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 Practical Game
Development
with Unity®
and Blender™

Alan Thorn

Cengage Learning PTR

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 Practical Game Development with © 2015 Cengage Learning PTR.
Unity® and Blender™
CENGAGE and CENGAGE LEARNING are registered trademarks of Cengage
Alan Thorn
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All images © Cengage Learning unless otherwise noted.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014937090

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 16 15 14
This book is dedicated to everybody that helps make so
many wonderful tools and software programs freely
available to so many game developers worldwide.
Acknowledgments

Many people, events, and scenarios conspired to make this book what it is, and to ensure
its quality. Among those people, I’d like to thank Emi Smith for helping to arrange the
book and managing the process generally; Kate Shoup for her editorial skills and recom-
mendations; Michael Duggan for his technical reviewing; and all the other people who
contributed in some way. There are simply too many to list here separately. Oh, and I’d
also like to thank you, the reader, for taking an interest in game development and for
choosing this book to help you along. I hope it proves useful to you.
Alan Thorn, 2014.
London.

iv
About the Author

Alan Thorn is a freelance game developer and author with more than 12 years of industry
experience. He is the founder of London-based game studio Wax Lyrical Games and is the
creator of the award-winning adventure game Baron Wittard: Nemesis of Ragnarok. He
has worked freelance on more than 500 projects worldwide including games, simulators,
kiosks, and augmented reality software for game studios, museums, and theme parks.
He has spoken on game development at venues worldwide and is the author of more than
10 books on game development, including Teach Yourself Games Programming, Unity 4
Fundamentals, and UDK Game Development. Alan Thorn is currently working on an
upcoming game, Mega Bad Code. For more information on Alan Thorn and Wax Lyrical
Games, visit www.alanthorn.net and www.waxlyricalgames.com

v
Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Chapter 1 The 10-Stage Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Introducing the 10-Stage Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Stage 1: Brainstorming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Stage 2: Initial Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Game Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
Game Details. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
Stage 3: Prototyping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Stage 4: Refining Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Project Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Identify Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
Compress Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
Schedule Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14
Stage 5: Asset Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Stage 6: Importing Assets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Stage 7: Level Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Stage 8: Scripting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Stage 9: Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Stage 10: Building. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Recommendations for Working Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

vi
 Contents vii

Chapter 2 Blender-to-Unity Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Configuring the Blender GUI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Dark Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
Disable Python Tooltips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
Maya Controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
The Close-Without-Saving “Bug” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Exporting Blender Models to Unity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
.Blend Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36
Tutorial: Exporting Manually to FBX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37
Exploring FBX Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Tutorial: Importing FBX Files into Unity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Lightmap UVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57
Scale Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Chapter 3 Modular Environments and Static Meshes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Advantages of the Modular Method. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Getting Started with Modular Environments in Blender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Extending from the Base Tile. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Modular Environment Blender Workflow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Flipping Normals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71
Backface Culling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72
Vertex and Incremental Snapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
N-gons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77
Searching for N-gons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79
Undoing and Removing Doubles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81
Mirroring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82
Using Vertex Groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84
Mesh Display Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .87
UV Mapping and Texture Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Marking Seams, UV Mapping, and Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89
Atlas Textures and UV Overlapping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92
Establish Texel Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94
Importing and Configuring Environments in Unity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Using Prefabs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Static Batching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Chapter 4 Terrain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Creating Terrain in Unity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Terrain Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
viii Contents

Sculpting Terrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Texture-Painting Terrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Evaluating Unity Terrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Blender Terrain Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
The Proportional Editing Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
The Displacement-Texture Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
The Sculpting Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Terrain Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Texture-Painting Terrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
UV Mapping Terrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Generating a Texture for Painting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Painting from the UV Image Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Painting from the 3D View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Painting with Textures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Working with Roads and Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Creating Roads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Chapter 5 Animation Workflows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Animation Units: The Keyframe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Preparing for Animation in Blender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Use a Dedicated Animation Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Beware of Auto-Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Insert Single Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Animation Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Exporting Animations to FBX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Working with Multiple Animations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Keyframe Animations from Blender to Unity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Follow-Path Animations and Animation Baking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Blend Shapes and Shape Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Bones and Rigging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Always Name Bones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Use X-Axis Mirror for Character Rigs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Forward and Inverse Kinematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Deform and Control Bones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Exporting Rigged Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Importing Rigged Meshes into Unity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
 Contents ix

Chapter 6 Objects, Dependencies, and Event-Driven Programming . . . . . . . . . 199

Hard-Coded Dependencies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Solving DI: Component-Based Design and Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Component-Based Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Taking Messages Further: BroadcastMessage and Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Sending Messages to Selected Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Sending Messages to Parents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Notification System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
NotificationsManager In-Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Singletons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Messages and Active Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Traversing Game Object Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Chapter 7 Retopologizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

High-Poly Meshes and Subdivision Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
High-Poly Meshes and Real-Time Games. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Retopologizing in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Step 1: Use Box Modeling to Create a Low-Poly Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Step 2: Subdivide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Step 3: Sculpt and Subdivide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Step 4: Retopologize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Using Decimate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Chapter 8 Saved Games and Persistent Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Persistent Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Player Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Player Preferences: Going Further . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Customizing Persistent Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
XML Files—or JSON or Binary?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
JSON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Binary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Class Serialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Getting Started with XML Serialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Saving Data to an XML File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Read Data from an XML File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Working with the SaveState Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
x Contents

Chapter 9 Baking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

What Is Baking? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Baked Static Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Baked “Real-Time” Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Baked Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Preparing for Lightmapping in Unity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Lightmapping: Lightmap Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Lightmapping Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Indirect Illumination and Ambient Occlusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Baking Lightmaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Baking Maps in Blender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Compositing Render Passes in GIMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Baking Real-Time Lighting with Unity Light Probes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Baking Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Chapter 10 Unity, Blender, and Other Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

Other Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
MakeHuman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
GIMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Inkscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
MyPaint and Krita. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Synfig Studio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
Tiled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
MonoDevelop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
BMFONT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
TexturePacker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
LibreOffice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Anime Studio Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Audacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
SFXR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Appendix A Game Development Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .327
Introduction

This is a book about making video games. It’s a holistic and practical book. It’s holistic in
that it touches on almost every discipline directly related to games, from programming
and level design to 3D modeling and image editing. It covers a range of software, too. It
explores Unity and Blender primarily, but also other tools, including GIMP.
The book is practical in two senses:
n It expects you not just to read and absorb what’s written here, but to follow along and
get involved where required.
n It discusses issues, software, and ideas in ways that focus on their use-value in the real
world of making games as opposed to their value and relevance in theory. We’ll
inevitably touch on theory, too, but only insofar as it helps you get tangible results in
practice, at the level of working with real software and real tools.
We will not go beyond to consider abstract mathematical problems or unsolved issues or
potentialities; these things will be left to other books and references. In short, the only type
of knowledge presented here will be the kind that gets you concrete results with currently
available software and tools. That’s knowledge you can use right here and right now, as
well as for the foreseeable future.
I should say here that, despite the book’s practical and holistic focus, it’s not a step-
by-step tutorial on how to make a game from start to end. This book assumes you’re
already familiar with the basics of game development. It assumes you already know the

xi
xii Introduction

kinds of tools and practices involved in a general and overall sense. It assumes you’re
ready to begin making a game, and what you’re seeking now is some concrete and tangible
examples of how all the different tools, workflows, and concepts come together in a real-
world practical sense.
A tutorial on Unity teaches you Unity, and a tutorial on Blender teaches you Blender. This
book, however, should be seen as a higher-order guide. It shows you multiple tools and
focuses specifically on how you bring them together in a single workflow to get tangible
results. There’s a special kind of empowerment that comes from learning this. Specifically,
it encourages you to see game development from a multi-disciplinary perspective. By see-
ing how the tools fit together and by developing proficiency in each, you bring a degree of
balance to your work. This balance has special value if you plan to manage software teams
and projects, and if you plan to work in small teams or on lone projects where you must
put your hand to everything. So, in essence, this book is not just about showing you how
software and tools come together, it’s about making you a more powerful developer.

Software and Tools

For a practical and holistic book on game development, software plays an important role.
The larger part of this book concentrates on software and its use. There are so many dif-
ferent applications in use in the contemporary industry that it’s not feasible or useful to
cover them all. So a choice must be made. Here I’ve chosen Unity and Blender. We’ll
also briefly explore GIMP and others. In case you’re not familiar with these tools, I’ve
included their website URLs here:
n Unity. This is a game engine. For more information, see https://unity3d.com/.
n Blender. This is 3D modeling and animation software. You can download it from
www.blender.org.
n GIMP. This is image-editing software. You can download it from www.gimp.org.
So why have I selected these tools and not others? The answer comes in several parts:
n All the tools listed are downloadable and completely free. (Unity has a free version
too!) This means you may download and use the tools right now, without paying
anything. Of course, you need a computer and an Internet connection, and you also
need to spend time learning and using the tools—a significant investment. But the
tools themselves cost you nothing.
n The tools are powerful and rising. You don’t need to take my word for that!
Currently, all the tools listed are used in many indie studios and have contributed
 Introduction xiii

toward hundreds of commercial, freemium, and free games. Examples of these games
include Yo Frankie! and Dead Cyborg.
n The tools are continuously developed, maintained, and supported by a large
community, and there’s already a wealth of documentation and information about
them and their use. This means you can use the tools while feeling a certain degree of
comfort knowing that if you encounter a specific problem, it’s likely a solution has
already been found by others and is documented online.
n Because the tools are free to everybody, it gives the book the widest accessibility
possible. These tools can be used by anybody, whatever their budget.
My choice of tools shouldn’t be read as a negative judgment on the alternatives not dis-
cussed here. There are many alternative and commercial tools (such as Photoshop, Maya,
3DS Max, Strata, ZBrush, Mudbox, and others) that are not covered in this book. This
isn’t because there’s something wrong or missing in these tools; there isn’t. It’s simply
because some or all of them are cost-prohibitive to many smaller teams and indie devel-
opers who form the target audience of this book.
Hopefully, this book will reassure you (if you needed any reassuring) that what matters
most when developing games is the developer’s attitude, imagination, skill, and creativity—
not the tool he or she uses. The tool can make a difference to your comfort and the speed at
which you work, as well as how compatible your work is with others who may be using
different software, but it’s ultimately your skill and determination that gets the final results.
That’s why a skillful developer who uses nearly any tool with proficiency, commercial or
not, can produce incredible work. For this reason, the free tools here can get you
professional-grade results. By professional-grade, I mean results that are demonstrably
good enough for a commercial game that appeals to a contemporary audience. Yes, they
can help you make games that sell!

Target Audience
Nearly every book has a target audience, and this book is no different. In short, if you’re
thinking about making a game and you don’t want to spend money on software and tools,
and if you want to see practical and concrete examples of how a game might come
together (as well as tips and tricks), then this is probably the book for you. Also, if
you have a really great idea for a game, and you love the idea of working for yourself,
and you’re prepared to do whatever it takes to realize your vision but just need some guid-
ance on how to approach it, then this is probably the book for you, too.
xiv Introduction

That’s actually quite a broad audience. It includes game development students, hobbyists,
indie developers, small to medium size studios, solo developers, and even seasoned game
developers looking to broaden their skill set to work in new areas outside their comfort
zone. Wherever you may be within that target audience spectrum, you may notice this
book’s multidisciplinary flavor. That’s very much a reflection of the demands made on
professionals within the contemporary industry—especially for small to medium sized
studios.
Game development is a technical discipline that’s evolved to encompass many sub-fields,
including software development, physics, artificial intelligence, graphic design, 3D model-
ing, animation, music production, software testing, and others. Consequently, small stu-
dios on limited budgets quickly find that, to be successful and survive in business, their
team members need to learn fast and become generalists to some extent, developing skills
and know-how across the board. For very small teams especially (such as one- or two-
person teams), a generalist skill set is essential. And so it’s for this small-to-medium-sized
studio audience that this book is primarily intended.
That inevitably means this book won’t really teach you how to be “expert” in any one
field, but rather how to be a capable generalist—the kind that’s needed for commercially
successful indie game development. It’s about becoming an “expert generalist” or a “spe-
cialist generalist.” You’ll learn a bit of coding, level design, 3D modeling, animation, and
more. It’s undoubtedly a tough journey, but you’ll probably need to make it if you and
your teammates want to create games for a full-time living in the long term.
Of course, the learning won’t end with this book. Learning is a never-ending process. This
book is simply meant to give you enough of what you need to start making games. Now
more than ever before, individuals and small teams are finding commercial success as
game developers for all kinds of systems, especially desktop PCs and mobile devices. You
could be among them. This book can help you get started.
I’ve spoken about whom this book is for. Is there anybody who wouldn’t benefit from this
book? Although it’s not my purpose to dissuade anybody from learning, I do think there
are two groups of readers who may not find this book useful. The first is someone who’s
never studied game development before in any sense—someone who’s never pro-
grammed, created graphics, or even considered how games might work under the hood.
Certainly, everybody must begin learning somewhere, but this book is probably not that
place. The book assumes you already have a foundation of knowledge from which to
begin. This foundation includes a general knowledge of what a game engine is and how
content-creation tools like 3D modeling software relate to it. It also includes a basic
knowledge of programming (preferably in C#, JavaScript, or C++), and a basic proficiency
 Introduction xv

in the concepts underpinning 3D graphics such as vertices, edges, and polygons. If you
don’t have this knowledge, then you can get it by reading some of the books I list in the
“Recommended Books” section in Appendix A, “Game Development Resources,” at the
end of this book.
The second group of readers that might not benefit from this book are established or
aspiring developers seeking to become specialists—that is, those seeking specialized
knowledge in only one field of development such as in programming or 3D graphics.
For example, if you see yourself as a programmer exclusively or as an artist exclusively,
and you are looking for a book dedicated to that field alone, then this book will probably
not give you what you want. As I’ve said, this book is primarily for budding generalists,
not specialists. Of course, I don’t really believe there’s any incompatibility between the
two. They are not mutually exclusive. You can be a specialist and a generalist together.
But even so, this book is for developing your generalist side.

Why Is This Book Necessary?

