Games [WIP][iOS][Android][UWP] Unity3D Community App

Hi there,

I'm building a unity3d community app that'd feature trainings, tutorials, updates, assets, as well as dynamic features such as jobs, discussions and games based on social content out of my love for this amazing community.

I have already integrated full youtube api for unity3d official channel and now moving toward community channels.
https://twitter.com/alizdesk/status/883284721555439616
https://twitter.com/alizdesk/status/888766573510619136

Here is a quick draft for community channels, what do you think? which approach should i take design wise? how can i improve it?

Thanks
Raza

PS: I'll be sharing updates on weekly basis on this thread as well as on social media to get community feedback.









PROGRESS


Community Channels with GameSparks Backend
High Quality https://i.imgur.com/GzcIIPK.gif




Dynamic Games based on Social Content
High Quality Preview [https://twitter.com/alizdesk/status/926386999879262213]




Custom Styling/Theming Support
High Quality Preview [https://twitter.com/alizdesk/status/930197598484488194]





Thanks again for all the support

 

The first screenshot looks the best here, in my opinion. The numbers in the second and third screenshot make it look like the channels are ranked, which I assume is not the case.

Maybe it would be an idea to add some small images below the description, with either screenshots or a list of products they make? It would give a better impression of what the channel is about. The background image in the third screenshot helps with this, but if you look at the entire screen it clutters it up a bit and makes it more difficult to read the text.

Hopefully, this feedback is useful for you

 

Hi Max,

Thank you for your detailed feedback, and your message show how valuable community feedback is as i was thinking from a designer perspective only but not as a publisher or an end user. You are absolutely right about serial number might confuse as ranking and banners making UI cluttered.

I also loved the idea of showing assets below each publisher channel / twitter account and so i just applied for asset store affiliate and asked for asset store api, this way i'll not just able to show assets dynamically along with youtube channel and post BUT it will also enable me to show relevant assets for tutorials. For example if a tutorial talk about Prefabs, i can show Nested Prefab as relevant asset there.

Let me submit an update tomorrow and then i can finally start integrating it in the app.

Thanks again

 

Hi there,

Here is an update which shows related assets. I kept the UI clean and removed serial numbers to avoid rank based confusion.

I'm still waiting to get response from Unity Support regarding asset store api, there current affiliate program require manual link creation which wont work for such app.

Anyhow, i'll now work on development and should have an implementation within 2 weeks that'd allow me to FINALLY add community channels

 

Hi everyone,

As Unity Forum doesnt let me upload 6mb gif, so here is the link to tweet along with an image.
https://twitter.com/alizdesk/status/902122903940067330

I made a quick n dirty editor tool that can connect with backend so i can create main categories like Asset Stores, Tutorials (any future idea?), sub categories and then channels in each category. Also each channel can appear in multiple categories. I did it in a way so i can in future add other social accounts like twitter to a single publisher or trainer. I started with asset store publishers as categories are already defined and if i can build something around it, it can be reused for Tutorials and other community content too.

After contacting with Unity Support, Asset Store doesnt have any api and even if it had one then most of the publishers either dont have youtube or twitter account and those who have lack proper icon, title and description as you can see in the animated gif.

So i have no option but to reach each asset store publisher and ask for their accounts and make necessary changes. Similarly this application will have learning content such as tutorials etc divided in meaning categories and this is something ill have to discuss with all the top learning channels and then come up with proper categories for them.

Its a good step toward finally adding community content, and next ill be FINALLY working on the app itself and bring all the channels in it so we can how they look.

Thanks

 

Hi there

September was quite a busy month however i finally managed to add community channels support. Its first update so a lot of stuff need work like sorting, pagination etc. I want to cache channels in backend so i can make sorting and searching happens. I also attached channels to a parent object so i can add other social sources such as twitter in future and user'd be able to switch to other mediums with 1 click.

I have been in touch with several publishers and response is quite great and im quite sure ill be able to invest more and more time now. Next ill take break from actual app itself and add first dynamic game. So expect it end of this month.

Thanks

 

[Im moving all the progress notes from my first post to here so first post only shows images]


October 24, 2017
Community Channels with GameSparks Backend

High Quality https://i.imgur.com/GzcIIPK.gif
Finally managed to setup backend to support categories community channels and enable to expose more ways to sort, filter, order and search them (much more than youtube apis) including pagination. Even sorting information comes from backend to keep front-end as thin as possible which will allow me to add future social networks easily without making any major changes on front-end.
Changed order icon as using same icon for Title (string) and Stats (integers) didnt make any sense.
I'm now finally in a position to make quick progress and will be spending each weekend with more better updates.



Nov 3, 2017
First Dynamic Game - Words Search

Community App finally have its first Dynamic Game. As you can see in the preview that list of community channels have title and description and that data can be used to populate a word search game. Its using one of the best Word Search Game template developed by Nicholas M Fagan. This template is quite extensible and i managed to integrate within existing app in few hours including adding some of my own ideas.



Nov 14, 2017
Custom Styling/Theming Support

Hi there, this time i worked on something that'd make designers happy. I wrote a custom styling framework inspired from CSS/LESS that supports all the important theories such as Cascade, Descendant, Group etc and let change the whole theme by just changing less style variables. You can see the app in action. For a High Quality View, check my following tweet
https://twitter.com/alizdesk/status/930197598484488194