Making a Mobile Bounce Game with Unity 3D and Playmaker - Adding a Camera Shake System

Beginner Game Design tutorial series creating a simple Bounce type game using Playmaker within Unity 3D. PART 8 - In this video, I will show ho to add a Camera Shake system that you can call to any time you need to shake the camera. Absolutely NOCODE. Also make a skateboard game playlist: https://

This episode of the mobile bounce game series builds a reusable camera shake system: one manager object with three intensities — small, medium, large — that any other FSM can trigger by name. Wall hits get a small shake, paddle hits a medium one, and game over a big one. The design matters more than the effect: because it's event-driven, you set it up once and call it from anywhere.

Step 1 — Create the shake manager and its events

Create a new empty game object called Screen Shake and add an FSM. Define three events: SHAKE SML, SHAKE MED, and SHAKE LRG — the names are arbitrary, but keeping them consistent matters since you'll type them from other FSMs later. Add each one as a global transition leading to its own state. Global transitions are the key trick here: they let any FSM in the scene jump this state machine straight to the matching shake, no wiring required.

Step 2 — Build the small shake

In the small state, add iTween's Shake Position action, specify the game object, and point it at the camera — it randomly jitters the camera's position. Hard-code the values rather than making variables: shake X and Y by 0.2 each (leave Z alone; in-and-out movement isn't needed), with a time of 0.2 seconds. Uncheck loop and loop-on-finish so the shake fires once and stops.

Step 3 — Copy and scale up for medium and large

Copy the Shake Position action and paste it into the medium state, bumping the X and Y amounts to 0.4 and the time to 0.3. Paste again into the large state with 0.6 on both axes and a full second of duration. Three tiers is a starting point — the same pattern extends to as many intensities as your game needs.

Step 4 — Trigger the shakes from the collision states

The sound manager already detects wall hits, paddle hits, and game over from the previous episode, so piggyback on those states rather than duplicating detection. In each one, add a Send Event By Name action: set the target to Game Object FSM, point it at the Screen Shake manager (it only has one FSM, so the default name is fine), and type the event to send. Wall-hit state sends SHAKE SML, paddle-hit state sends SHAKE MED, and the game-over state sends SHAKE LRG.

Step 5 — Test and enjoy

Hit play: side-wall bounces give a subtle bump, paddle hits a satisfying jolt, and game over rattles the whole screen for a second. It's a small system, but this kind of juice is what makes a mobile game feel alive — and because everything routes through named events, adding a shake to any future mechanic is one action away. Next up in the series: color and post-processing to make the game look as good as it now feels.