How strong process and Unity helped Rovio make Bad Piggies in five months

Given Bad Piggies was Rovio's first game using Unity, it made a perfect keynote subject for the Unite Nordic event in Malmo, Sweden.

"At Rovio, we think about games as entertainment and about characters, so in 2011, we thought, 'What if the piggies had their own game?'," said head of studio Jaakko Haapasalo, in his talk 'Bad Piggies on the Move - physical playground and rapid interation in Unity 3d'.

"Pigs like to build things and they like eggs. The initial concept was very simple," he added.

In terms of prototyping, the game was worked up in early 2012, in terms of controls, the scoring method and focusing on gadgets and challenges.

So by the time the project was greenlit in May, the development team had already frozen the gadgets set - this occurred in a fast two week period - and so could start making levels in June.

The game hit its 27 September release date, despite the team taking holiday in July [a legal and cultural requirement in Finland].

"We had an experienced team. That was the only way we could hit this schedule. We didn't have any time to backtrack," said Haapasalo.

Using Unity was also an enabler.

"Fast cycle times [build times] is where Unity excels and it carried us through development," Haapasalo commented.

Multi-platform support for iOS and Android was also useful for Rovio, as was the ability to use the Asset Store for additional tools.

"We are actively evaluating stuff in the Asset Store," he said, while Rovio is investing in its own in-house tools. In the case of Bad Piggies, it had a custom sprite production tool.