This book has a special and unique value in the industry right now, primarily because of
its holistic focus. With growing numbers of studios and individuals starting game devel-
opment each year, there’s an increasing demand for generalists—people who can adapt
and change gears to fulfill different roles, contributing toward the final game. To complete
competitive and market-ready game projects, on time and within budget, more and more
indie studios and individuals need to develop a well-rounded arsenal of game develop-
ment skills. This arsenal must span multiple disciplines.
You can, of course, learn it by piecing it together through experience and by consulting
multiple books and videos specializing on the subjects you need. Indeed, some of your
arsenal must be assembled that way. But this book can you give an advantage as a gener-
alist. Why? Because it’s specifically written with the generalist in mind. It shares valuable
insights into specific problems encountered during development, which require a general-
ist outlook to solve in the absence of an expensive team of specialists.
If you want to create fully working games and don’t have access to a large team of specia-
lists, then you’ll need to become a generalist yourself—a kind of “Swiss Army knife.” In this
book, you’ll find plenty to help to guide you in being a generalist—in being able to change
modes when needed to get things done. This can help save you lots of money and resources,
because you won’t need to hire others to do what you can already do yourself. This can also
help you become more employable, because it increases the range of disciplines where you
can genuinely be of service, especially in the world of indie games. And finally, this can help
xvi Introduction

you run your own business as an indie studio, because it gives you informed and detailed
insight, at practically every stage of development, as to what’s needed to push your game
forward as well as how it can best be managed in the long term.

Does This Book Teach Everything About

Game Development?
If you pick nearly any computer book at random and scan the reader reviews for it online,
you’ll see one type complaint that surfaces again and again. It goes something like this:
This book doesn’t teach everything there is to know about the subject. It leaves some things unsaid. Addition-
ally, what it does teach can be learned for free online.

I want to tackle that complaint right here, in the context of this book. First, this book does
not teach everything there is to know about game development. Neither does it teach
everything there is to know about how Unity and Blender can work together. That’s
because no book, or video, or course could teach such a thing as that. There’s practically
no limit to how these tools and technologies may be applied, just as there’s no limit to
what an artist can make with paint brushes or clay.
What this book seeks to offer is not an all-encompassing guide to game development.
Rather, it offers a set of practical tips and workflows that I’ve developed from 12 years of
industry experience, working with Blender, Unity, and other tools. These tips and work-
flows have proven valuable in producing successful and complete games, both for my own
companies as well as for my clients.
Yes, almost everything in this book (but perhaps not quite everything) can be learned
online for free. This, however, should not be entirely surprising, nor should it be seen as
a criticism. Game development is a discipline that bridges both the arts and sciences. It’s
not an arcane or mysterious body of knowledge to which only a few have access. Nearly
everything I say here has, in some form, been said before. The value of this book is not so
much in the newness of what I say, but in the originality and structure of its presentation.
You could learn nearly everything here for free by spending days, weeks, and perhaps
even months researching online independently. Or you could read this book.
This book’s main value comes from the fact that I’ve done lots of the hard work for you.
I’ve brought together the knowledge in one convenient volume, and I’ve arranged and
presented it in an optimized order to make it more digestible and memorable. So, this
book doesn’t teach you everything about game development and it doesn’t reveal esoteric
wisdom. But it can make your work and learning a lot simpler and smoother.
 Introduction xvii

How Should This Book Be Read?

This book has been written to work well for two types of reader: the tutorial reader and
the reference reader. Tutorial readers want to learn like they’re in a classroom, tackling
subjects in order one at a time. This reader will read the book in sequence, chapter by
chapter, from start to finish. The reference reader, in contrast, will make frequent use of
the index and speed-reading techniques to identify specific areas of interest in the book,
and then visit them for more details.
This book is amenable to both reader types, but I think the most can be gotten from it if
you approach it as a tutorial reader. Reading the book in this way means you may encoun-
ter subjects you either don’t find interesting or already know, but it may also lead to sur-
prises and unexpected turns, revealing new gems of information that can prove valuable
for you. Since I want you to get the most from the book, I recommend approaching it as a
course or complete tutorial.

Is This Book Out of Date Already?

Nearly every technical book (like this book, for example) has a lifetime. When readers
approach a book like this, they typically want to get the most from it. They want to
know not only that the knowledge within works here and now, but that it stands a strong
chance of remaining valid for the foreseeable future. By the time you read this, time will
have moved on since its writing, and knowledge in the games industry moves very fast. So
the question arises as to how current this book can possibly be for you, right now.
To answer this, it’s important to recognize that this book is about practice and software—
software that changes and is updated frequently by the developers. The developers are
constantly adding new features and improving existing ones. So the chances are high
that, if you download the latest versions of the software, you’ll be using more a recent ver-
sion than what I’m using here.
The critical issue, however, is whether this really affects the validity of the knowledge pre-
sented in the book. The answer, based on how these tools have changed and adjusted in
the past, is no. After all, if every change invalidated all previous knowledge, then nobody
could ever begin to learn the software. Although the software does change, the changes are
designed to integrate with the existing GUI and toolset so the software remains accessible
to its established user base.
It might be that (due to changes) more options, settings, and controls are available to you
than were available to me. But that alone does nothing to prevent you from following
xviii Introduction

along with my steps and instructions, and even going beyond them by taking advantage of
the new and additional features that I didn’t have.

10-Stage Workflow
Throughout the 10 chapters in this book, different software and techniques are considered
in depth. The chapters vary greatly in content. However, there’s a single theme that
runs through and unites them all, regardless of their differences. This theme I’ll call the
“10-stage workflow.” It’s outlined further in Chapter 1. In fact, Chapter 1 is called the
“The 10-Stage Workflow.” It describes the 10 steps that all games go through to move
from concept to completion. These steps are by no means industry standard or agreed
upon. Rather, they represent 10 steps I’ve identified while working on many different
games over many years. Of course, there will always be exceptional projects and circum-
stances that don’t fit nicely into the 10-stage pattern. That’s to be expected when games
differ so widely. But I’ve found that thinking in terms of these 10 stages for most projects
can really help you and your team make quick and efficient progress when making games.
I’ll detail the 10 stages in Chapter 1, but I wanted to introduce the concept here to make
you especially alert to it.

Companion Files
Because this book covers software and its use, and because you’re expected to follow
along, it comes with companion files. These files include all the projects and assets
for the work we’ll be covering. In short, the files include everything you need to follow
along with me in the tutorial sections and reproduce the results you’ll see in the screen
shots. These files span all the software we’ll be considering, including Unity, Blender,
GIMP, Inkscape, and Audacity. Consequently, you’ll need this software to open and edit
the files. The companion files themselves can be downloaded from the following URL:
www.cengageptr.com/downloads.
 Chapter 1

The 10-Stage Workflow

The art of programming is the art of organizing complexity….

—Edsger W. Dijkstra
By the end of this chapter, you should:
n Understand the 10-stage workflow
n Be able to apply the 10-stage workflow to your own projects
n Appreciate the practical importance of planning and design
n Be able to create a game design document for your projects
n Be able to manage your game projects
Creating a game is no small matter. It doesn’t matter how simple or complex you may
think a game is based on how it looks or plays; creating a game is a significant project of
engineering. You should recognize this before you start making a game. This can help
protect you from underestimating the work involved. Underestimation must rank as one
of the primary causes for abortive projects, because over-ambitious designs are quickly
abandoned.
Certainly, jumping in at the deep end, without planning, to work hours or even days on a
game with friends or alone can be a fun learning exercise, even if the game never reaches
the finish line. But if you’re serious about making money from games, then your projects
need to get finished. Gamers don’t pay for incomplete games. Well…sometimes they do,

1
2 Chapter 1 n The 10-Stage Workflow

but you can ignore these exceptional cases here. (Sometimes gamers pay for alpha ver-
sions, development versions, and work-in-progress games, but even in these cases there’s
an expectation that the game will get finished at some point soon.) So finishing your
games is important in all cases.
If you include all “student” and “hobbyist” projects (and I see no reason why you
shouldn’t), then it’s probably true that a majority of games are never completed. Develop-
ment gets frozen, put on hold, or canceled. So it’s important for you to take the matter of
game completion seriously. How can you do this? First, by recognizing the distinct phases
or stages that a game goes through during development. This can help give you a clearer
picture of the work involved, from beginning to end.
Doing this might sound like an academic or theoretical matter. Perhaps it is. Even so, it
has significant practical implications. These implications can make the difference between
a project that runs smoothly and one that doesn’t. Consequently, this chapter considers
the main phases of development and their implications. In short, game development can
be broken into 10 distinct stages, which I call the 10-stage workflow. This is not a stan-
dardized or “industry agreed” workflow, nor is it a concept or pattern that’s discussed in
any textbook, as far as I’m aware. Rather, it’s a workflow that I’ve identified while working
on more than 500 projects during the past 12 years. Of course, there will always be some
exceptional cases and projects that don’t fit this pattern—perhaps your game is among
them. But these stages are, nonetheless, general and abstract enough to apply to most
games on a practical level.
Note
Throughout this book, I’ll offer tips and guidance on making games. In presenting these, it may sound like I’m
promoting my workflow and ideas as the best or only solutions. This isn’t true, of course. There’s no single
“best” workflow, and many roads lead to the same destination. I don’t deny this. But, for this book to keep
a practical and hands-on focus, I’ll concentrate on just one workflow and approach as though it were the
best one.

Introducing the 10-Stage Workflow

Imagine the game-development process as a timeline, from left to right, top to bottom,
or beginning to end. The 10-stage workflow, which I’ll discuss here, requires you to
break down that line into 10 divisions. The divisions are not usually equal in size because
time is distributed differently between the stages. In other words, some things take longer
than others to do.
 Introducing the 10-Stage Workflow 3

Figure 1.1 illustrates a common 10-stage breakdown, with design stages accounting for a
sizable chunk of development time. In total, the workflow consists of the following:

Figure 1.1
The 10-stage workflow breaks down time in game development into 10 separate stages, typically of unequal length.

n Brainstorming
n Initial design
4 Chapter 1 n The 10-Stage Workflow

n Prototyping
n Refining design
n Asset creation
n Importing assets
n Level design
n Scripting
n Testing
n Building
The workflow begins at game conception and ends with game completion. Usually, the
steps are performed in order, each step being completed before the next begins. Some
may call this development pattern the waterfall method, because development unfolds in
discrete and sequential stages like water cascading downward in a waterfall. However,
despite its similarities to the waterfall method, the 10-stage workflow is focused specifi-
cally on game creation and its unique development stages.
Note
Readers familiar with Agile, the software development method, may feel a tension exists with the 10-stage
workflow due to its linear nature (refer to Figure 1.1). Agile encourages developers to see workflow in bursts
or cycles rather than lines. But no tension need exist. Each iteration or cycle in Agile may be seen as the
initiation of a new 10-stage workflow.

In the 10-stage workflow, each stage in the sequence may be thought of as a module of
activity. It has an input and an output. Its input comes from all the outputs of all previous
stages. Its output is the completed work produced in that stage. What goes on between
input and output varies from game to game and studio to studio. For this reason, what
matters most is not what goes on between the inputs and outputs, but that the output
from each module matches what you intended. Let’s see these stages in more detail.

Stage 1: Brainstorming
When you’re ready to make a game, you need to begin with brainstorming. Everybody
who makes a game goes through this stage, and it must always be the first one. Brain-
storming is primarily about ideas, but there’s more to it than that. You need to develop
 Stage 1: Brainstorming 5

connections between ideas. The point of this stage is to generate a picture, mental or
physical, of the game you want to make.
Note
With brainstorming—and in fact, with all the stages in the 10-stage workflow—there’s no right way to do it.
What matters is what you get out of it. Results need to be in line with your intentions. If they’re not, then you
may need to repeat and fine-tune your work in the stage until it matches your expectations.

Take care not to rush this stage. It’s easy to misjudge your own ideas, thinking they’re
clearer than they really are. There’s an ancient Indian proverb: “You don’t know yourself
as well as you think you do.” This proverb has relevance to brainstorming, which is one
reason why it’s important to write down your ideas as you do it. The act of writing them
down in a clear, intelligible way can help you clarify them for yourself as well as to others.
For example, say you’re making a role-playing game (RPG). You have an idea about how
the game will look, some characters, some monsters, and maybe even some towns. You’re
not yet sure exactly how those towns will be laid out or which stats the monsters will have
(and that’s fine). But you likely don’t yet know which systems your game will be released
for, how much you will sell it for, or whether it be multi-player or single-player.
It’s critical to answer these and other similar questions early because they’ll influence how
the game is implemented and the schedule you’ll follow. Mobile games have specific reso-
lution and performance requirements that PC and console games don’t. Unlike single-
player games, multi-player games introduce restrictions on the number of objects and
characters that may interact simultaneously due to bandwidth issues. These technical lim-
itations create boundaries within which you must work, and you’ll need to identify them
before designing your game. The brainstorming stage is an ideal time to do that.
Following are some critical issues that your brainstorming should address. Note that some
games will not have these issues due to their specific nature. For example, sports games
typically don’t need a background story or a list of main characters. But if these issues
are relevant to your game, and if you don’t yet have concrete answers to the questions
they raise, then it probably means you’re not finished with the brainstorming stage. So
try to address these issues before moving to the next stage.
n Full or working title. This is the full title of your game (if you know it) or at least a
working title for use during development until a full title is decided. Having a full or
working title is also useful for referring to your game in development blogs and social
6 Chapter 1 n The 10-Stage Workflow

media, as well as for purchasing a Web domain and preparing marketing materials,
if appropriate.
n Genre. This is the type of game you’ll make. It could be part of an existing genre, a
hybrid genre, or even a completely new genre. Some existing and famous genres
include (but are not limited to) the following: RPG, strategy, simulator, sports,
adventure, first person shooter (FPS), platform game, MMORPG, and casual.
Note
In video games, genres are only very loosely defined (if at all). Typically, in RPG games, such as Skyrim and
Diablo, players must control a party of fantasy-like characters as they explore a world filled with goblins and
dragons, solving mysteries and completing battle-oriented quests. In action games, such as first-person
shooters like Quake, Doom, or Duke Nukem, the player controls action heroes who blaze around battlefields,
alien compounds, or enemy bases, shooting nearly everything in sight. In contrast, adventure games, like Myst
and Monkey Island, are often story-heavy, featuring lots of conversations, mystery, and puzzle solving. There’s
plenty of variety in the world of games; the number of different genres increases each year as new innovations
are made.

