Becomming a great game designer ! U and Me

News & General Discussion
1

Well here we are, and hello to the Unity community.

First off i would like to say my Englisch writhing is not the best so my apologies for any typo’s ;).

But do not worrie my Unity friends i come in peace.

I have a great interest in games, playing them to see what its about or how it works, or for just plane fun. For a long time iam dreaming to make my own game one day. And tryed different things to get there in the past. A few years back i got myself a Visual Basic course for basic stuff…

Firts off i tought yeah now where getting somewhere, but sadly this was so basic it was telling me how big the computers where back in 1972… Basicly it was to mutch basic and didnt learn mutch from it. And thats also where my programming knolledge stops. Wel not realy though. I do know a little and understand the basic things. But putting it in to action still can be a struggle. Fairly said iam not a programmer just yet.

About 6 mouths ago maybe a bit more, a game known by the name Farming simulator 2015 came out and i started playing that. Not knowing that we can easyly moddify this game, its objects or maps. So that was pretty cool and after playing for maybe 5 days i dived into editing. It gave me the feeling that i created a part of the game :). In the end i havely edit a map whitch was pretty cool and a verry nice learning proces. All done by the Giants engine btw. Manny hours went it to that and i done all whit great fun.

Thats basicly all the know how i have about making games… and still never made my own.

Untill recently i found Unity 3D … Wow amazing stuff this…
I stumbeld across some video’s on Youtube and was HOOKED! 3 days in a row from the first thing in the morning till late in the night i watched only video’s on Youtube about unity, coding in unity, making models whit blender… all kinds off stuff. And let me tell u it got my interest BIG TIME.

For quite some time i got this fun idea of making a game about the work that i do, and help others learning about it while playing this game. It always was in the back of my head… if i ever can make a game that would be the one i would like to make. Cause i like what i do and learning other people about that.

But after seeing all those video’s, played alot of games and just have an creative mind i got more than one good idea for making a game. So that not the problem. Doing basic to decent texturing also wount be the problem. I work whit photoshop from time to time and know the basic things in there, defently not a proffesional. And as far as 3D moddeling goes, i never realy done that. I did make my own character now whit blender and Youtube. Sure its a learning proces and iam not a verry good designer of any kind. But this to will not be the problem in the end.

To prove to myself i realy can do this, i started to put one of my ideas in to action. Thats also where the character i made is for. But i didnt got far. For this idea the ground needs to be like in realy life. For instance put it in a truck and drop it somewhere. And than u will have a hole u just dig, and a mountan for the ground we droped. We need to be able to dig in to it, thats what iam looking for. :slight_smile:

Someone told me what i need for that, and than it came to me maybe this idea is to complex to start whit. Lets do some simple things first.

So next off i started on a 2D game. I wanted to make a simple copy of Tap Titans. a realy simple mobile tapping game. I can do this… haha. I started to watch video’s on youtube again, but this time specificly on 2D games. And i started on texturing a level and the stuff i needed for this. This went pretty good and iam happy whit the result. 1 level and a character that moves (hit) when i click the mouse. Its not a fineshed game by far. But the point was to prove to myself i can do this.

But honestly it took me 3 hours to make my animation i made work when i pressed the button… Realy imbaresd… after someone gave me the link to Unity documents, same page i looked at for several times before… i finaly got it to work. And ofc it was just a small simple thing, and i didnt looked good the first time.

But any way… this story is not to make u laugh. But it dos make u giggle right :stuck_out_tongue:

Actualy iam here to see if there is anybody out there willing to help me. My biggest problem is the coding part and i realy would like to learn more about it. And plz dont tell me to go read a book about it… iam not the kind of person who learns from books. I need real life practice.

I know its not like learning how to ride a bike, where u just tell me to get on it and go. I know it will take time and effort to guide someone trou anything. And i proberbly have alot of questions to ask. Its not my intention to keep yapping and ask u every little damn thing, i will do my own research in Unity documentation. But still as iam verry new to this it will be a little bit of “whats all this about” in the beginning.

Also i dont have any way to pay the one who is willing to help me whit money. As mutch as i would like to its not in the budged right now. I am willing to help u out whit any project or task, and learn from that as where going. Or maybe we can say somthing like when a game is fineshed and launched the proffits from it can be 50/50 .

Like i said befor i do have some good ideas, or can come up whit some. Give u some tips for improvment or what ever. Personaly iam a real detail freak and offten see things others dont see. So if ur a perfectionist and need a hand i can give u one :).

Myself iam from the Netherlands, the great land of inovations, flowers and windmills. There for i prefer to be helped or assisted by anyone from the Netherlands, also more confinient in time. But i realy dont have any problems whit speaking Englisch so if thats the case, thats cool to.

