[Official] Request for Unity iOS platform feedback

Who are you?

Robert Kabwe, Indie Game Dev at http://protopop.com


What kind of game are you trying to build or would like to build?

Open world wilderness Exploration game - Nimian Legends : BrightRidge


How does iOS player fit into that? What use-cases do you have?

I make heavy use of Unity Terrain and its tree billboard and grass features.


What are the GOOD things about iOS player that you like?

• It has near parity with desktop features
• Unity remote and instant testing
  
• Patch releases help a lot
• the many helpful build options

What are the BAD things about iOS player that you dislike?

• New engine features for desktop that impact IOS performance (ex 4.3 occlusion upgrade broke tree billboards)
  
• Pace of development seems to outstrip fixing bugs - personally would prefer refinement of Unity over new features
• Old features removed are sometime crucial (ex. the aforementioned tree bug) - id like to see more care to deal with Regressions that reduce engine stability/performance on IOS devices

How can we make it BETTER? What use-cases, features, workflows would like to see?

IOS devs have to be careful because of the hardware limitations, so while on other platforms performance is important, on IOS it becomes very crucial, so making sure new engine features work on IOS will help. Especially since many devs still develop for devices back to A5/A4 chips. Just make sure that if an engine component is rewritten (like occlusion) that its as effective on older IOS phones and tablets.

*and just a shout out to say I love Unity, the vibe the community, and IOS Unity has made getting my game on the App store a great experience.

 

Who are you?

We are Zarista Games. We've been making mobile games for iOS for the past seven years in partnership with Redshift of Hungary. I worked with Redshift of Hungary on The Quest and we've made about 14 Quest expansions for mobile and the Quest Gold. Not with Unity--the Quest has its own 2d editor. We have thousands of happy players all over the world. And we love and are thankful for them all.

We are just using Unity now for one year--we released Wizzard Island made with Unity in 2014 for the iOS platform. We're very pleased with Unity and so our days of making Quest expansions are probably over except we get demands for them, so who knows. But right now we are firmly convinced Unity is the best engine for us to make our present and future games.

We have a lot of games in our pipeline that we've done the work to develop--we hope to get them all out there. We have a new one we're close to releasing--The Omber.

What kind of game are you trying to build or would like to build?

We make RPG games. Right now 3d, but going to explore 2d as well.

How does iOS player fit into that? What use-cases do you have?

Well, it's great. I don't know what more to say about that. I've tried many engines and it just fits for us. But what makes it really useful for us is that we found a third party asset that builds really functional RPG games within Unity--the ORK Framework. That with Unity's basic functionality has made it possible for us to make satisfying RPG games that our players like. And that we like which is also important--you have to be able to make a game that fits within your vision of what a game should be and Unity and ORK work well for us. Both are always growing and extending and that's good.

What are the GOOD things about iOS player that you like?

Just about everything.

What are the BAD things about iOS player that you dislike?

I haven't really found any bad things, except I get tired of tweaking all the regular shaders from products from the asset store to mobile shaders. I wish everybody would think about mobile and provide mobile shaders. : ) I love the asset store by the way---that keeps me more tied to Unity than a lot of other things. Someone suggested we try Unreal Engine and I looked at it but it has no real asset store. : ) And other things that are not as organized and functional as Unity.

How can we make it BETTER? What use-cases, features, workflows would like to see?

I make heavy use of real terrains and they don't seem to really slow down my fps. But if it were possible to have mobile friendly terrains built into Unity that would be great--without having to buy a third party asset--sometimes they work but more often than not they're trouble----

and to be able to put holes in the regular terrains. : ) I like holes. They can be very useful. I know there are third party assets in the asset store. But it would be helpful if all you had to do was click something within Unity to make a hole--Voxel friendly terrains. : )

I really love the beauty of the terrain system. Anything that can make it even more beautiful is great. It's been very satisfying to our players.