n Setting, characters, and background story. Outline the story, the general setting,
and the characters for your game. You don’t need comprehensive details such as the
background for each character or a map of every location; these details are refined
and developed in the next stage, initial design.
n Platforms. These are the systems on which you’re game will run for the gamer. They
may include any of the following: Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, Windows
Phone OS, BlackBerry, Web, Flash, and consoles. This is no small decision. Different
systems have different standards about acceptable levels of resource demands and
performance.
n Supported resolutions. These are the pixel dimensions of your game when run,
in terms of width and height on the screen. Knowing this is especially important
for designing scalable 2D and GUI graphical assets. Make resolution an early
consideration for your game to ensure it’ll look good at all your target resolutions.
n Commercial model. This defines how you plan to sell your game. This could be a
single, upfront fee; a free-to-play model that offers additional virtual goods and add-
ons in-game at a cost; an ad-sponsored model in which revenue-generating ads are
shown to users; or another model altogether. There are plenty of models to choose
from, and the effectiveness of each is hotly debated (although this is neither the time
 Stage 2: Initial Design 7

nor place to weigh in on that issue). The bottom line? You’ll need to choose one or
more models—and the sooner you make an informed choice, the better.
Note
Those interested more in game business models may find the following link helpful: www.adobe.com/devnet/
flashplayer/articles/right-business-model.html.

n Target audience. Is your game suitable for all audiences, ages, and interests? Or is it
targeted toward a specific group of gamers, such as action-gamers, mature audiences,
or young audiences? This is another question that must be answered early. It affects
not only the type of content you’ll include (and exclude) from the game, but also the
kind of publishers and gaming outlets that will accept your product for their catalogs.
The preceding list is not necessarily exhaustive. There are likely to be many more ques-
tions for you to answer regarding your game, but these will typically be game specific. In
answering them, you begin to define limits and parameters, marking the space inside
which you work. These limits are instructive for designing your game in later stages.
They tell you how far you may go with your imagination in any direction before you
have to stop.
Indeed, the creation of new restrictions is ultimately what each stage of the 10-stage work-
flow does. The further along you progress, the more restricted you become until you reach
the final step of completion, where you move no further. These restrictions might initially
seem a bad thing, but there’s another way to see them, too: They are strong guides and
markers, keeping you on the right track and path toward your destination. It can be easy
to get lost in any engineering project, but the restrictions can help protect you from this
danger. Well…they can help protect you only as long as you honor them! So, when you
complete the brainstorming stage, make sure you take your own answers seriously.

Stage 2: Initial Design

After the brainstorming stage it’s time to create the first revision of your game design
document (GDD), keeping in mind the restrictions from brainstorming. This document
will be the output of the initial design stage. It may include (but is not limited to) the
following:
n Text
n Diagrams
8 Chapter 1 n The 10-Stage Workflow

n Sketches
n Artwork
n Photos
n Charts
n Tables
n Lists
Think of the GDD as a read-only PDF file that tells the reader what your game will be as
comprehensively as possible, leaving out nothing. It should be possible for someone who
reads the GDD in its entirety to develop an accurate understanding of what your game
will be. If your GDD does its job properly, you shouldn’t need to add or explain anything
further to the reader. If you do need to do this, then take that as feedback on how you can
further refine and improve the GDD. Measure the quality of your GDD by how clearly
you express your design to the reader. If your reader forms a clear and complete under-
standing of the game solely on the basis of the GDD, then you’ve written it correctly. If
the reader doesn’t, the document is lacking something. You’ll need to find out what it is
and then add it.
The initial design stage typically takes much longer than the brainstorming stage because
it requires you to be very precise and specific about your game. Note, however that, the
GDD, when completed in this stage, doesn’t need to be considered final. It’s a first revi-
sion. Later stages will expand on and refine the document through further revisions. That
being said, at every stage, you should write the GDD as though it were a final revision.
This ensures it is written with the completeness it deserves.
In practice, the GDD is typically refined in subsequent revisions. That’s not because you
are planning ahead of time to refine it later. It’s only because later considerations (partic-
ularly from the prototyping stage) will shed new light and information on old plans that
will lead you to go back and change your plan. You don’t know in advance which, if any,
plans will change, so write them all as though they’re final.
What will the GDD say about your game? In short, it should say everything there is to say.
If someone asked you in conversation on a rainy afternoon, “So, tell me about your game
then, leaving out nothing!” your answer would be the GDD, which could run into hun-
dreds of pages. That means the GDD varies for each game, because no two games are
identical.
 Stage 2: Initial Design 9

Following are the critical details that most GDDs will include. These are provided to give
you guidance about structuring your document. I’ve divided the “ideal” GDD into three
main sections:
n Game overview
n Game details
n References

Game Overview
It doesn’t matter what kind of game you make, there will always be someone who won’t
like it without even playing it. That’s because your game simply won’t be “their kind of
game.” These “dislikers” will listen to the initial details of your game—such as system
requirements, genre, title, storyline summary, and others—and ignore the rest because
they’re no longer interested.
I recommend using the “game overview” portion of the GDD to list all the general details
for your game in such a way that practically anyone will tolerate listening to it. This
means this part will be the shortest. By writing the GDD in this way, you begin to orga-
nize your game details.
This part should list the initial details I just mentioned (system requirements, genre, etc.)
as well as almost all other information from the brainstorming stage. But it shouldn’t elab-
orate on these details—that’s for the next part. So if you’re making an RPG, the game
overview should list the game title, platform, genre, summary, and similar details, but it
shouldn’t list all locations, weapons, enemies, character, and class types, nor should it list
the different quests or sub-quests. Similarly, if you’re making a sports game, the game
overview won’t list all the different players, match rules, stadium venues, or uniforms.
Naturally, this pattern of elimination applies to all genre types, whatever game you’re
making.

Game Details
This part, the “game details,” is where you go into more depth on your game. Based on
the information in the game overview, the reader should have a solid overview of your
game and what to expect. This part refines and elaborates on what came before. In the
game details, you should list all game modes, weapons, characters, styles, objects, and
more. You can present this information in a chatty, novel-like way (some people do),
stretching the information across many pages and paragraphs of descriptions. But I
10 Chapter 1 n The 10-Stage Workflow

strongly recommend structuring your content with lists and using a numbering system
to tag each game element with a unique number so it can be identified among all the
other elements. Each weapon, location, character, and object should have its own name
and number. Be systematic in your approach.

References
By reading the game overview and game details, your reader should learn almost every-
thing about your game. Even so, they’ll likely have some questions. For RPG games,
these might be, “What does the town map look like for town X?” or “What does the sta-
tistics sheet look like for character X?” For sports games, they might be, “What does the
uniform for team X look like?” or “What does the league table look like for League X?” All
of these questions link to maps, statistics, graphs, charts, and other kinds of reference
data. These belong in the last part of the GDD. Together, they might be called the
“Appendices.”
Note
If you’re a one-person team, don’t think you haven’t any need for a GDD. The GDD can not only help you
communicate your design and its details, it can help you clarify and remember your own thoughts. For this
reason, every game needs a GDD.

Stage 3: Prototyping
Prototyping is essentially a feasibility study. It’s where you hand over the first revision of
your GDD to your team of programmers, who will use it to create a draft, miniature ver-
sion of the game. This is known as the prototype. The prototype is to games what the
initial sketch is to a painting.
The prototype isn’t in theory or on paper. It really is a tangible, playable game. It doesn’t
look glamorous, however. It doesn’t have sounds, animations, or any special effects. Gray
boxes stand in for characters and weapons, and other similar primitive objects (spheres,
rectangles, pyramids, and cones) represent other objects. Typically, no art assets are cre-
ated for the prototype except for blank images, matchstick men, or sketch-like creations.
The prototype won’t be a complete or fully featured version of the game; it will support
only the core or main functionality.
 Stage 4: Refining Design 11

Upon completion of the prototyping stage, you will have achieved the following:
n Appraisal of workload. In the prototyping stage, programmers get a glimpse of the
future. During implementation, you can see how much of the design (in the GDD)
translates smoothly into a game on the computer. That means you can finally make
educated projections about how long the full game will take to implement as well as
how much it might cost. From that, you will be able to determine whether you need
to hire extra staff or purchase third-party tools.
n Troubleshooting. Did you encounter any technical hurdles or problems during
prototyping? If so, what do these problems tell us? Did the problems arise because of
design specifics, or were they simply because we failed to see them in the best way?
Questions like these allow you to see the game as an engineering project and to
foresee potential problems before they arise in the finished product. This means
you’ll get to devise solutions ahead of time. Sometimes, these solutions simply require
us to see development from a new perspective. And other times, they lead you back
to moderate or adapt the design.
n Visualization. The prototype can help others see how the final game should look
and work. In theory, the GDD should be enough to convey this knowledge—but
theory doesn’t always translate into practice. Some people don’t like reading design
documents. Others are too busy to read, while still others find they simply don’t
retain information from reading. The prototype will give these people a hands-on,
interactive look at how the game should play. This can spur both unexpected
inspiration and new insights—new ideas and thought experiments for the design that
weren’t obvious or clear when the design was only on paper. These are the insights
that lead people to say, “Hey, now that I see this up and running in a prototype,
I think we could improve the game by adding this new feature.”

Stage 4: Refining Design

Prototyping takes the GDD for a test run. The output of the prototyping stage is a set of
suggestions, amendments, ideas, corrections, and improvements. The purpose of the
refining design stage is to integrate these suggestions, amendments, ideas, corrections,
and improvements into the GDD. This is achieved through an iterative process that
involves the following steps:
1. You think about changes.
2. You make them in the document.
3. You judge them.
12 Chapter 1 n The 10-Stage Workflow

If you don’t like the changes, you repeat the process until you get something you’re satis-
fied with. This process keeps going until you produce a complete GDD representing the
final design.
In theory, the output of this stage should be an immutable GDD—one that you cannot
and must not change. It should be the ultimate authority on what your game will be and
how it will work—a constant that guides development and that cannot be altered in later
stages. In practice, however, I’ve found this immutability difficult to honor in all circum-
stances. In real-life situations, there’s always something that leads me to change the GDD
at some point. Sometimes this happens when a team falls behind schedule and decides
to cut back on features to reduce its workload. Other times, it’s because the developers
find new ideas that they want to include in the game. All these scenarios—and more,
frequently—tempt us to make design changes further along the line.
Doing this can be innocuous, but it can also be dangerous because new designs can
invalidate or break existing work based on old designs. Consequently, if you find yourself
wanting to make design changes after the refining design stage, be alert to the practical
implications of those changes. Don’t dismiss any and all changes entirely, but be cautious
and reluctant to accept changes. For example, changing an adventure game into an action
game is typically not a good move if the decision is made late in development after most
assets are created. But extending the length of an adventure game by adding new charac-
ters and locations, if you feel it’s too short as is, may be a smart move when the proposed
changes can be integrated into the game with minimal disruption.

Project Management
So far, the 10 stages have been covered in sequence, as though game development were
entirely linear and the same for everybody involved. However, particularly after stage 4,
development could proceed differently depending on the structure of your team. If
you’re a one-person team, for example, then it’s likely you’ll proceed with the 10-stage
workflow in sequence as given here. But if your team consists of multiple people, each
with different skills and experience, it’s likely that multiple stages will happen in parallel
as each person concentrates on his or her tasks. The programmers will do programming,
the artists will do “art stuff,” and so on. Whatever the case, the implementation stages
encompass a lot of work. That work must be managed and coordinated. This process is
called “project management.”
You can, of course, proceed without any coherent project management in place. If you do,
however, you’ll likely wind up wasting time and resources. If work is not managed
 Project Management 13

carefully, people could end up sitting around with nothing to do but wait for others to
complete their work. This is not a productive use of resources.
So how do you manage the project successfully? Unfortunately, the answer to that ques-
tion could fill a whole book. Instead, I’ll list some abbreviated tips and tricks that are prac-
tical and can get you up and running quickly. That being said, I do recommend finding
out more about project management. Some recommended reading can be found in
Appendix A, “Game Development Resources.”

Identify Resources
Start by understanding all the resources you have to manage in the project. Here’s what
you’ll need to know:
n All the members of the team and their role
n Where those people will be when they’re working (in the same room or on the other
side of the world)
n The time differences between each location
n All the tools and software you have to work with and who should be using them
(in this book, the software will be Unity, Blender, GIMP, Inkscape, and Audacity)
n How much time you have in total and until the final deadline
n How much money you have to work with (the complete budget)
Make sure you know all these things because they’ll influence how you build a workable
schedule.

Compress Space
Distance is time. If two members of your team are on opposite sides of the globe, there
will be an inevitable delay in communication between them due to time-zone differences.
As some people wake up, others go to bed. This delay in time translates to a social dis-
tance because team members won’t be able to communicate with each other in real-time.
Be creative in reducing the impact of this time delay. By doing so, you can compress
space, bringing those people closer together. One way to do this is to create a virtual
office—an online place where members can log in to post messages, view tasks, view dead-
lines, see the progress of their work, and generally feel integrated into the team. There are
software tools available to do this, including BaseCamp (www.basecamp.com), Active-
Collab (www.activecollab.com), Unfuddle (www.unfuddle.com), and others.
14 Chapter 1 n The 10-Stage Workflow

Schedule Work
There’s no such thing as a complex problem. A complex is an aggregation of smaller, con-
stituent pieces. Complex problems are therefore merely collections of smaller problems.
Sometimes it can be tricky to identify all the constituent pieces of a complex, but project
management requires you to do so. Thus, you must break down game development into
small, manageable chunks, such as “Build a werewolf character,” “Program enemy intelli-
gence,” and “Compose soundtrack for level 1.”
Most project-management software programs call these chunks “tickets.” Each ticket
represents a discrete task. The total work for developing a game can run into hundreds
or thousands of tickets. Identify them all and then map them into a project calendar, giv-
ing each ticket a unique deadline that’s consistent with your project’s needs. Finally, assign
each ticket to an appropriate team member. If you apply this process consistently and
intelligently throughout the project, you’ll find that your work runs more smoothly and
easily.
Project management is covered here, before the remaining stages of the 10-stage work-
flow, because it has special relevance to them. The remaining stages involve lots of diverse
work—from 3D modeling and animation to level design and coding. This work needs to
be managed. Let’s now visit the remaining stages to see what’s in store.

