Unity have just launched Remote Settings as a package available for download in the Asset Store for free. Remote Settings enables you to make tweaks and changes to gameplay after a game has been deployed using an interface similar to the PlayerPrefs API. Two usage examples Unity gave for Remote Settings are dynamically changing the difficulty curve of a shipped game as well as providing context appropriate content, such as seasonal themes.
Details from the Unity blog:
Remote Settings is easy to use. It‘s native to the Unity engine and employs an API similar to PlayerPrefs that most Unity developers are familiar with. We’ve also included a “Remote Settings Component” that lets you get started without writing any code. Once set up, Remote Settings requires no additional engineering work to operate. All changes apply as soon as the game restarts. You can even use the Analytics dashboard to track real-time impacts on key metrics.
So far, we’ve had some really great reaction from our pilot customers.
“Remote Settings allows us to dynamically modify various gameplay factors in real-time and are incredibly easy to implement in our projects! It saves us plenty of development hours so we can keep focusing on creating new experiences for our players!”
Lukasz Wolinski
CTO, Dr. PandaRemote Settings is now in open beta and free to use for all Unity developers. You can download the package from the Asset Store or through the configure page from the Analytics dashboard.
Here is the description from the Unity asset store:
Unity Analytics presents Remote Settings, a cloud service that provides game developers the ability to change behaviors and configurations of their games without requiring an update to the app.
Create settings that control the difficulty of your level bosses, allowing you to tune game play if you suspect some levels are too hard or too easy. Or create settings that specify the relative frequencies of game items.
And the best part is, after you sync changes with the dashboard, the new values are automatically downloaded and read by every client device when they start a new session. No download or update to the package and app stores are necessary.