Basic skills required to create a first person game like "Slender"?

Hey guys, so the whole reason I got Unity, was because i was obsessed with the free first person horror game “Slender”, based off the slender man myths. It is a first person game where you walk around a forest collecting pages, and the more you collect, the more “Slender Man” appears in front of you, and when he does your screen starts static-ing, and you die if you stare for too long. Here is a video of the gameplay incase you haven’t seen/played it before. What is Slender? - IGN Commentary - YouTube
So yeah, i was just wondering how one would go about making a game like this, how advanced you have to be (without making models because i’ll probably just download them online) to make it, and what basic skills do you need. Thanks!

First off, you need a sound set of programming skills. There is no denying that. Unity can help you a lot of the way and the editor can get you really far with just point-and-click and out-of-the-box solutions. But sooner or later, you’ll find yourself desperately in need of customizing some minor thing, and you just can’t find the right script on the internet or the right component in the asset store for it, and you will just have to code it yourself. Hundreds of people run into that obstacle and often wind up on this forum with a question about it, and get told the same thing every time: You have to learn to code. :wink:

If you’re going to learn programming, I recommend you choose C#, because, of the three languages offered by Unity, C# is the only one whose syntax directly applies outside a Unity3D context. So if you take the time needed to build a good foundation in that language, you can use that knowledge to apply for programming jobs that don’t necessarily have anything to do with Unity. The other languages are harder to apply generally like that. Pick up a beginner’s book about C# from play.com or amazon.

The next thing to do is follow loads and loads of tutorials. Find them online by simple googles, they’re everywhere, trust me. YouTube is totally littered with tutorials about all sorts of things Unity-related. Use them to learn your way around the editor, use them to learn what gameobjects are, how to animate them, what the transform does, how to configure cameras, etc. etc.

Next, create a SMALL game yourself. Don’t start with your Slender Man dream project right away. It’s too big, you’ll get frustrated with the slow progress too quickly, and give up. Start with something classic and totally simple, like your own version of Space Invaders, Pong, PacMan, or whatever. Something simple enough to be rewarding to work with.

When you’ve done that, and succeeded, start your dream project. :slight_smile:

Extra info:

Unity3D helps you so much with the hairy graphics math that you probably won’t need to worry about it much at first, but if you find yourself curious about how graphics works, mathematically, and wish to broaden your knowledge beyond general purpose programming and into the field of computer graphics, pick up a book on computer graphics. I recommend Real-Time Rendering, which I find to be a very thorough book on the topic. Realize, though, that computer graphics is university level stuff. Most books on it require at least knowledge of high school level mathematics, and many also assume basic university level linear algebra.

Finally, come back here with your technical questions when you’re working. :slight_smile:

Frankly, you don’t really need a lot of skills if it’s going to be that simple.

First, to make Slender, create a terrain within Unity. Paint a couple of trees in it.

Then slap on a First Person Controller prefab located within the Standard Assets.

Create a spotlight, position it, and then attach it to the First Person Controller. Put a cookie on the spotlight, simply choose the flashlight cookie from the default Standard Assets as well.

Then place your objects in it, add your sounds (you will need to do some scripting for that, like when each sound is triggered, etc. You have to google for how you want to go about doing that.)

For the magical appearance of your scary creature/ object/ anomaly/ person/ ghost/ apparition (harhar) you will need to do some scripting as well.)

That is majority of your game done.

Basic skills, you need to learn a dash of code. You can’t do anything without it. A lot of time is saved when you used that First Person Controller prefab in the Standard Assets-- That was created with a lot of code as well.

Programming is the key to complex(er) games. To any game actually. Even if you aren’t planning on writing code (even if I’m almost sure you’ll have to, as Christian explained very well) it is very important that you at least know the basics of the C# language, just to know and understand how your game is built and to be able to change things.
If you are completely dependant of assets and pre-writed codes you found on google, you will get frustrated pretty fast.