I would realy appreciate any help from someone. That is also willing to take the time to learn me some awsome new things. If u like to get in toutch whit me below i will point out my skype name. Ur free to add me there. And from there we can see what good can grow from it.

Thank u verry mutch for reading this, and i hope to get in toutch whit u soon.

Bares me to say one more thing :

Keep making games and peace to the Unity community !!

Greetz from the Netherlands

Daan Peeters
AK : Gekkehenky (dutch) / Crazyhenky (English)

Skype Name : gekkehenk123

2

I’m going to do that anyway. Get an intro to C# book and start at the start. If you really want to do this then that’s the way to do it. It won’t take you more than a week or so to get through the book, and you’ll learn far more from that than you will by cherry picking tunes on the Internet. (Tutes focus on “how”. You need to also understand some degree of “why” or you’re shooting yourself in the foot.)

Also, keep in mind that game programming is a specialisation of general programming, not a subset. So don’t think you’re doing yourself favours by skipping stuff that you don’t think is relevant to games/Unity.

Alternatively, if you really need person-to-person assistance, go do a programming course in C#.

People here will be more than happy to help, but help best starts with a well formed, specific question. Don’t worry about having perfect English, what you’ve written in your post is good enough. Just make sure it’s a good question.

2 Likes
3

I thought this for a while…

4

Thx for the reply guys.

And mister penguin ur right, its not only knowing how but also knowing why. Ur right about that.

Maybe i did not explain myself right. I do have the basic know how of coding, and i also do understand the why most times. I dont want to call myself a programmer but i do get the basics of it.

I work whit website as for my work (wordpress sites tho ) php scripts… not that i write my own site but its nessecery to know the code if i want to add something or chance it.

Simmulair thing for c# i did do some verry simple coding whit Visual Basic back in the day. So i di know the basic things, and iam a quick learner :slight_smile:

I also know that programming for gaming in unity is not like all the other programming, thats why i post it here on this forum. I know this sounds stupit, but i dont care about the rest, i just want to get known whit the programming in unity specificly for games. Yea ofc i do need to know and learn some other thing i get that, but the main thing is for me anyway to learn making a game.

And beside of all that, there ar no good Dutch books on learning c#, i had this problem whit the VB course also… the words thay use some times realy dont mean anything to me haha… in other words i dont understand what there saying. And that makes is so mutch harder.

Thats why i prefer someone to teatch me and not a book. I konw ur right about what ur saying but i also hope u understand me.

But whit a little help and explanation i will learn mutch more and mutch faster. And i will learn how and why at the same time.

5

I started thinking about it, and in general ur right. Just like i said in the reply above, but not in this case. And here’s why.

Btw before i say anything. I realy do not like reading a book in general, but i seriously did concidder of buying one after reading ur comment. And looked for one that was in Dutch but sadly thers none. But thats how mutch i want to do this. :slight_smile:

But iam not going to read a book and let me tell u why. In fact u said it urself alraidy. “keep in mind that game programming is a specialisation of general programming”

Doing a course on C# whitch will be in VB is not adressing to unity or what iam trying to learn more about. It will learn me so manny thing i will never even see hear or speak about in unity.


I got this book. for 2008

What i want to learn is just that specific programming for games. I want to expand on that, not VB.

i hope its more clear this time. I dont want to make u feel bad or anything. What u said in general is completly right, but i just dont think it fits in this case.

6

One of the first things you ought to learn about game development is that EVERYTHING is relevant to game development/design.

This is something that some designers forget. As a discipline, game development and design draw from just about every possible source. Nothing you learn is useless where games are concerned. Ancient history? Relevant. Art? Relevant. Electrical engineering? Relevant. Philosophy? Relevant. Physical education? Relevant. There is nothing that cannot or should not be useful for the purposes of designing and developing games. It all depends on the game being made.

While it is understandable that you would want to focus on the bare-essential needs of getting started with game design, you should never close your mind to the other influences and learning opportunities out there. Learn programming, by all means. But also learn everything else you can get your hands on.

A bit more focused on your question, I would recommend reading some on-line tutorials about general programming and the C# syntax in particular. As programming languages go, C# is fairly straightforward. And feel free to ask questions on message boards like this one, even very technical questions. In fact, the more technical, the better. Specific, technical questions are often much easier to answer or explain.

7

Come on, if you want my help and are going to quote me please quote the whole sentence.

What this means is that if you want to be good at it then you should learn the general case and then learn the specialization. I see self taught progrogrammers who’ve only ever worked in one or two tools stumble over the basics and fundamentals commonly, and most of the time they don’t even realise it. A classic example is someone who’d been working in Unity for years before figuring out that functions can take parameters, which they then started showing off as a “trick”. If they’d done any form of structured learning about general programming they’d have learned that in the first week.

