Chapter 1. Overview

Arguably, the most important part of any project is knowing where to start and what tools you have in your war chest before setting out to make your game. Here, we will walk through all the new features of the 2D system that were introduced in Version 4.3 of Unity.

Since this is the first chapter, let's cover how this book is structured. The main aim of this book is to build a fully functional Role Playing Game (RPG) style game framework and cover all the main aspects of any good and well-rounded RPG game, including the following features:

• Character development and setup
• Building your main game view
• A wider world view
• Events and encounters
• Shopping and inventory systems
• Battles
• Skills, experience, and leveling

We will be visiting places such as the following:

• Your home town, as shown in the following screenshot:
  
• The local shop, as shown in the following screenshot:
  
• The outside world, as shown in the following screenshot:
  
• Battling goblins in the dark forest, as shown in the following screenshot:
  

In this chapter, we'll walk through what's available in the new 2D toolkit and talso what else Unity added to the toolset in 4.3. Then, kick off the next chapter with building the foundations of our project with some of the best practices in the industry, including guidance from the Unity team themselves (either direct from team members or from responses in the forums).

The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

• Overview of the new 2D system
• Rundown of the additional improvements in 4.3