Stage 5: Asset Creation

Stage 5 is about making assets. Here, “assets” refers to all game graphics and animations.
These include GUI graphics (like cursors and windows), 2D graphics (such as loading
screens and backgrounds), audio, and 3D graphics (like meshes). If it’s part of the game
and the gamer will see it onscreen during game play, then it’s a graphical asset.
Creating these assets is typically one of the longest and most expensive parts of develop-
ment (unless you already have plenty of pre-made assets ready to use). If you want quality
results, this stage really has no shortcuts. It requires time and dedication from artists. It’s
here, at this stage, that you’ll use software like GIMP, Blender, and Inkscape. You’ll see
such software at work in the next chapter. There are, however, some points to keep in
mind:
n Recycle assets. If your game features many different environments (say, office
environments), then it’ll need objects like chairs. If that’s the case, you can make only
one or two chairs and then simply duplicate them throughout the environments
where needed. You don’t need to make each and every chair separately. Don’t worry
 Stage 6: Importing Assets 15

unduly about repetition, as the same object can look very different in other contexts
and under specific lighting conditions. Sometimes, the repetition will be noticeable;
you can fix it by adding new objects or changing existing ones. But don’t assume all
repetition will be noticeable from the outset. It can save you a lot of work.
n Use photo references. Most artwork tries to convey real-world believability. Even
mythical creatures like dragons, goblins, and elves have a degree of realism about
them because they resemble other animals or creatures that do exist. Practically all
video game artwork is like this, and is based on photographic reference materials.
That means artists took photographs and used them as reference materials for the
artwork they created. This reference material is important. Don’t assume all artwork
is simply conjured out of the imagination without appropriate reference material. If
you want your artwork to look good, then you’ll need suitable references. Thus, set
time aside to collect these references. You can either take photographs or use photos
that you have available. Reserving time to do this is an investment that pays off in the
long term. It’ll make your asset creation smoother and simpler.
n Outsource. When you outsource asset creation, you turn to third parties and outside
companies to make your assets. Outsourcing is especially common when a studio
falls significantly behind schedule and requires help from additional artists to get
back on track but they don’t want to recruit new permanent staff. Doing this comes
at a price, however—and that price may not be within the budget of every team.
You’ll need to make informed judgments about your own project and work and
whether outsourcing is right for you.

Stage 6: Importing Assets

After you create game assets, you must import them into your game engine. For this book,
graphical assets will be created in Blender, GIMP, and Inkscape, and these will be
imported into the Unity game engine.
Importing assets from one package to another may seem a trivial process not worthy of its
own stage in the 10-stage workflow. However, transferring assets from content-creation
software to a game engine often requires lots of tweaking and setup. This setup can take
time, and this time can be significant enough to affect development overall. For this rea-
son, I’ve devoted a stage to asset importing. This issue is considered further in the next
chapter. Following are some considerations that apply generally to importing assets.
16 Chapter 1 n The 10-Stage Workflow

n File formats and compatibility. Be aware of which file formats are supported for
import by your game engine. Each game engine supports its own range of file formats
for meshes, animations, movies, and images. Know what these formats are and make
sure your content-creation software supports them directly or that reliable converters
exist to convert your assets into the supported formats. For this book, Unity, Blender,
GIMP, and Audacity are compatible. That means you can make assets in Blender,
GIMP, and Audacity, and then import them successfully into Unity.
Unity Supported Formats
For images, Unity supports For meshes, Unity supports
the following file formats: the following file formats:
n PSD n MA
n TIFF n MB
n JPEG n MAX
n PNG n JAS
n GIF n C4D
n BMP n BLEND
n TGA n LXO
n IFF n FBX
n PICT n 3DS

For audio, Unity supports n OBJ

the following file formats: For movies, Unity supports
n MP3 the following file formats:
n OGG n AVI
n AIFF n MOV
n WAV n ASF
n MOD n MPG
n IT n MPEG
n S3M n MP4VIDEO
n XM n Ogg Theora

More information on supported file types and import workflows can be found at the following URLs:
n http://unity3d.com/unity/workflow/asset-workflow/
n http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/AssetWorkflow.html
 Stage 7: Level Design 17

n Asset requirements. Even if Unity officially supports your assets, it doesn’t mean
they’re guaranteed to look good or perform well during game play. Before creating
your first asset, understand the limitations and requirements of the engine. Pay
attention to polygon counts, mesh structure, material counts, UV mapping, and other
specifics. It’s likely your engine will have stringent requirements regarding the
structure and configuration of your assets, especially meshes. You’ll look at the
requirements for Unity later in this book, specifically in Chapter 2, “Blender-to-
Unity Workflow,” and Chapter 3, “Modular Environments and Static Meshes.”
For now, visit the following URL for more information: http://docs.unity3d.com/
Documentation/Manual/ImportingAssets.html.

Stage 7: Level Design

After you successfully imported your assets into the engine, you can use them to start
building levels and environments for your game. The level-building process varies
depending on your game. It may involve connecting mesh pieces, like building blocks, to
form a complete environment for a 3D game. Or it may involve painting pixel-based tiles
onto a background for 2D games.
The ultimate purpose of level design is to create a world for the user to exist in. To achieve
this, the world must be engaging and interactive. For this reason, level design often works
hand in hand with scripting and coding, which is the focus for the next stage.
There are at least three critical tips that apply to level design, although much more could
be said:
n Use the modular method. It’s tempting to view levels and environments from the
perspective of the gamer. From there, they seem like complete and unified entities.
Avoid this temptation. When searching through maze-like dungeons or navigating
vast expanses of desert or jungle terrain, it can seem as though the world is a single,
complete unit manufactured in-situ by artists. Instead, think of levels in terms of
Lego or building blocks. Levels are typically made from discrete and interlocking
pieces, or tiles. This way of making levels is called the modular method. The level
variation and size comes simply from larger and more complex arrangements of
pieces. There are corner pieces, straight sections, cross sections, dead ends, and all
kinds of other pieces. Each piece may connect to any other, allowing for a potentially
infinite number of configurations and arrangements. I really love the modular
method. It can make level design a joyful and fun exercise!
18 Chapter 1 n The 10-Stage Workflow

Note
Chapter 3 considers these techniques of level design when working with Blender. There, I’ll show you how to
make useful modular pieces that fit together seamlessly.

n Design levels with a plan in mind. If you create your environment assets in a
modular way, it’s easy to get carried away, with your imagination and creativity
running wild. Using the Unity editor, for example, it’s easy to start throwing
your level pieces into the environment, connecting them any which way, and
spontaneously creating all kinds of crazy, fun worlds. This is a great and blissful state
to be in—but it can be dangerous, too. It can tempt you into building free-form
levels and environments that lose all resemblance to your original plan. The more
you do this, the further you move from your design. If it’s not kept in check, it’s
possible to end up with levels and environments that have no connection whatsoever
to your original purpose. The result is that time gets wasted. Make sure you only
build levels that respect your designs, maps and blueprints. Improvisation can be a
good thing, but only when it’s consistent with your design and is done consciously.
n Test your level on others. So you’ve made some really splendid levels for your game.
But are they really as excellent as you think they are? Now, it’s my view that there are
no matters of fact about level design and aesthetics. For me, there cannot be “good”
or “bad” levels, or even “good” or “bad” games—at least, not in any objective sense.
Maybe you agree with that view, or maybe you don’t. Either way, if you plan to sell
your game, then it matters what other people think. For this reason, you should let
at least three other people test your levels in context at the earliest opportunity. Let
them play your game and its levels and measure their reactions. See what they
think of them and learn from their comments. Whether their comments are positive
or negative, view them as opportunities for improvement. Don’t take criticism
personally or as a reason to get angry or sad. Don’t let emotion cloud your judgment.

Stage 8: Scripting
Scripting, or coding, typically works hand in hand with level design. You not only want
environments and worlds that look good for gamers, you want worlds that do things and
behave in specific ways. Maybe you have elevators that should rise to upper floors when-
ever the player steps into them. Maybe you have monsters that should crash through walls
and attack players whenever they enter a specific area. This sort of behavior must be
coded (or programmed) in Unity using a scripting language. Unity supports three
 Stage 8: Scripting 19

languages: C#, JavaScript, and Boo. All three of these languages are powerful, so choose
whichever one you feel most comfortable with and which suits your needs.
Note
This book uses the C# language for scripting. That shouldn’t be taken as any kind of negative judgment or
commentary on the alternatives. It simply represents my preference and programming background.

Coding can take a long time and involve a lot of work. Be sure to consider the following
issues when coding:
n Plan your code. Never code blind. Before you write even your first line of code, have
a clear understanding of what you want to do. After all, the first step to solving a
problem is clearly understanding what the problem is. In addition, don’t just think
about your specific problem here and now; think about whether your problem is only
a specific case of a more general kind and whether similar problems might arise
elsewhere. If so, try solving the general problem so it applies to all specific cases. For
example, maybe you want to code a monster that searches for health-restore potions
whenever it is injured during battle. This sounds like a general problem. Certainly,
you want to program a specific monster with this behavior. But perhaps you’ll
also want other monsters to share the same behavior, too. If so, then consider
programming this behavior in a general way so it can be reused among all creatures.
You’ll see this design in action in the latter half of this book.
n Be consistent. Unity offers you the luxury of using different scripting languages. You
can use C#, JavaScript, or Boo. You can, in fact, use a combination of all three across
your project. However, I strongly advise against this. Pick one language and apply it
consistently across your project. This ensures you never have to jump between
different mindsets and thought patterns while coding. It adds a certain degree of
comfort and ease to your development. If you’re downloading and reusing code that
someone else has written in a different language, then I recommend recoding it into
your chosen language unless you have a really good reason not to, such as budgetary
or deadline constraints.
n Use code comments. Code comments are human-readable statements that
programmers attach to lines of source code to improve its readability. Be sure to
use comments even if you’re the only programmer on the team and nobody else will
be reading the code. Sure, it’s easy for you to understand your code while you’re
writing it, but after weeks or months have passed, your code will begin to look very
20 Chapter 1 n The 10-Stage Workflow

different to you. Code comments can help both you and others. They can help you
remember what your code is doing years after you’ve written it, and it can help other
programmers pick up and adapt your code quickly if required. The idea is to write
code that’s easy to maintain, and comments help make that possible.
Tip
I recommend consulting the article “How to Write Unmaintainable Code” by Roedy Green (http://thc.org/root/
phun/unmaintain.html). It’s a tongue-and-cheek tutorial on how to write “unmaintainable code,” but can be
instructive on how not to do it, too. It’s written with the Java language in mind, but its principles apply more
generally to all languages.

Stage 9: Testing
The testing stage covers a range of sub-phases that are determined by your game and its
state of completion. Testing is ultimately about the play-testing done by you as well as
others to make sure your game behaves according to its design and cannot be broken by
legitimate methods.
When you or others test your game, play it with the intention of breaking it. If the player
has the option of two doors, X and Y, and if it’s clear the game wants and expects you to
pick door X, then choose door Y instead. This stage involves playing and replaying the
game as far as is reasonable and within your schedule.
There are several tips and considerations that apply to testing.
n Test early. Don’t think of testing as something that happens only when the game is
complete. Testing should be a constant process. Test specific features and changes
as you code them. Then schedule regular slots throughout development to perform
more general and rigorous tests, ensuring all features hang together as intended.
Avoid wishful thinking and be ruthless in testing. Don’t ignore or be afraid of
encountering bugs that could involve lots of work to repair. If you encounter a bug or
problem and the cause is not obvious to you, then use Unity’s debugging features.
Be systematic. This involves testing the relevant features, one at a time and in
isolation, to follow a process-of-elimination approach.
n Don’t test alone. Just as an author is likely a poor proofreader of his own work, a
developer may be one of the worst testers of her own software. Sure, the compiler will
catch syntax errors, and you may catch obvious and glaring errors, but the subtle
errors will frequently pass you by. This is a common phenomenon in all fields of
 Stage 10: Building 21

software development, not only games. For this reason, welcome and encourage
others whose opinions you value to test your game throughout its development. You
may be surprised at the errors they find. When errors are found, view it as a cause for
celebration, not disappointment. No developer wants errors in their software, and
finding them is the first step toward their elimination.
n Use version numbers. Be serious and systematic about giving your software
meaningful version numbers for major and minor releases that are easily viewable by
the user. When errors are detected and corrected, increment the version number so
each version can be uniquely identified. This allows users—and you—to know
whether they’re playing the latest version. Further, if new errors arise during
development, these numbers enable you to identify the version where errors were
introduced. This can help you identify the code changes that may be the cause.
n Track bugs. Keep a list of all the reported bugs and their circumstances, even if
they’ve been repaired. Don’t remove any reported bug from the list. Doing this lets
you not only itemize all outstanding bugs, but search through past bugs to check for
relevant similarities and relationships that could shed new insight on solving the
outstanding ones. Testing and bug-fixing is a mystery-solving process, so be the best
detective that you can be.

