I started this book because the table of contents promised to cover topics not commonly found in other books on Unity, such as level creation, tool development through editor extension, multiple unit selection, formations, resource management, fog of war, or customizing builds. However, I had my reservations, given my past experiences with PacktPub books.
Fortunately, this book has proven to be above average compared to others from the same publisher. It indeed covers those topics and more, in a thorough and clear manner, using expressive and high-quality source code. I could tell that the author is a good developer and knows what they're doing. Thanks to this, I’ve learned a few new things along the way—things I didn't know and that will now enrich my way of developing in Unity. At this stage, that's no small feat.
To illustrate everything, the book develops a real-time strategy game, akin to War of Warcraft, with a top-down perspective. As you might imagine, it’s all done with free resources and in a mock-up mode, but I have to admit it touches on many aspects that should be considered in a game of that genre.
If I had to point out one downside, there was one feature I was particularly interested in, the fog of war, and I was disappointed that one of the elements used to implement it was a legacy feature. It’s impossible to guarantee that a technical book will remain up-to-date after a few years, but recognizing yourself, in your book, that you're going to use a legacy feature... I find that quite disappointing. Everything explained in a technical book should be current at the time of its writing.
Aside from that small detail, the truth is that it’s a recommendable book from which you can learn a lot. Highly recommended.
