04 - Play Mode Settings

Thus far, you have only worked within the Scene view without testing how your game will appear to a player. To enter Play Mode to see what the player's experience will be, click the Play button at the top center of the Unity Editor window.

Upon entering Play Mode you'll notice a few things. First, you likely will see a loading window that will appear for a few seconds (in some cases more minutes!). Then, the editor will automatically switch the the Game view. You can tell when you're in Play Mode when the play button switches to a "stop" button and is highlighted. Additionally, the editor changes to a slightly darker tint.

You can see each of these changes in the video below:

A common beginner mistake happens when you modify your scene while you're unintentionally in Play Mode. This can result in lost work. The moment you exit Play Mode all changes revert back to the state they were in prior to entering Play Mode

You can test this by moving your camera while you're in Play Mode then exiting Play Mode

You'll notice as soon as you exit Play Mode the camera's Transform is restored to it's original values.

To help prevent accidentally editing your project in Play Mode, you can change the Play Mode Tint to a more obvious color.

Now that you can more easily tell when you are in Play Mode you may also want to update your Play Mode setting so you can enter Play Mode more quickly. Recall, when you enter Play Mode you receive a small loading window which says it is "Reloading Domain":

By default, both the Scene and Domain are reloaded every time you enter Play Mode. There are good reasons to do this, especially for users who are new to Unity. The manual states, "By default Unity reloads the domain on entering Play mode to reset the application state. Resetting state before entering Play mode is often desirable so your application starts up as it would at the beginning of a new build."

However, it does slow down your iteration speed. Because of this, the Unity Editor provides the option to disable it so long as you invest the effort to implement checks in your code that reset values properly when entering Play Mode. You can read more about Domain Reloading in the manual here: Unity - Manual: Enter Play mode with domain reload disabled

Now that you have configured Play Mode to work better for you, it is time to set up the game's isometric camera.

05 - Creating an Isometric Camera