Stage 10: Building

The final stage of the 10-stage workflow is building. It can take months or maybe even
years for a game to reach this stage. In this stage, a game has been created and tested,
and must now be finalized to run as a self-sufficient and stand-alone application on
other people’s computers.
If you expect your game to be an app available from the Apple App Store, Google Play, or
the Windows Store, then you’ll need to build your game. Additionally, if you want your
game to run as a Windows, Linux, or Mac desktop program, or as a console application,
then you’ll also need to build your game.
In many respects, building is made simple in Unity. It still requires careful consideration,
however. This is addressed further throughout the book. Some critical issues, however, are
discussed here:
n Tailor builds to platforms. One appeal of using Unity is its ability to build and
deploy games to many systems, including Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS,
Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Web, and consoles. There’s a relevant slogan that’s
often repeated: “Build once, deploy anywhere.” This concept conjures up a picture of
22 Chapter 1 n The 10-Stage Workflow

simplicity in which you create your game and then simply press a button that will
make it work for all supported systems. Indeed, building really can be that simple
with Unity if it’s configured correctly, but that doesn’t mean your game will work
well when it runs. Making sure your game is truly playable on all target systems
requires careful management. Unity offers settings and techniques to help with this;
it’s important to use them. The process of tailoring your game to work well across
devices is known as “optimization.” Nearly every subsequent chapter in this book will
have something to say on the issue.
n Know your target hardware. Nearly every OS-specific game, like a PC game or
mobile game, has minimum system requirements—the minimum kind of hardware
and software a gamer will need to play the game successfully. Sometimes, games also
include a recommended system specification, which is the minimum hardware and
software needed to play the game with optimal performance, as intended by the
developers. You can consider both the minimum and recommended specifications as
your “target hardware”—the kind of device you intend your game to run on. Make
sure you have access to this type of system when building and testing your games.
Not only that, decide what your target hardware will be before you create your game,
not after. This will let you decide on acceptable levels of performance and whether
your game needs further tweaking and refinement to improve its performance.
Having an established target hardware lets you benchmark your game to make
measured judgments about how well it performs.
n Know app store requirements. If you want your game to be listed in app stores,
such as the Apple App Store or Google Play, then know their requirements and
acceptance policies regarding game submissions. Each of these stores, and others,
have rules and requirements about what your game may or may not contain in
terms of language, violence, and content. In addition, they have requirements about
file size and the general structure of your application, such as icon sizes and
supplementary files and data. Invest time from the outset to know these requirements
and integrate them into your game to create acceptable builds. If you’re unsure
about an issue, contact their support channels to find answers.

Recommendations for Working Practice

The 10-stage workflow outlined here is intended as a general guide for developing most
types of games, from casual brick-matching games to expansive MMORPGs. Even
when the workflow doesn’t apply to you in its entirety, it’s still likely to offer you
 Recommendations for Working Practice 23

much that is valuable. Be sure to get the most out of it by applying all that’s relevant
for you.
If this is your first time making a video game, I have some additional recommendations:
n Have realistic ambitions. Set achievable goals and then pursue them with energy.
Nearly everybody feels excited and energized about a game they’re intending to
make. It’s easy to add on new features and expand the design to make the game even
grander and more fantastic in scope. But it’s also easy to take on more than you can
really manage in practice. If you have a small team and a small budget, take care to
set realistic limits to avoid disappointment. If you cannot realistically estimate a final
deadline and budget from the outset, take that as a warning that your design is
lacking and may need changing. If, after deep consideration, you still cannot settle on
a budget and deadline, your design may need scaling back to be made more
manageable.
n Don’t multi-task. If you feel overwhelmed, stressed, or simply daunted by the extent
of work outstanding, be sure you’re not multi-tasking, or trying to do too much at
once. Instead, focus on one task and dedicate yourself to that. Move forward only
when that task is completed. Games are multidisciplinary projects. They require work
that spans many fields. But that doesn’t mean you have to work in all those fields at
the same time, jumping from coding to graphics and music and design without any
clear direction or division of labor. Be organized and focused. Complete tasks one at
a time.
n Play less and make more. A group of game-development students once asked me
how they could be more productive on their game project. They had an original idea
and skillful team members, but they were frustrated by how long their game was
taking. I visited their studio in Chicago to see if I could help them. I soon discovered
that they played multi-player death match games during working hours—a lot. In
fact, it turned out that game-playing accounted for around 65 percent of their
working day. It’s true that valuable inspiration can be found in playing games. But it’s
also possible for this line of thinking to become a dangerous rationalization that
prevents you from making important progress with your work. Be honest with
yourself about how you balance time during development.
n Don’t blame the tools. It commonly happens during development that you
encounter obstacles and problems. This often happens regardless of the tools you use,
be they Unity, Blender, GIMP, or any other tool. In such cases, it’s easy to feel limited
or restricted by the software, as though it’s not good enough or it’s holding you back.
24 Chapter 1 n The 10-Stage Workflow

But blaming the software can be destructive to both your work and the game. Instead
of blaming, try seeing the tool with new eyes and viewing the problem from a new
perspective. Take a break and come back to it later. Search online and on the forums
for more information and help. There’s usually more than one road to the same
destination, and tools designed for a specific purpose can often be used inventively to
complete tasks for which they weren’t intended. Once you condition yourself to stop
blaming the tools and recognize their versatility, you gain a new level of power with
them. Don’t ask, “Who is to blame?” Instead, say, “I know the software can do it. But
how?”

Summary
This chapter marks the starting point on a practical journey to using Unity and Blender
together, along with other content-creation software. Its ultimate purpose is to establish a
mindset and consciousness toward working with games and game development.
The 10-stage workflow breaks down development work into 10 discrete steps. The exact
order and execution of these steps will differ by game and team. Regardless, the steps arc
across game-development work and mark out specific stages and regions of time. The
remaining chapters of this book concentrate specifically on stages 5 onward. That is, they
concentrate more on asset creation, coding, and building than on design aspects, such as
creating a game design document. This is intentional; it’s simply because software, such as
Unity and Blender, is typically used only after a game design is already in place. Its pur-
pose is to create assets and create levels, and that’s what we’ll use it for here. For this rea-
son, stages 5–10 will be the most relevant for us. I will not, however, cover the software in
order of the 10-stage workflow throughout subsequent chapters. Rather, the topics are
arranged by subject matter and their relationship to each other in terms of how the soft-
ware interoperates with the Unity engine.
This chapter also offered tips and guidance targeted at people who are making their first
video game, although others may find value in the advice, too. That advice may be sum-
marized as having realistic ambitions, not working on too much at the same time, making
games instead of playing them, and not blaming the tools if you feel stuck or unsure about
how to proceed with your work. If you can follow those four rules while working through
the remaining chapters in this book and beyond, I think you’ll find game development to
be a beautiful experience. And yes, that includes game development with Unity and
Blender.
 Chapter 2

Blender-to-Unity Workflow

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

—Leonardo da Vinci
By the end of this chapter, you should:
n Be able to configure Blender for use with Unity
n Understand the basics of a Blender-to-Unity workflow
n Appreciate the issues involved with importing and exporting meshes
n Understand sharp edges and the Edge Split modifier
n Be able to export models in the FBX format
Almost every video game makes use of real-time polygonal models, known as “meshes.”
They’re called “polygonal models” because their form and substance is defined geometri-
cally through vertices, edges, and faces. Meshes are used to represent practically every tan-
gible in-game object—from guns and buildings to people and monsters. There is a wide
variety of applications available to video-game artists for making meshes, but the software
considered in this book is Blender. It’s a free, cross-platform 3D modeling software, avail-
able from www.blender.org/.

25
26 Chapter 2 n Blender-to-Unity Workflow

Note
If you’re looking for some concrete examples of what Blender can do, take a look at the Sintel short movie
project, available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRsGyueVLvQ.

This chapter doesn’t discuss Blender as though you’ve never used it before. There are
already plenty of free and commercial tutorials available that focus on Blender and its
basic use. These tutorials expand on the fundamentals, such as the Blender GUI, keyboard
shortcuts, modeling and texturing basics, and more.
Tip
If you’ve never used Blender before or you require a refresher, please consult the “Recommended Reading”
section in Appendix A, “Game Development Resources,” before proceeding with this chapter. The appendix
lists several books and video training materials that can help you get started quickly.

Although this chapter does cover some issues like modeling and texturing, its main focus
is on using Blender and Unity together. Consequently, the primary concern here will
be for interoperability between the two—practical projects that span both applications.
Specifically, in this chapter, you’ll see proven tips and techniques for configuring the
Blender GUI to support a speedier workflow. Then you’ll look at how game-ready meshes
are optimally exported for Unity, with appropriate shading, size, and structure. And if
you’re not sure what any of that means yet, don’t worry. More is explained throughout the
chapter.

Configuring the Blender GUI

When you start Blender for the first time and you continue using Blender at its default
settings, your interface will look something like Figure 2.1. I say “something like” as op-
posed to “exactly like” because Blender updates are released regularly. That means you’ll
probably be using a newer version of Blender than mine, so your interface may be slightly
different.
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
up on that mesquite; if you’ll look at the mesquite you’ll see where
some o’ my lead plunked into it while I was shooting. I wasn’t
shooting at anybody, nor dreaming o’ harmin’ anybody.
“Then these wild men jumped out at me, slingin’ their crazy lingo;
and I’ve just waked up to the discovery that some o’ my lead must
have went astray. They say I hit a woman. It’s the first time for me,
Woods, and I’m sorry if it’s so. I didn’t know it, and didn’t mean it.”
Ben Woods looked at him intently.
“That sounds straight, anyway,” he said.
“It’s the truth, and the whole truth!” asserted Conover. “What
would I want to be shootin’ a Mexican woman for, anyhow? Ask
these chaps if the woman wasn’t in her house? I never seen her, and
she must have been.”
The marshal turned to the Mexicans.
“Was the woman in her house?” he demanded fiercely.
They pressed forward and began to make excited statements; yet
out of what they said he managed to extract the confession that this
was so.
“There wasn’t any crazy shootin’ up of this part of the town,
then?” he said. “It was reported there was.”
The Mexicans clamored about him, declaring that the woman was
dying, and demanding the immediate punishment of the man who
had shot her.
“But if he didn’t shoot at her, and hadn’t any intention of hittin’
her?” said the marshal, trying to lull the storm.
They still clamored.
Woods turned from them to the man who was now his prisoner.
“This thing will have to be looked into, anyhow, Conover,” he said
regretfully. “If the woman dies it may make trouble for you. But we’ll
hope she’ll git well. Anyway, I don’t see but I’ll have to take you to
jail until the thing can be looked into.”
His tone was almost an apology, and Conover understood it as
such.
 The deep flush, accentuating the liquor-red of his face, noticed
once before that morning, came again; his blue eyes contracted and
narrowed; for a moment he looked defiant, his hand dropping
toward the revolver pocket hidden by the corduroy coat. He forgot
for the instant that he had surrendered the weapon.
Then his mood changed, and he laughed, a harsh sound that had
no merriment in it.
“Oh, all right, Woods!” he said. “Just as you say. I wouldn’t shoot
a woman—not even a Mexican one; I ain’t that kind, and you know
it. I’ll go with you.”
He stepped forward, almost as if pushed by the yelping Mexicans
who crowded his heels; and the marshal’s men surrounding him, he
was led away into the town, and cast into the town jail.
“Hard luck!” he said, when the marshal’s men were gone.
He looked disconsolately about his cheerless quarters—a narrow
room, dingy and disreputable, with one high, barred window, and a
heavy, barred door. It held nothing but a broken-legged stool and a
shaky wooden cot on which was a tattered government blanket and
a makeshift of a pillow.
“I dunno as it’s any use,” he muttered when he finished his survey.
“I intended to try to be a decent man, and here I am. When a man’s
down, even Fate kicks him. I didn’t even know there was such a
creature in the world as that Mexican woman, but one of my bullets
goes huntin’ for her, and finds her; and it lands me here. And if she
dies——”
He shrugged his shoulders and dropped to a seat on the cot.
“It come about, of course, all of it, because that other woman
died; that got me to thinking again, and then I got to drinkin’ to
keep from thinkin’. I’m all sorts of a fool, on general principles, and
when I go to loading up with liquor I’m even a few more.”
Restlessly he got up from the cot, and, putting the broken stool
against the wall, he mounted it, and looked out from the barred
window.
 At first his gaze took in the town, and particularly that portion
which held the Mexican huts. He could even see the little mesquite
tree where he had stuck up the queen of hearts and fired at it.
Following the road which ran there, he looked off toward the
ragged hills and the mountains looming beyond them, his thoughts
bitter.
As he did so, he became aware that horsemen were approaching
the town along that road.
He stood on the stool staring at them until they came up to the
Mexican huts and on into the street which led to the center of the
town.
The horsemen broke into a canter.
“Injuns,” he said, “and three white men.”
He strained his eyes to make them out.
Suddenly a low whoop broke from his lips.
“Buffalo Bill, or I’m a sand hog!” he exclaimed, striking a palm
against the bars of the window.
He rubbed his eyes, and looked again.
“And the two white men with him are Wild Bill and that old trapper
they call Nick Nomad. Whoop! I reckon the Injuns aire some o’
Buffalo Bill’s scouts.”
A change passed over his face.
“But mebbe they won’t help me. When Fate kicks a man she kicks
him hard. Yet there was a time when Buffalo Bill and me were pards.
But that’s long ago, long ago.”
 CHAPTER XVII.
THE STORY OF QUICKSILVER JOHN.

