is unity Tiny, which loads fast and is fast & lite, but its still limited early version
https://unity.com/solutions/instant-games

 

Thanks guys ! I'm going to follow your advices and go back to a more classic web app construction. I'm going to launch into GSAP coupled with Angular that I know a little bit. Maybe try ionic for the mobile device part because java is not for me !