A wishful thinking thing I'd like to see is a built in random dungeon generator that makes use of any textures we might have--even if it has to be a set amount of textures. For someone making an rpg game, a random dungeon generator that's easy to use and built in is a very useful asset. I know there are assets in the asset store and I think I bought them all but if there was one built into Unity for mobile that would be nice. : )

Something that might be nice --but this is not an iOS feature necessarily I'd like to see --but the ability to import directly from DAZ 3d. For me, I can get most of what I need from the Asset Store but I like the flexibility of being able to use graphics from other sources as well. I know I can use their graphics by doing a few things but it would be nice if there were some easy way to just import them. I realize this is something more for some third party asset provider to the Asset Store to think about--was just expressing a wish. : )

Many thanks for a wonderful engine and wonderful assets to work in that engine---and for all your help in the forum by the way.

 

Who are you?

A random indie developer.

What kind of game are you trying to build or would like to build?

Various - sports, platform, arcade, puzzle

How does iOS player fit into that? What use-cases do you have?

We mainly target mobile platforms, hence iOS and Android are our two most important platforms.

What are the GOOD things about iOS player that you like?

Requires little platform consideration, that is, what works for Android typically works fine on iOS also - this significantly decreases development effort.

What are the BAD things about iOS player that you dislike?

Not a lot to complain about other than most of our source still being distributed with the game (stripped dlls still contain a lot) - though this appears to be totally address by using IL2CPP so it's somewhat moot (though still VERY valid for Android distribution until/unless IL2CPP is available there).

How can we make it BETTER? What use-cases, features, workflows would like to see?

I'd like to see support for configuring aspects of the Xcode projects from within the player settings for iOS:

1. Altering 'Build Settings' (linker flags, modules settings, exception settings, etc
2. Adding 'Run Script' to 'Build Phases'
3. Copying any arbitrary files to the project (not assets, think stuff that may be required by native code, third party iOS SDKs etc).

 

Who are you?

A Indie Game Developer

What kind of game are you trying to build or would like to build?

Different Games - currently an AR Game with Vuforia, but also 2D too.

How does iOS player fit into that? What use-cases do you have?

Unity as Part of a UIKit Application
Unity for 2D Game Development

What are the GOOD things about iOS player that you like?
As on Android the Unity Player "just" works Performance is good too.

What are the BAD things about iOS player that you dislike?

The Bad thing is that you need to break the neck if you want to integrate unity into an existing app.
This tooks me some weeks to get it working and with the 64 Bit IL2CPP Lib it doesnt work currently too.
Also i used WebRequest which currently doesnt work too (hope in the 4.6.3 release).

Compared to Android (where you just get the player as a standalone JAR) it is really hard to implement this as a subview.

IL2CPP is still very buggy - so i was just wondering why a big engine like unity doesnt had this task started before or released a beta for this.

Also the compile time is with IL2CPP very slow - if i start compile i can go smoking and take a coffee.

How can we make it BETTER? What use-cases, features, workflows would like to see?

I would wish me something like in Android - just a lib and that unity doesnt control the application cycle. Just as option would be good enough to export.

Dont misunderstand me : Unity is a great engine and if you want to run iOS Games Standalone it is cool tool.
But the other platforms supports are better in my eyes (okay i just tested windows desktop and android - didnt tested windows phone ).

Also i like the simplicity from unity.

 

Who are you?
indie developer

What kind of game are you trying to build or would like to build?
I build a lot of small game/utility apps

How does iOS player fit into that? What use-cases do you have?
Works pretty well for what I do.

What are the GOOD things about iOS player that you like?
When it works, it works well

What are the BAD things about iOS player that you dislike?
The XCode connection is pretty awful - never seems to sync with the actual version of XCode
No way to automatically include additional frameworks into the XCode project
No way to set some XCode compile/link settings from Unity
The Unity iAd wrapper has no notification that an ad failed to load - very easy fix, I just need to do it everytime I do a 'replace' or make a new app -- http://www.cwgtech.com/?p=89

How can we make it BETTER? What use-cases, features, workflows would like to see?
I'd love to see all of the above XCode related issues addressed.

This is an old thread - anyone at Unity actually still monitoring it?

 

Who are you?

Lead Mobile .NET Developer at Couchbase

What kind of game are you trying to build or would like to build?

A unity plugin to allow local NoSQL storage and data replication with backend servers

How does iOS player fit into that? What use-cases do you have?

People might want to use it in their cross platform games, and iOS is one of those targets.

What are the GOOD things about iOS player that you like?