Ben Woods, the marshal of the town of Skyline, met Buffalo Bill
and his pards and followers in front of the principal hotel of the
town.
The hotel piazza was filled with “prominent citizens,” as a sort of
welcoming committee backing the efforts of the marshal, while
people of lesser importance filled the street on each side of the hotel
and backed against the opposite buildings in a curious wave.
Buffalo Bill’s arrival in the town had been hourly expected, and
had been watched for from the “lookout” station on the hotel roof.
As soon as his coming was announced the news was sent flying
throughout the community.
Woods stepped down from the piazza, extending to Buffalo Bill his
thin, wiry hand.
“It seems like you’ve been a long time coming, Cody,” he said,
“but we’re glad to see you.”
He flung commands at some Mexicans grouped near.
“Pedro, Sebastian—you fellers git a move on, and take the hosses
—what ye staring at? Yes, them’s Injuns with the gentlemen! Didn’t
ye never see any before? Well, you’ll have time to git acquainted
later. Take the hosses and hustle ’em to the stables.”
The Mexicans flew to obey.
The citizens on the piazza swarmed down behind the marshal, and
the next moment Buffalo Bill and his pards were being given a
characteristic greeting of the border.
 “Any word about the child?” the great scout asked of Woods,
almost before the greetings were finished.
“Not a thing,” said Woods. “We’re reckoning that Injuns took him;
that’s what we got, from the little of the trail we could follow;
though why they would do it, or what they would want with the boy,
puzzled us, until——”
He stopped to present another “prominent citizen,” who had just
arrived in breathless haste and desired an introduction.
Leaving Wild Bill and old Nomad to converse with the group on
and about the piazza, Buffalo Bill accompanied Woods into the hotel,
as soon as he could do it without offense to the assembled people.
“I’ve sent for the kid’s father and mother,” said Woods, “and they’ll
be here in a little while, I reckon. It’s a curious case.”
“From the report I received, it is. You were about to say
something a while ago, but stopped to introduce that gentleman?”
“Oh, yes; I was sayin’, I believe, that the whole thing tangled us
all up. But I heard somethin’ this mornin’ which, maybe, is a clew.
And, by the way, I just now arrested and jailed the feller that give it
to me. Mebbe you know him? It’s Tom Conover, old Toltec Tom,
some call him, and——”
“Shot a woman?”
“Well, it was by clear accident, so he says.”
“Is she much hurt?” was the scout’s interested query.
“I’m hopin’ not, but we ain’t goin’ to be too rough on any white
man for a thing like that, especially if ’twas an accident.”
Buffalo Bill settled back in the chair he had taken. He and Woods
were in the hotel office; but the clerk had gone out on the piazza,
and was listening there to the talk of old Nick Nomad and Wild Bill.
The trapper’s heavy voice, uttering characteristic exclamations,
floated in at the window, accompanied by the comments of some of
the citizens.
“Go on,” said Buffalo Bill to the marshal. “Tell me about the child.”
“Well, you know the story?”
 “Not clearly. I was not at Fort Grant when your messenger arrived;
so what I know I received at third hand, from the commander there,
on my return. But he said that word had come from here of the
kidnaping of a child by Indians, and he ordered me to report here
and see what I could do.”
“Well, that’s straight, and nearly the whole of it. It’s Bill Morgan’s
boy, down at the foot of the hill over there. They live beyond the
town, ye see, and so it was an easy job for the reds to sneak in and
do their work, particularly as no one was thinkin’ of such a thing,
and the kid was allowed to play round outdoors all he wanted. I’ve
sent for Morgan and his wife, so’s they can tell you all about it, and
jest how it happened; but that’s all they know, or any one does,
unless it’s Tom Conover.”
He produced some cigars and passed them to the scout, as if the
matter under consideration called for such care that haste would be
its ruin.
“Thanks!” said Buffalo Bill, accepting a cigar in the spirit in which it
was offered.
Woods struck a match, which he held out for the scout’s use,
lighting his own cigar from it after the scout’s was going. Then he
settled back in his chair with quite as much deliberation.
Before he went on with his story the clerk of the hotel returned to
the office, and some other men came in at the clerk’s heels. They
ranged themselves by the bar, where one or two of them called for
liquor, which the clerk dispensed from a long-necked, black bottle.
“What Tom Conover told me maybe amounts to something,” said
the marshal, “and maybe it don’t; but you’re entitled to know it, and
it may help. It’s this: About twenty or thirty years ago, he said, a
child was missin’ in jest about this same way. Skyline wasn’t standin’
here at that time. The kidnapin’ was done south o’ here, at the old
’Doby Wells, where a settler had pitched his shack and was trying to
live. Injuns swung down from the mountains and run off with the
kid; they didn’t massacree, nor burn the house, nor they didn’t make
any ginral raid; they jest snatched up the kid and hit the trail for the
mountains.”
“And what became of the child?”
“Well, if anybody knows, I don’t; Conover didn’t seem to. He jest
remembered that. But he said he recalled that when it was done
there was talk around to the effect that every twenty or thirty years
them hill Injuns did a trick like that; what for I don’t know, and I
reckon nobody don’t. My idea, though, if I was put to it, is that if the
thing ever really happened, it was for a sacrifice of some kind.”
The scout smoked in silence as Woods talked.
“Anything else?” he said, when Woods stopped.
“That’s about all; only Conover was inclined to the theory that it
was the work of old Fire Top, and so was we; I mean this present
case was the work of that old heathen, we thought. Why he thought
it I don’t know, and he never said. He’d been boozing, as I’ve told
you, and whether he really knowed what he was talkin’ about or not
I can’t say. But there you have it.”
“What else?” the scout asked again, when the marshal once more
subsided behind his cloud of smoke.
“I reckon there ain’t anything else, that I know of.”
“Why did you think it was the work of old Fire Top?”
“Well, from the fact that a red who was supposed to be one of
Fire Top’s bucks was seen sashayin’ round Morgan’s place the day
before, and from what Conover told me this morning?”
“You found a trail?”
“Not a very plain one; but there was pony tracks behind the knoll
below the house—tracks of an unshod Injun cayuse—which must
have been made about the time the kid disappeared.”
“You followed them?”
“To the point where they entered the main trail leadin’ toward the
Cumbres. We couldn’t do nothin’ after that, for the main trail is hard
as flint, with a thousand tracks, if there’s one.”
 “You might have made sure that the cayuse tracks didn’t leave the
Cumbres trail.”
“We tried to, but we didn’t find nothing—except this.” The marshal
put his hand in his pocket and drew out a battered piece of silver
that had been rudely fashioned into an Indian earring.
“Whoever wore that was most likely an Indian,” he said, “though it
might ’a’ been a Mexican; they’re all alike in wantin’ to wear shiny
things in their ears and in their hair—Mexicans aire half Injun,
anyhow, ye know. One of my men picked that up below the knoll, as
we was follerin’ that cayuse trail; and I put it in my pocket.”
“Did you send a force toward the Cumbres Mountains?” queried
the scout.
“Well, not all the way,” said the marshal, twisting uneasily in his
chair, for he knew that was a thing he should have insisted on. “I
couldn’t git any men that wanted to go farther than the Cross
Timbers. Fire Top’s Toltecs ain’t men that aire to be fooled with, and
so I didn’t go beyond that point. But I didn’t see any need, as we’d
struck no trail. And if it was Fire Top, and he got into the Cumbres,
where he holes up, then it wouldn’t do no good, anyhow.”
“Why?” said the scout quietly.
The marshal tried to laugh, but failed.
“Well, Cody,” he answered, “if you want to go into the Cumbres,
and up to Fire Top’s headquarters there, you’re welcome to; but not
for me, or any one I could git here to trail after me. It never was
done but once—by any one that came back alive; and that was
when Quicksilver John blundered down there by mistake, and got
out again by mistake. It wasn’t courage, but luck, that brought
Quicksilver John out of there that time, I’m telling you.”
He settled back again, and tried to hide his confusion by “smoking
up.”
“Maybe you don’t know about Quicksilver John and that little
adventurer, Cody? You wasn’t in this section at the time, and I don’t
think it has ever got into print, so you’re pardoned for not knowin’
anything about it.
 “Quicksilver John was huntin’ for a cinnabar lode, as usual, and he
hit into the Cumbres, takin’ nothin’ but a burro and his tools and his
water bottle and grub. It’s a desert country, and he had a hard time
straight from the start.
“He didn’t know anything about Fire Top nor them wicked Toltecs
of his, and so wasn’t figurin’ on trouble from that quarter. He didn’t
find any cinnabar, but he struck the queerest Injun town that any
one ever heard of, or dreamed of; it had reg’lar houses, somewhat
like them cliff dwellers’ houses you’ve seen, or maybe read about.
But some was better—some was of stone. It was a bang-up place,
for an Injun city, he said; and he was wonderin’ whether it could
really be Injuns livin’ there, or some settlement of whites he had
never heard of, when the queerest thing happened you could ever
imagine. I dunno whether to believe it or not! But Quicksilver John
said that while he was studyin’ them houses, a big eagle, that he
hadn’t even see, flapped down out of a tree behind him and struck
him between the shoulders.
“He was layin’ at the time on the edge of a precipice, lookin’
down; and the blow of the eagle knocked him over the edge, so that
he began to fall. But, so he reported, the claws of the eagle had got
fast in his clothes, and that kept him from dropping down like a
shot; the eagle tried to fly with him, and that held him up a bit,
though his weight kept pullin’ the eagle down and down. He was too
heavy for the eagle to carry; but at the same time the efforts of the
eagle to lift him up kept him from droppin’ swift. So together they
came right down into that queer town, nighabout in the middle of it,
the eagle flappin’ his wings and screechin’, and him swinging his
arms and legs and yellin’. It must have been a queer sight.
“And it was that way they landed, clost by some Injuns, that wore
red feathers in their hair, and was otherwise ’most naked, except for
a lot of gold bracelets. When the ground was struck the eagle
managed to pull its hooks out of the clothes of Quicksilver John, and
to fly off; and there he was left, sprawlin’.
“Well, them red-feathered Injuns swarmed round him prompt, and
whooped and hollered; and they picked him up and carried him off
to some kind of a temple, where there was a great howdy-do about
it. And then a priest, or a king, or somethin’, come; Quicksilver John
didn’t know who, or what, for this priest, or king, or whatever, was
all veiled, and wore a robe of some kind.
“But, anyway, after Quicksilver John had been held some days,
and expected to be killed every minute, he was carried up to the top
of the cliff from which the eagle had knocked him, and told to git.”
The marshal stopped and puffed at his cigar, which had nearly
gone out.
“And then,” he said, breathing deeply and blowing out the smoke,
“you can bet he got—he skedaddled.”
Some of the men who had come in and heard the story, laughed;
they had heard it before, and saw only its comedy elements.
“I reckon you don’t believe that story, Cody,” remarked Woods,
glancing at the scout. “It’s a purty stiff yarn, and I dunno as I
believe it myself. But what Quicksilver John wanted to tell it for, if it
was a lie, gits me; he didn’t gain anything by it.”
“He told it for the same reason that makes a man like to tell the
biggest fish story,” said some one in the crowd.
“He said,” went on the marshal, “that the Injuns was Toltecs, and
was under that old coyote called Red Feather, though whether Red
Feather is livin’ or dead, or anything much about him, nobody
knows. Maybe there ain’t any old Fire Top, and no such queer
Toltecs in them hills; but there aire Apaches there, and that’s enough
for me. Wherever there aire Apaches I keep out. Sabe?”
He hesitated, and went on:
“But Toltec Tom says there is, or was, a chief called Fire Top; and
Injuns wearin’ red feathers have been seen round here, and they’re
said to be Toltecs, and live in them Cumbres Hills. But that’s all we
know, Cody; maybe all that anybody knows. Except that this kid is
gone—seems to ’a’ been stolen—and we found Injun pony tracks,
and this Injun earring, or nose ring, or whatever it is.
 “And so, after talkin’ the thing over, when we couldn’t do anything,
or very much, ourselves, we sent that messenger to Fort Grant,
askin’ for your help; and here you aire.”
He seemed mightily relieved that this was so.
 CHAPTER XVIII.
THE STOLEN CHILD.

Before Buffalo Bill could comment on the queer story of

Quicksilver John, or on any of the other things which the worthy
marshal of the town of Skyline had imparted to him, there was a
sound of scraping feet beyond the door, in the direction of the
piazza, and a man and woman came into the office.
The marshal jumped to his feet when he saw them, and the scout
also rose, knowing that here were the father and mother of the child
that had been supposedly stolen by Indians.
The man was a sturdy-looking fellow of the miner type, about
thirty years old. The woman was younger and girlish, and was a
beauty. Her skin was fair, her eyes a bright blue, her hair a gold-
brown; so that, altogether, she had, in spite of the poorness and
simplicity of her clothing, something in her appearance that
suggested one of Titan’s pictures of angels.
So fair and girlish, though a wife and mother, she was, that
Buffalo Bill could not, as he came to his feet, repress a look of
admiration.
“These are the people I told you about,” said Woods, introducing
them. “This is Morgan and Missus Morgan; and it’s their kid that has
disappeared.”
The blue eyes of the woman filled with tears as she looked up at
the tall and handsome scout who stood before her; his kind and
kingly looks warmed her heart, and gave her a feeling of confidence
even before he spoke to her.
 As soon as the introductions had been put through by the
marshal, Buffalo Bill began to ask Morgan and his wife questions,
finding them intelligent and eager to impart all the information they
possessed.
“He”—she referred to the child—“was playing out of the knoll
when it happened. He played there nearly every day when the
weather was good, and it’s been mostly good lately. I didn’t hear
him cry out, or anything, but I did hear the hoofs of a horse out
there somewheres, though at the minute I didn’t think anything
about that in particular. But somehow I got uneasy by and by, and
went to the door and called him. And when he didn’t come I ran out
there—and he was gone!
“A good distance off, in the direction of the Cumbres trail, was a
cloud of dust; but I couldn’t see what was in it. For a minute I was
that scared I couldn’t hardly do anything. I ran all round, looking for
him; and then I ran to the neighbors; though maybe I ought to have
done that first.
“Then one of ’em told me that the day before she had seen an
Indian riding along there, with a red feather in his hair, and a
blanket on him, which she hadn’t thought much of at the time, as
Indians come often into the town.”
“Not the Red Feathers!” interrupted the marshal of Skyline.
“I don’t know what Indians they are, and the woman didn’t know
that he was different from any others; but when I told her about the
cloud of dust, she said at once it was probably an Indian done it,
and told me about the one she’d seen the day before, with a red
feather in his hair.
“Then Mr. Jones—that’s her husband—he ran into the town here
and reported it, and after that a lot of men tried to follow the Indian,
but——”
She stopped with a pathetic break in her voice, and looked at
Buffalo Bill, tears showing in her eyes.
“How old was the child?” the scout asked, mildly and kindly.
“Fi—five years old!” she faltered.
 “A boy, I believe you said?”
She assented by an inclination of her head, and put her
handkerchief to her eyes.
“If what Toltec Tom said was so,” put in the marshal, “the kid that
was stolen by the Red Feathers thirty years ago was a girl.”
The woman fumbled in the bosom of her dress and drew out a
photograph.
“That’s his picture,” she said; “taken two months ago, when we
was visiting down in Madgeburg. Everybody says it looks like him.”
Buffalo Bill studied the photograph, seeing there a bright-eyed,
handsome little fellow in semisailor clothing, a smile on his lips, as
he looked straight out at the beholder and stood up sturdily on his
well-formed legs. His long hair fell down on the collar of the sailor
suit, and was, in front, cut square off across his well-rounded
forehead. It was the picture of an attractive, cheerful, healthy boy.
“Can you think of anything else it may be important for me to
know?” said the scout, as he handed back the photograph.
“You will try to find him?” she asked tremulously. “I can’t think of
anything else. Only, I have been hearing such awful things; and the
Indians are so cruel and terrible, and he’s such a little fellow, and so
good and dear. Do you think they will kill him—have killed him?”
“I don’t think they have killed him!” the scout declared with
emphasis.
“And you think you can find him?” she quavered.
“Mrs. Morgan, I and my friends stand ready to do everything that
can be done in the matter.”
“But the delay!” she urged. “I have heard some awful talk—about
how the Indians sacrifice children, and torture them, and all that. It’s
breaking my heart.”
She began to cry; and in her nervousness it seemed that with
difficulty she restrained a desire to clutch hold of the great scout and
thrust him out of the office, and on the trail, in pursuit of the
abductors of her boy.
 Buffalo Bill, understanding her feelings, said all that he could to
quiet her and give her the comforting warmth of hope. He repeated
that he would take the trail with his aids and run the Indians down.
“You will begin at once?” she urged.
“Yes,” he answered; “as soon as I can get ready for so long and
dangerous a trip.”
“It will be long—very long?”
She wanted her boy rescued instantly.
“They have probably retreated deep into the Cumbres Mountains,”
the scout told her. “We shall have to follow them there; and it will be
a dangerous journey, for which we shall have to make preparations.
It is an unfamiliar country to me, and my companions, too, and we
may need to look for a competent guide.”
“You’ll get none here, Cody,” said the marshal; “you couldn’t get
any man here to follow old Fire Top into the Cumbres—if it was old
Fire Top.”
There was an interruption at the door, and a man came into the
office hurriedly.
He was from the jail, and bore a letter.
“For Buffalo Bill,” he announced.
The letter was a note scrawled with a pencil on a page that
appeared to have been torn from a notebook.
When Buffalo Bill opened it, he saw by the signature that it was
from the jail prisoner, Toltec Tom.
It was brief, and ran as follows:
“Buffalo Bill: You may remember me, old pard, but perhaps you won’t, as we
rawhided around together a good many years ago and our trails haven’t crossed
much lately, if any. What all I’ve been doing since then doesn’t matter. But I hear
you’re in town—saw you, in fact, as you and your friends came into the place. I’m
putting up at the Town Hotel, and can’t say that I like the accommodations. I want
to get out, and that’s why I write you. The marshal will tell you why I’m here, if
you haven’t already heard about it. Come over and see me as soon as you can,
and we’ll have a talk. I want to get out of this hole mighty bad.
“Your one-time pard and present well-wisher,
 “Tom Conover.”

