Top Assets September 2023
Today we're talking about all the new goodies on the Unity Asset Store, we're witnessing the start of the AI takeover, a pretty robust Fortnite template, Paper Mario-style text animations, and a lot more, let's get started.
Text Animator
We all know that reading dialogue in video games can sometimes be a bit...dull. Even if you love story-driven games, it doesn't take much for dialog to feel like it's dragging along. But, it doesn't have to be that way! That's why this asset is so cool. It reminds me so much of the text animations in the Paper Mario series. It's a plug-and-play asset that can animate and bring life to your dialogue. You can create so much character depth and mood setting with relatively little effort.
They have over 15 effects and an intuitive, highly customizable system. You can also easily create your own effects which is really cool. Even if you're not into super flashy dialogue, they have some calmer effects like a typewriter effect that just add a little polish to your game's UI.
AI Dialogue
We've all heard about how AI is going to take over game development and well...everything. And while it seems like AI tools are very overhyped and play into a lot of fear-mongering, this is a genuinely cool use case for AI. If you've ever wanted to create a game with character dialogue but have never had the means or the budget, this is going to be a game changer. You can create dialog from text, and choose from over 90 different voices.
I've seen several tools that are like this outside of the game development, and they are very expensive, and require a monthly subscription with capped-out limits, so it's super cool that this is a one-time fee. While this does have a character limit per month, there are no extra fees and the limit is pretty high. While I do think hiring real voice actors is important, for indie developers sometimes that's just an option, and this gives us the ability to be one-step closer to AAA game development. But even if you are looking to hire a voice actor, that requires an entire list of dialogue to be thought out, so you could also use this tool for prototyping before you get the real deal.
Skills and Spells
If you've been following me for a second you know that I've recently been diving into working with shaders, and let me tell you, it is fun, but so much work goes into creating even simple effects. And if you've dived into VFX at all, you know that there's a lot more to it than meets the eye. That's where this asset comes in, if you're making a game that has spells in it or something that is reminiscent of diablo, you might want to check these out. There are 23 premade effects in this pack, and they follow a lot of elemental style effects so if your characters have an elemental class I could definitely see this fitting in well with that style of game.
3rd Person Shooter (Fortnite)
Onto, perhaps my favorite asset in this video--Have you ever wanted to create your own version of Fortnite? With this asset, you might just be able to do that.
This is one of the most complete assets I've personally seen on the asset store, and right now it's sitting at $60 USD. And it has a lot of everything in this and a lot of polish.
We even have foot placement, look at that! The characters know what to do on uneven terrain.
We have all of these different types of ways to use this, 3rd person, top-down, first person, even a sidescroller option.
We also have an inventory and equipping system which seems quite robust.
We have a vehicle driving system, which includes motorcycles. If you wanted to create your own battle royale, you could get off the ground very quickly with this.
Not to mention Enemy AI and Patrolling Car AI which is super cool. Looking at you, Cyberpunk.
Just with all that I think it's a fantastic asset, but the cherry on top is this really cool gravity switcher that they've included. While it is a shooter template, you could create a Super Mario Galaxy style game with it as well. Now I want to know, if you were going to create your own version of Fortnite, what twist would you put on it? Let me know in the comments.
Flora
If you're into 3d games, while still in early stages, Flora is definitely an asset to keep on your radar. They're offering an advanced vegetation system that works with static meshes which is very cool. In this clip right here you can see that you can easily paint on ivy to meshes and I believe the developer is working on a solution for terrain support as well.
The interface also seems very easy to use, which is a gripe I always have when using the Unity terrain system, and they have this feature where you can paint essentially a set of models at the same time, instead of having to go one by one which is really nice. You can see how you could easily fill out a scene and create some cool, believable landscapes really quickly with this tool.
Talken
Another breakout product for the case of AI, is Talken, a voice command system where you can control a character with just your voice, no controller needed. You can set up custom commands, it has cross-platform support, and it's currently available in English and Spanish. It also has support for more advanced commands, instead of just "walk" or "run", it can comprehend multiple words commands. I could see this having a big use in VR where it's a more immersive experience. But also imagine a game where you can talk to players, cast spells, and open secret passages using just voice.
Those are all the Unity Assets that I'm super pumped about for September, let me know which assets you're excited about in the comments below, and I will see you in the next one.