What are design patterns?

For those that are very new to programming, design patterns might be a novel concept. The simplest way of explaining design patterns is that they are reusable solutions to common software development problems. An architect named Christopher Alexander originated the notion of design patterns to describe reusable design ideas. In the late 1980s, inspired by the concept, software engineers started experimenting with applying concepts of reusable design patterns to software development, and over the years several books were written on the subject, such as the classic Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by the so-called "Gang of Four".

But in this book, I will be avoiding covering the academic side of software design patterns, focusing instead on their practical use for programming game mechanics and systems in Unity. I will present a recurrent game programming problem in each chapter and propose resolving it using a specific design pattern adapted for the Unity application programming interface (API).