My next sentence is also specifically relevant here:

I studied programming and software engineering at university for 3+ years and all of it is useful.

Also, with regard to buying a book, check out the links in my post. One of them points to a free book about C# in particular. Since it’s an online book it’d be worth looking for translations. The other link is just pure awesome. (I’m not kidding about that. It helped me loads in my early days.)

2 Likes
8

Seriously?

9

Ok thx for the help so far i will look into the info u posted.

10

Seriously what? lol.

11

safaribooksonline.com has a lot of great programming books and many public libraries have subscriptions (at least around here) so you can read the books online for free. Plurasight has a lot of good C# training videos.

12

Still looking for a teatcher tho…

13

Have you checked your local indie scene, Game jams etc to find contacts? They may be able to point you towards useful stuff in Dutch

Eg
http://www.zo-ii.com/resources/dutch-game-industry/

14

.[quote=“DaantjeNL, post:12, topic: 589273, username:DaantjeNL”]
Still looking for a teatcher tho…
[/quote]

How much are you paying? Skilled one on one tutors are expensive.

My understanding is the Netherlands is relatively socialist? Why not just get a computer science degree?

2 Likes
15

This. Sure, it won’t be game specific, but like I said that’s not a bad thing. Actually it could be a good thing as it might lead to more opportunities.

1 Like
16

like a job that pays a living wage? :smile:

17

Exactly like that.

I mean, those definitely exist in the games sector, but it seems smart to me that if you’re going to pour time into software development you may as well not restrict yourself to just games.

1 Like
18

No i did not check the local indie scene yet. Only bin here on the unity forum. I dont count myself in the indie scene so also no clue where to look at or seartch for, but the site u suggested look cool. Deffently will take a look there. Thx for that !

I have basic know how of how the computers work. Maybe not quite what ur suggesting but i dont think its gonna help me that mutch.

Iam not looking for a job tho :slight_smile: I got a job alr and i like it, so no need to look for a job in gamedev.

i started here just because i have an interest in making games, for now its just a hobby and i want to learn more about it. Specificly whit the unity engie. Just so i can wast my time to learn making some “Simple” games.

Maybe in time if i do have some more skils i will think to create a job out off this, but for now iam more interested in just learning and do things than get paid for it.

i watched some tuts on unity an now i had made the roll a ball game i bin going further on that expanding on it. Its just a simple and stupid game in the end but i dont care, its a great way to learn and thats what i want. I alr spend loads of time in this “Just a simple game” and often get stuck on those realy small things and bug my head about it for 2 hours or more. looking here for awnsers and trying things as long as it takes to make it work.

But not all times its making sence or i just dont get it becaus i think wronge, and thats where the help i need supose to come in :slight_smile: Just someone that looks over it and say oh dude ur doing it completly wronge better do it this way. Or just helps me in the right direction to look for so iam not wasting to mutch of my time looking at the wronge things.

I tought iam not asking to mutch of a deal here but its seems that i was wronge about that. For all i care u sort of hire me to do some game dev things for u whitout paying me. I can learn from that to and thats my payment right there. Way more valuble then money :stuck_out_tongue:

I know its kind of a bad question to just ask for someone to help me, that there might be some or alot of bad experiance whit it. I was not thinking u guys all would line to to help me. I get that. We all have our own things to do and to worry about. Some guy thats pops up and like to get a bit of help is not ur problem.

I just hoped there where some good ppl here that are kind enoufg to take action on it. Maybe make new friends in the game dev scene, whitch is never a bad thing, and who knows what grows from there. Yea i will be asking questions, but iam quit sure i wont ask em twice :wink:

Iam not asking for someone to white my code or make me a game and run whit it. Iam not learning from that. U know it cool if someone want to work together whit me, but thats not what iam asking for. Like i said before i do have some small ideas or could come up whit some as a real game. so if ur up for that iam cool whit that to.

Like my roll a ball game. its not mutch i want to do whit it and iam pretty sure most of u reading this can do the most of what i like to do in just one day. iam just trying to say keeping it simple i think.

Anyway thanks for ur help guys. And who knows we might be friends next time :wink:

19

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with asking for help. On the contrary, we encourage it. We love it - it’s what this whole community here is built on!

Typically, though, the help centers around specific questions. That makes it approachable on a case-by-case basis, encourages more people to get involved, and makes it findable for future people with similar issues. On the other hand one-on-one tuition requires a huge time commitment and mostly only helps one person.

So, treat the community as a whole as your tutor, and make sure you come and ask questions whenever you have one.

1 Like
20

I actually added you on skype when you did your first few posts to help answer some of your questions or tutor you a bit for free, but after a few days you never accepted and I decided to block you lol…so you probably did have people trying to help you and you didn’t even see it.

Lost cause, is a lost cause.