IL2CPP is miles ahead of Mono2x in terms of .NET API support and lack of AOT compilation problems.

What are the BAD things about iOS player that you dislike?

Debugging is incredibly hard. The first thing is the time it takes to get the code onto the device is very high. It goes like this: Make some changes to C#, recompile C#, copy DLLs to project, rebuild player, open Xcode, recompile Xcode project and run. This also ensures that there is no way to debug C# DLLs without adding in logging statements and repeating the above process. Xamarin skips the Xcode step (or makes it transparent at least) and adds the ability to debug so it's not impossible to do.

Also, without IL2CPP support on other platforms it means that iOS is the oddball out and is subject to platform specific bugs (Mono2x is out of the question at this point for iOS due to Apple not accepting 32-bit only builds anymore).

How can we make it BETTER? What use-cases, features, workflows would like to see?

PLEASE improve the debugging experience. Extend script debugging to external DLLs that have symbols the same way that you can in Android and Standalone.

 

Who are you?
Mobile Software Engineer

What kind of game are you trying to build or would like to build?
No games - but native iOS Apps with embedded Unity projects for data/product visualization.

How does iOS player fit into that? What use-cases do you have?
Mostly the Unity part is only used for visualizing data or showing products in 3D / VR.

What are the GOOD things about iOS player that you like?
It's ok when you only use the exported Xcode project.

What are the BAD things about iOS player that you dislike?
* Integrating and embedding Unity into an existing Xcode project is really horrible. The exported project structure
changes with almost every version and therefore causes a lot of extra work to get it running again if you update.
* The huge number of warnings.

How can we make it BETTER? What use-cases, features, workflows would like to see?
It would be really nice if the process of integrating a Unity project into existing iOS Projects would be easier and not changed in almost every version. Maybe it is possible to integrate the "core" with cocoapods and add the project-specific rest with a build script or something like that.

 

How can we make it BETTER? What use-cases, features, workflows would like to see?

Pie in the sky, but you asked. I'd love to be able to write Swift 2.0 code and work with Xcode exclusively at some point. It is going Open Source later this year, or I wouldn't even bother asking for this uber feature.

 

Who are you?
A person that is developing some cross-platform apps.

What kind of game are you trying to build or would like to build?
I don’t really have a specific answer to that. While working on complex projects as well, I like simple games, too. Also, I try to target at least the iPhone 4s.

How does iOS player fit into that? What use-cases do you have?
Well, iOS and Android are the main platforms I develop for.

What are the GOOD things about iOS player that you like?
It’s pretty straightforward and works very well most of the time.

What are the BAD things about iOS player that you dislike? +
How can we make it BETTER? What use-cases, features, workflows would like to see?
Compilation times can be pretty long. (Could be better?) So I use UnityRemote4 a lot, which has pretty bad image quality. Sometimes, you don’t even want to test the code, but just take a look at how the visuals "feel like" on the device. If the image quality can’t be improved at runtime due to the USB, it could be useful if when pausing the game in the Editor, the iOS device will get the frozen image in full quality.
Oh, and this is not about the iOS player exactly, but Unity takes a pretty long time to switch platforms. Maybe this could be improved.

 

Who are you?

Small indie studio.

What kind of game are you trying to build or would like to build?

Mostly 2d puzzle/word games with a couple of 3d games for the BBC's Top Gear.

How does iOS player fit into that? What use-cases do you have?

We target iOS and Android (and also WP8 for some games).

What are the GOOD things about iOS player that you like?

Mostly things go very smoothly in terms of building and running on iOS.

What are the BAD things about iOS player that you dislike?

When certain plugins require manual steps that have to be repeated over and over again for either Append builds (terrible) or new builds (annoying). Especially adding frameworks.

Not being sure which iOS version a development device can be updated to. Updating iOS could require an Xcode update (to run on device) which might mean a Unity update (or Unity might not yet support it).

How can we make it BETTER? What use-cases, features, workflows would like to see?

Have the facility to setup custom modifications to the Xcode project from inside Unity. See egoXproject.

Provide a forum read-only sticky/notice or a standalone page that is always up-to-date that provides details of which Xcode a certain Unity version supports (and which iOS version).