â??The Unity engine helped me turn soloâ??

Hayden Scott-Baron says that the Unity engine was central to his plan to become a solo developer after backing away from studio work for the likes of Frontier Developments.

The young aspiring game designer has set up his own microstudio, Starfruit, and has recently released the iPhone physics-based puzzle title Tumbledrop.

“I’ve been interested in working solo for a while, but it was really when the Unity engine came along that pieces fell into position,” Scott-Baron tells Develop in an interview published today.

“I already had plenty of experience with 3D game development, so I found it much easier to work with this tool to put my first games together.”

Engine firm Unity Technologies recently made the Indie version of its Unity engine available for free, having been previously sold for $200.

Scott-Baron explains that he used the Unity engine to build both the browser and iPhone version of Tumbledrop, adding that the engine’s integrated tools were essential in making the game play as desired.

“Tumbledrop makes heavy use of Nvidia’s Physx physics technology –which is integrated into Unity as standard,” he said, “and without such a good physics engine the game wouldn’t be nearly as fun.”

Making a living from iPhone game development tends to be a double-task for developers. After creating a title that’s up to scratch, developers then need to find ways of making their game more discoverable in the vast ocean of App Store games, or otherwise hope for the best.

While Unity has a strong reputation for simplifying iPhone development, the group may in future offer solutions on the commercial side of iPhone development.

Graham Dunnett, Unity Technologies’ Director for Testing, Support and Documentation, recently revealed that marketing support “may be an area that we’ll look into in the future.”

Go here for the full interview with Scott-Baron