“From Tom Conover,” said the scout, looking up and addressing

Woods, the town marshal. “He wants to see me, and I’d like you to
go over to the jail with me!”
Woods got on his feet.
“All right,” he said; “that can be arranged easy.”
The woman and her husband stood waiting.
“I’ll see this man who is held in jail here,” said the scout to her,
“and then I’ll make my arrangements. Cheer up. I can promise you
that we will do all that men can do to rescue your boy.”
He shook hands with her and her husband, and then with Woods
left the office and went out into the street, where Nomad and Wild
Bill were still “guffing” with the crowd that surrounded them and the
Indian scouts.
 CHAPTER XIX.
THE TALK WITH TOLTEC TOM.

Buffalo Bill took Wild Bill and Nick Nomad with him when he
walked to the jail to interview Tom Conover. The marshal went along
also, as a matter of course. Left behind, Little Cayuse and his three
Apaches retreated to the stables to get away from the curious
crowd, and busied themselves there in attending to the horses.
Conover was pacing restlessly the narrow confines of his cell when
Buffalo Bill and his companions arrived.
The marshal brought him out into the little room which served as
the jail office, where he found the pards awaiting him.
“Hard luck, Conover,” said the scout, greeting him; “but we’ll hope
you won’t have to stay in here long. They’re getting ready to
investigate that shooting, and I’m told the woman isn’t really hurt
much. I guess it can be shown that the thing was a pure accident.”
“I was a fool for potting away with my hardware down by those
huts,” Conover admitted; “there’s where I was wrong. I hope you
can git me out of this without trouble; that’s why I sent for you.”
“We think we can do that,” said the scout cheerfully. “You know
my old pard, Wild Bill, I believe, and no doubt you’ve heard of Nick
Nomad.”
Nomad had doubled himself up in a chair in an uncommunicative
way, and sat staring at Conover under his shaggy brows, taking his
measure; apparently the old trapper did not like his looks any too
well.
But Wild Bill was in a different and amiable mood.
 For a few moments they discussed the accidental shooting of the
Mexican woman; after which, without preliminary, Buffalo Bill
introduced the subject of the kidnaped boy.
“That’s why we are here,” he explained. “I am under instructions
from the commander at Fort Grant to take up this matter at once;
which means, probably, a trip into the Cumbres in pursuit of the
kidnaping redskins. You’re familiar with those mountains, I believe?”
Conover’s puffed face took on a deeper red.
“Just say that all over again, Cody,” he requested, for the purpose
of getting time to think.
Buffalo Bill rehearsed the story of the kidnaping in all its details, so
far as they were known, mentioning what had been said about old
Fire Top and his Toltec Indians, called the Red Feathers.
“Tell me what you know about old Fire Top and his Red Feathers,”
he said in conclusion, “and what it was made you think Fire Top
probably had a hand in his present case.”
Conover was still hesitating; and after that question was asked so
squarely he did not speak for some seconds. Once or twice he put
his hand up to the scarlet scar on his forehead, apparently not
knowing that he did it, and his hand trembled.
“Could I talk with you alone about this, Cody?” he said finally.
Old Nick Nomad, squatting silent in his chair, shot Conover a
distrustful glance.
“Certainly,” Buffalo Bill answered, rising. “We can go into that cell
you occupied, or——”
“Oh, we’ll clear out—go outside,” said Wild Bill, also rising.
But though he made the offer so quickly, he, too, seemed not at
all pleased.
The office was cleared, and Buffalo Bill remained alone with the
prisoner.
“Maybe I’m pertickler, and I know them fellers didn’t like it,” said
Conover. “But what I’m goin’ to say concerns that time I deserted
you—flunked like a coward, over on the Niobrara.”
 “I haven’t forgotten it,” the scout admitted quickly.
Conover glanced away at the window, as if he desired to avoid the
scout’s direct gaze.
“Up to that time,” Buffalo Bill added slowly, “we had been good
pards.”
“And never was afterward,” Conover added.
“That’s right; I went my way, and you went yours. They haven’t
happened to cross since, until to-day.”
“I’d like to make myself right about that Niobrara bizness, if I can;
but maybe I can’t. We was ringed in by old Rattlesnake’s Pawnees,
you know, and our horses was hid in some cottonwoods down by
the river, and you was wounded.”
“I’ll never forget it.”
“I wisht that I could,” said Conover. “I’ve wisht that a thousand
times since. But forgettin’ the past is a hard bizness, as I’ve found.
Well, though you was wounded, you said you thought you could hold
them rocks where we were against the Pawnees, and for me to
sneak out and git the horses, and then make a dash in with ’em,
your idea being that maybe I could rush through the Pawnee line up
to the rocks in the darkness, when you could climb to the back of
your horse, and perhaps both of us git away. It seemed the only
chance, and it was as desperate a one as any man ever figured on
takin’.”
“I’ll never forget it!” the scout repeated.
“And you’ll never forget what I did—and that’s where the present
trouble comes in; for you’ll never feel like trusting me again. I made
the sneak all right through the Pawnee lines, but the reds were
thicker than I expected; and when I got to the horses my courage
failed. It wouldn’t, maybe, if I hadn’t been discovered; that rattled
me, and scared me, and instead of trying to git your horse to you I
simply straddled mine and cut out, leaving you there among the
rocks, with them murderous Pawnees all round you.”
 Buffalo Bill nodded quietly, his face unchanged. Conover was
covered with confusion.
“But the next day,” said Conover, drawing a deep breath, “I tried
to make it right; I rode to the nearest fort and gave the word, and
troopers were sent right out.”
“And found, when they got there, that I had fooled the Pawnees
and got away from them unaided, even though I was wounded; and
that the nest of rocks to which you guided them was empty and the
Pawnees gone.”
Conover was silent for a moment.
“It was a clear case of blue funk, Cody; I was scared, and I
thought only of my own scalp lock. Of course——”
“Of course you never expected to see me alive again?”
“I didn’t,” Conover confessed, “not even when I led the horse
soldiers to that spot. When I seen that the Pawnees was gone, my
thought, naturally, was that they had rubbed you out and got away;
and I believed that until I knew better, some time later.”
He stopped, and again his gaze wavered away to the window.
“That’s why I didn’t know if that note I sent you just now would
do any good; and it was the reason I didn’t want to talk about this
before Nick Nomad and Wild Bill. I admit I ain’t proud of that
record.”
He still stared at the window, his face red and puffy, the corners of
his eyes twitching. The scarlet scar on his forehead seemed redder
and angrier than ever. His confusion was painfully apparent.
“And now about old Fire Top,” said the scout. “Just what do you
know about him? And why did you think that perhaps he and his
Toltecs were mixed up in this case of child-stealing? You are called
Toltec Tom; I don’t know why. Back at the time of that Niobrara
matter you were simply Tom Conover.”
“Yes, that’s so,” Conover admitted.
“Perhaps we can start the thing,” said the scout, seeing his
reluctance, “by having you tell me how you got the name of Toltec
Tom.”
“I was a prisoner of the Toltecs once,” was the hesitating
admission.
“Of Fire Top’s Toltecs?”
“Yes.”
“How long were you held by them?”
“A number of months,” said Conover, continuing to stare at the
window.
“That was in the Cumbres Mountains?”
“You’re right.”
“Then, perhaps, you can give me an idea whether there is any
truth at all in this story of Quicksilver John, which the marshal here
was telling me about.”
He ran over hastily the points of the marshal’s story of Quicksilver
John.
“I think there was somethin’ in it,” said Conover.
“But it wasn’t all true?”
“Likely Quicksilver John would head the procession of champion
liars, on some points,” Conover averred.
“Tell me, in your judgment, how much of it was truth.”
Conover withdrew his gaze from the window.
“Cody,” he said, with sudden emotion, “there was too much truth
in it. But I can’t talk about it.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to talk about it!”
For the first time in many minutes he looked straight at Buffalo
Bill; and the latter noted now that the flush had gone from the puffy
face, giving place to a grayish pallor.
“There aire some things a man don’t want to talk about, Cody, and
that’s one of ’em, for me. But I’ll say this: I done you dirt there on
the Niobrara, because my nerve went back on me; I played the
coward, and it might have caused your death, as I thought it had,
for a time. I ain’t felt easy about that, and maybe I never will. But
there’s such a thing as a man being sorry for a thing like that, and
willin’ to make amends, if he can. That’s me.
“And now my proposition: Git me out of this hole, on this charge
that’s against me of shooting that poor Mexican woman, and then I’ll
lead you and your men into them Cumbres Hills, and straight to the
home of old Fire Top himself. Why I’m willin’ to do it I ain’t going to
say, more than that. It will help me to pay off the debt I owe you.”
“You can go straight there?”
“No man can do that, Cody; them Red Feathers aire always
watching, as I’ve reason to know. We’ll have to come it roundabout,
some way. But I think I can help you, and I’m willin’ to try. I’d like to
feel that I’m your pard again, and that that Niobrara debt is paid off.”
The pallor was going out of his face; his voice began to harden
and show a firmness that indicated a sense of increasing manhood.
“I’d like to stand straight up on my feet again, and have the feelin’
that I’m worthy to be Buffalo Bill’s pard, like in the old times. And I’ll
do the best I can; I can’t do more. I can’t tell you everything,
though, and you’ve got to trust me.”
The scout rose and stretched out his hand.
“I accept your offer, Conover,” he said.
“And forget the past?” said Conover, as if he could not believe it.
“All of it.”
“Particularly that time on the Niobrara?”
“I said all of it.”
“And overlook the fact that I ain’t tellin’ everything I know, for
which I’ve got reasons I don’t want to pass over now?”
“That, too. What I want is a man who knows something about Fire
Top and his Toltecs, and the way to reach them. For I’m convinced
that he, or his men, stole the child. What’s your opinion of that?”
“The stealin’ of the kid?”
“Yes. Why would he want to do it?”
 “I don’t know; sacrifice, likely.”
But his voice was evasive again.
“But git me out of this, Cody,” he added, “and I’ll do what I can;
I’ll try to redeem myself. And say nothing about that old Niobrara
matter to Wild Bill and Nomad. They wouldn’t understand it, as you
do; they’d think I hadn’t changed, and was ready to desert, or lead
you into ambush, and things of that kind. Just keep that from ’em,
will ye?”
Buffalo Bill nodded and stepped toward the door.
“That’s all right, Conover,” he declared. “Unless you make it
necessary, I’ll say nothing to them about it.”
“You’ve never mentioned it to ’em?” came the question, in a
troubled tone. “For, if you have——”
“I’ve never thought of speaking about it,” the scout asserted.
“I suppose you’ve had too many other things to think about, to
keep remembering a thing like that, so long ago?”
“You’re right there, Conover. Shall I call them in now?”
Conover hesitated again.
“Yes,” he said, “might as well, I reckon; but I’m thinkin’ they won’t
be overwell pleased to know I’m to be not only their pard, but their
guide. I could see they didn’t like me.”
Wild Bill, Nomad, and Woods, the marshal, were asked by the
scout to come into the office.
Then he laid out before them so much of the conversation had
with Conover as was needed to let them know that Toltec Tom was
to be a member of the party which was to hit the trail of the
kidnaping Indians and follow it wherever it went.
Nick Nomad, squatting in his chair, still shot distrustful looks at
Tom Conover.
“I don’t like his face,” he said to Wild Bill, after the interview had
ended.
“Why not?” Hickok inquired.
 “You see that red scar on his forrud, re’chin’ up inter his ha’r?”
“Yes; but what of it?”
“It’s bad medicine.”
Hickok laughed with light incredulity.
“Laugh ef yer wanter,” growled the trapper; “but ef thet critter
goes along wi’ us you’ll be laughin’ outer ther t’other side o’ yer
mouth afore we sees this hyar town o’ Skyline ag’in.”
“Rot! Why, you superstitious old gorilla, what’s a scar on a man’s
head got to do with his character?”
“Lissen ter me,” said Nomad impressively: “Ther fust man I ever
see what had a scar jes’ like that war a hoss thief what stole frum
me ther best hoss I ever had—old Nebuchadnezzar; and that man
war hung.”
“You hanged him?”
“I helped to do it; I pulled hard on ther rope.”
“And the second one?” said Wild Bill, laughing.
“Ther second one tolled me inter a game of poker some y’ars back
when I war greener than I am now, and swindled me outer
everything I had, leavin’ me on’y the old clo’es I stood in; and he’d
no doubt took them if they’d been wuth it.”
“And the third one?”
“Is this hyar feller that they calls Toltec Tom. Ef he goes wi’ us
he’ll do us; an’ that’s what he’s goin’ fer; no other reason.”
“You get worse and worse all the time, Nomad!”
“But even you don’t like him, Hickok!” the shrewd old fellow
declared. “Thet’s ther truth, an’ yer knows it; you don’t like ther
looks of him any more’n I do. Admit it.”
“I admit it.”
“Then, shell we let him go with us?”
“It’s not for us to say, Nomad; Cody is boss here, and we’re simply
trailing along with him, to help him as much as we can.”
 “Waugh! Waal, I’m shore goin’ ter speak ter Buffler. He don’t know
what he’s bitin’ off when he pards in wi’ a wart hog like thet feller.”
Old Nick Nomad spoke his mind vigorously, elaborating to Buffalo
Bill the objections he had stated to Hickok.
But the great scout was skeptical, even though, a thing he did not
confess, he had still rankling recollection of that unpleasant incident
of the Niobrara; he said that he had agreed to take Conover along,
and that instead of being a handicap, he believed Conover would be
able to aid them materially.
It was the last word.
Whatever Buffalo Bill said went.
 CHAPTER XX.
SIGNS AND OMENS.

The marshal and citizens of Skyline watched Buffalo Bill’s party out
of town with strange interest.
And it was a suggestive and attractive sight, even setting aside for
the moment the occasion of their going forth.
In the lead, stirrup to stirrup, rode Buffalo Bill and old Nick
Nomad, the scout mounted on his superb horse, Bear Paw, and
Nomad astride of Hide-rack. The contrast between the scout, with
his erect, fine bearing, and the wizened old trapper, was almost
startling. Yet no one knowing old Nomad could ever doubt that, in
his way, he was a wonderful man.
Nomad would not ride with Tom Conover, so Wild Bill fell in at
Conover’s side, and they followed right behind Cody and Nomad.
The contrast here was almost as great, for Conover, with his
baggy corduroy clothing, his puffy face and watery eyes, and the
livid scar high on his forehead, resembled no more that dashing free
lance of the plains, Wild Bill Hickok, than Nick Nomad did Buffalo Bill.
There was always something light and jaunty in Wild Bill’s
appearance, wherever he was seen. He liked flashing bits of silver on
the trappings of his horse, and soft velvet in his attire when it could
be had; even though the attire was only that of a frontiersman and
often rough from hard usage. There was usually a light smile on his
open, fearless, almost reckless countenance; it rested there now, as
he rode out from the town of Skyline toward the forbidding
mountains, even though he could not be sure he was not riding out
to meet death.
 Behind Wild Bill and Conover rode Little Cayuse, the Piute Indian
boy; and at his side one of his Apache scouts.
The other two of his three Apaches brought up the rear of the
warlike procession; the four Indians silent and grave, with impassive,
dark faces; but their blankets were new and gorgeous in color, while
their clothing was paint and feather decked.
The marshal and the people of Skyline gave Buffalo Bill’s little
caravan a prolonged and rousing farewell cheer, which Cody
returned with a wave of his hand; then the little cavalcade broke into
a trot, down the steep incline of the plain below the town, and
clattered away in a cloud of dust.
It was just past midday.
Only that morning had Buffalo Bill and his small band entered
Skyline; and that morning Tom Conover, shooting to tatters the
queen of hearts, had accidentally wounded a Mexican woman and
been thrown into the Skyline jail.
Through the good offices of the great scout he had been released
in record time; and, the preparations for the pursuit of the kidnaping
Indians being hastened, the work for which Buffalo Bill had come to
Skyline was already begun.
Below the knoll back of Morgan’s, Little Cayuse and his Apache
trailers, Chappo, Yuppah, and Pedro, picked up the track of the
supposed kidnaper.
To ordinary eyes the trail would not have been visible, and eyes as
keen and trained as those of the white men of the party would have
made hard work of following it; yet the three Apaches found it
without trouble, and pursued it with the certainty of bloodhounds
tracking familiar game.
Little Cayuse and his Apaches took the lead now, and rode straight
along at a swinging gallop on their wiry, ponies, bending over as
they rode, their eyes searching the hard ground.
Suddenly Chappo drew in, and slipped like a snake from the back
of his saddleless pony.
 When he stood up he held something small and shiny in the palm
of his brown hand.
“Ugh!” he grunted.
The object he exhibited was a tiny red bead, of a glowing scarlet,
so that it resembled a small scarlet berry or seed.
“Sabe?” he said, his black eyes searching the face of the scout, to
whom he exhibited his find. “Injun moccasin, Pa-e-has-ka; Injun kick
um pony make um go fast, and little bead fall off. Wuh!”
Buffalo Bill inspected it critically; and saw that it was a moccasin
bead, for a bead of a different kind is often used for moccasins than
those used for clothing, or for the hair.
“Right, Chappo,” he said. “What tribe—can you tell?”
“No can tell tribe,” said Chappo.
“That’s right, too, and I shouldn’t have asked it; for white men
manufacture the beads, and all Indians are able to get them, by
purchase or barter. But do you see anything else, Chappo?”
There was nothing more at that point; though a mile or so farther
on Little Cayuse, trying not to be outdone by his Apaches, made a
discovery that seemed really astounding; but which probably he
would not have made first if in his desire to excel he had not at the
moment been some yards in advance.
The discovery seemed to indicate that they were following the trail
of a woman!
Little Cayuse announced this with a grunt of surprise.
“Squaw trail!” he declared, something of scorn in his tone, for he
held to the Indian notion that a squaw is an inferior creature. It did
not please him to think he had been following the trail of one; there
was no honor in it. “All same only squaw, Pa-e-has-ka.”
The rider whose pony they had been following had there
dismounted, for some reason, and the prints of small moccasins
were visible in the sand. The tracks had been overlooked by the
marshal’s men when they came that way.
 Tom Conover stared down at the marks pointed out by little
Cayuse, while the grip on his bridle rein tightened and his face
became suddenly an ashen gray, with all the high color driven out of
it.
At the instant no one was looking at him; all were staring, like
him, at the small footprints pointed out by the Piute boy.
Buffalo Bill swung from the back of his horse and carefully
examined the tracks.
“The moccasins of an Indian woman,” he said; “yet the tracks
don’t seem exactly like those of an Indian. We can’t tell though, for
she didn’t walk about, to give us much of a line on that.”
Nomad drove old Hide-rack closer in and peered down, wrinkling
his brows.
“It couldn’t have been an Injun boy, eh, Buffler?” he said.
“It might have been a boy; but he was wearing a woman’s
moccasins, if so.”
“Waugh! Yer right, Buffler. Yer kin see thar whar ther fringe o’
beads an’ quills cut inter ther sand at ther side o’ ther track; an
Injun buck, er even er boy, wouldn’t wear ther likes o’ thet,
particularly when on a difficult trail. All o’ ther female kind loves
ornaments, and sometimes it tell agin’ ’em, as hyar. Et war shore a
woman, Buffler; even an Injun boy wouldn’t wore a thick bead an’
quill fringe like thet on the sides of his moccasins.”
Conover took no part in the conversation, but kept his horse back,
and apparently gave scant attention to the tracks in the sand.
But it was the subject of lively discussion, as the trailers continued
on their way.
Finding the spot where the trail of the woman—they were almost
sure it was a woman—entered the main beaten trail, they kept a
close watch on each side to see when the pony tracks left it.
When they found them they were much nearer the dreaded
Cumbres Mountains, and night was at hand.
 They stopped, on finding a water hole, and went into camp.
Nothing was to be accomplished by hastening on in the darkness. In
doing that, they might miss the trail altogether, though it seemed
now to point straight to the notch before them, which for some time
they had seen, and which appeared to lead directly toward the heart
of the Cumbres. It was the mountain notch which Tom Conover had
stared at so hard and often when he was shooting the queen of
hearts into tatters before the mesquite bush just outside the town of
Skyline.
Tom Conover was so silent that evening round the hidden camp
fire that it was noticeable.
Nomad spoke of it, in an aside, to Wild Bill:
“Thar’s two things, Pard Hickok, that don’t speak until they’re
ready ter strike—rattlesnakes an’ Injuns; an’ now I’m addin’ a third—
this hyar wart hog what w’ars that three-cornered red nick in his
forrud. Ef you’ll take a look at it by the flickin’ o’ that match which
Buffler is recklessly usin’ this minute you’ll see that it’s redder’n
common, like ther wattles of a turkey cock when it’s thinkin’
mischief.”
“You’ve got as healthy an imagination as a kid schoolboy,” said
Wild Bill, with his light laugh. “You’ll soon be finding a suspicious
circumstance in the fact that he eats just like an ordinary man.”
“But he don’t,” Nomad persisted; “he ain’t et a thing this evenin’,
though thar war a lot o’ good chuck in thet war bag which Buffler
opened up fer us. Thar’s somethin’ on his mind.”
Wild Bill laughed again, skeptically.
“What else, you superstitious old mummy?”
“Don’t go ter callin’ me names, Hickok, fer I won’t stand it; but I’m
watchin’ him constant. Ter-night I sleeps like er cat—wi’ one eye
open. An’ I dunno but I’ll tie my scalp lock down, so’s he can’t lift my
ha’r ef I sh’d fall asleep.”
Then he, too, gave a laugh; but it had not the merriment of Wild
Bill’s.
 Buffalo Bill talked much that evening with Little Cayuse and his
three Apache scouts. The great scout trusted the Indians, for they
had been true on many occasions; and though they had the redskin
failings, they were faithful and marvelous trailers.
The principal trouble with them was that they were more
superstitious and more governed by signs than was even Nick
Nomad.
That afternoon, Little Cayuse had seen a circling vulture close his
wings and drop like a hawk shooting downward at prey. It was bad
medicine, for never before had he seen a thing like that; it foretold
disaster—some enemy, he thought, was observing them from the
high cliffs, and would drop on them with the suddenness of that
drop of the vulture.
Worse than this, Yuppah had crossed the trail of a three-legged
sage rabbit. That there might be no mistake about it, Yuppah had
slid from the back of his pony and closely inspected the rabbit’s
tracks. The rabbit, he believed, had four legs, but for some reason
which boded ill for this expedition, it was holding up one leg and
using but three.
Buffalo Bill tried to make Yuppah see that the rabbit had lost a leg;
that a coyote had probably nabbed it at some time, and it had
escaped with the loss of a leg, bitten off by the snap of the coyote.
But Yuppah would not believe it; the rabbit had four legs, he said—
all rabbits have—this was a spirit, or witch rabbit, and bad luck was
sure to follow.
That night Nick Nomad tried to sleep like a cat—with one eye
open; but he failed, because he was too tired to lie awake all the
time, and the night was so quiet it lulled one to sleep.
Every one else slept soundly, except Little Cayuse, who stood
guard the first half of the night, and Chappo, who acted as sentry
the last half. Neither of them, so they declared afterward, heard nor
saw anything, though their superstitious fears, it seemed to the
scout, ought to have been enough to keep them wide-eyed until
morning.
 But in the morning came a startling discovery, which showed, also,
that at some time in the night one of them, at least, had been
asleep.
Tom Conover was gone from the camp! And no one had known
when he went.
The fact of his disappearance was announced by Nomad, who
awoke early, and, looking round for him, did not find him, and had
hardly expected that he would find him.
“Whoop!” he shouted, and sprang to his feet; he had lain down
with all his clothing on. “Waugh! Me no cumtax this. Onless, mebbe,
it’s ther whiskizoos workin’!”
What whiskizoos were was a thing old Nomad had never been
able to say to the satisfaction of Buffalo Bill or any one else. But
whenever the old trapper came company front with what struck him
as much out of the ordinary, or supernatural, or inexplicable, then
the whiskizoos had been at work. He never tried to explain beyond
that.
His whooping exclamations brought Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill out of
their blankets and roused the sleeping Indians, starting also to his
feet Chappo, who was on guard, but at the moment was squatting in
a growth of sagebrush by the camp fire, hugging his rifle between
his brown knees.
“What’s up?” demanded Wild Bill, pulling out his revolver and
staring round.
“Lookee thar!” said Nomad, pointing to the spot where all had
seen Tom Conover lie down for his night’s sleep. “What is it yer sees
thar, anyhow?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s jest what I see, too—nothing; and Scar-face Conover
ought ter be layin’ thar, hadn’t he? Whar is he? Call ther roll, Buffler.”
Buffalo Bill looked about, and off over the surrounding country.
The sun had not yet risen, and a gray haze, of early dawn, hid
much of the rugged landscape from his view.
 “Cayuse?” he called, a strange quaver in his voice.
“Ai, Pa-e-has-ka.”
“Yuppah!”
“Huh!”
“Chappo!”
“Wuh!”
“Pedro!”
“All same here, Pa-e-has-ka!”
Little Cayuse and his Apache scouts lined up.
“The white man who was here is gone,” said the scout shortly.
“Find his trail.”
“Ai, Pa-e-has-ka.”
They began to circle the camp, with heads down, black eyes
scanning the earth and rocks.
At once they were puzzled, if not baffled; there was no trail of a
white man’s boots leading out from the camp.
Wider and wider grew the circle in which they swung, closer and
nearer they bent their heads to the ground.
At last, more than a hundred yards out from the camp, Chappo
uttered a low, triumphant whoop.
He stopped, staring at the ground, and the other Indians hastened
to him.
Buffalo Bill and his white companions walked out to where the
Indians were grouped.
“Me find um, Pa-e-has-ka,” said Chappo proudly.
He pointed to the ground.
“Waugh!” said Nomad. “Thar’s his boot heel, shore enough! But
how’d he git hyar without making tracks before this? Whiskizoos
ag’in, I reckon.”
Without a word Chappo began to search the ground in the
direction of the camp, which he soon was aided in by the other
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