Hi everyone, I’m downloading Unity right now as I speak and let me introduce myself, I’m Zack. And I have fully decided to get into indie game development scene. When I was a kid up to the point I graduated from high school, I always scribbled and wrote in notebooks about RPG that I would make someday. I would spent countless hours writing its stories and its systems, its gameplay, its mechanic, but that dream came to temporary halt. Right now, I have zero programming language, and the best I can do with my laptops are watch movie, surf the web and download and install programs, that’s all. Few years ago, about a year after I graduated from high school, the desire to make JRPG-type game came upon me again and I so downloaded RPG Maker VX. But the only things I ever did in it are make player walk and make NPC talk, that’s all, and then the rest of my RPG Maker time were spent playing RPG Maker games made by members of the RPG Maker community. I procrastinated alot, and that’s too bad. Although I would later get into a mechanical engineering, I didn’t perform well in it and the desire to make game kept coming back to me although I kept pushing it away by procrastinating on it. But this time, dropping out of my college, I’m not going to procrastinate anymore and I’m ready to work hard. No matter how much the challenge there would be, I’m going to brave the odds. My mom gave me one year, starting from now, to do whatever healthy thing I wanna do. So I’ve decided to pursue, again, my game making interest. I don’t know why but I fell in love with Unity and so I abandoned RPG Maker (did I make the right decision?), and I’ve decided to start afresh by using Unity. I’m ready to adopt discipline in this interest.
So please help me, and guide me. Here’s what I intend to do: I’m trying to make 2D top-down JRPG like Final Fantasy 1-6 and Chrono Trigger with my own customised system. How should I begin with Unity and programming? What programming language do I need to learn (I don’t know any) so that I can make use of Unity’s scripting feature to its full potential? Would Java be good and would it allow me to customise my game creatively in Unity? Is there any tutorial on how to make 2D top-down JRPG using Unity? Please, I really and sincerely want to learn how to make game, no matter how hard it would be, no matter how long it would take.
While the software is being downloaded, I would love to hear guides from you all. Thanks in advance!
I’ve been there, bored with my day job massive fan of games had a fair bit of money in savings and thought that’s it I’m doing it. I’ve been a coder for over 12 years now and also have quite a bit of experience in Cinematics, AI and modelling and I’m still finding my feet to be honest. To say the least it is a time consuming, there is a lot to learn, it’ll take years of practice to make anything worthwhile.. Unity really helps speed up the process with the likes of the asset store and I would highly recommend you start learning the concepts of C#, getting used to the interface, making a cube move with the scripts provided from Unity, check out the angry bot’s demo and open some of the scripts and go wide eyed at the concept.
I make 3D games so I’m not going to be much help in the pixel art department, but there’s plenty of guys here that are guru’s and can shed there wisdom.
Do not start with the JRPG that you have in mind.
I cannot stress enough how important it is to start small. If you’re completely new to game development, you will even have trouble figuring out what a “small” project even is, since everything will turn out way more complex that you would have thought in the beginning.
While Unity is great for getting your hands dirty, it’s “noob-friendly” to a point where it becomes almost deceptive since it makes the whole process look so easy. It’s not.
You chose a good time to start learning to make 2D games with Unity though, as the new 2D-tools will be very helpful and save you a lot of time/money.
You said you were given a year. What is the expected outcome after that time?
12 years and still finding your feet? Hmm wow…
Thanks for the guidance and advice!
Ah yes, saw it, read it.
Hmm, ok then. I’ll start with something simple first then, beginning with learning the basic function of Unity and its new 2D tools…
Well, my mom expect to see something good made by me (since I told her I wanna make game) instead of playing games and surfing the web all day…
Well I’m a ridiculous quest to make something bordering on next gen with a small team of people, which I doubt you’ll be concerned about that portion of it.
I’m actually relatively new to Unity around 8 months or so? I use / used CryEngine and Unreal at certain points. So my experience has enabled me to at least make a start and know what direction I can and will take with limited time and resources.
12 years is general experience not Unity specific as a C++ dev for telecommunications and audio technology, in the realm of games I have around six years experience as a dev / modeller.
Point I’m alluding to is, it’s not easy and it takes time… If you can stick through the 10,000 hours of pain I’d say your good to go and things start becoming more of a repetitive breeze rather than a huge technical challenge.
I know there’s a massive start small campaign, work your way up (which most of the time makes complete sense)… But personally I’d rather do something interesting for many years as opposed to something that bores me for 12 weeks. But each to there own, there’s tons of decent examples out there… Youtube will be a safehaven for a while and find as many concept’s and examples as you can find and reverse engineer them.
One final thing in which most developers / designers I’ve come across has admitted to… Don’t spend months tweaking the same old things… Get the game done, see the progress and then come back and polish it… If you have to scrap it because it doesn’t work, it’s going to be painful after all that messing around.
Ya I got what you mean ^^. I was just like, “Man, 12 years coding and still finding your feet, programming must be really challenging…”
Are you working or are you a student?
Hmm okay, thanks for advice. Any tips regarding studying C# language?
Yeah, a JRPG as a first project is not a good idea. I’ve been working on one for a few months now and there’s still nothing graphical or visibly working because it takes hours and hours to get the underlying systems working. And that’s after quite a few years programming experience.
If you try to do it all yourself, you will spend the next year learning just how to create it and not actually creating it. Look into a starter kit from the asset store. The Okashi Role Playing Kit might be just what you need but it’s specifically for 3d models and not 2d sprites so there would be some adjustments you need to make. If money is a concern, try here. There are 285 tutorials that will help you get started creating your own RPG game. Again, not 2d so you’d need to make adjustments. You could also peruse the collaboration forum. Always people looking for team members, though I don’t know what exactly you’d bring to a team. Are you making all the 2d artwork? That might get you in a team.
Hi guys! 4.35 am here in Malaysia, just woke up, and just finished downloaded the latest version of the software^^
I see. Someday, I would love to have my own studio as well. Or join one.
Okay. Will be digging Unity’s site for tuts and info.
It does sounds so challenging! But since Unity and game design and development are all what I’m going to mainly do for at least one year (most probably I’m gonna extend my one-year Unity odyssey) night and day, I’m quite confident that I should at least will manage to make character walk and make NPC talk
Ya, thought about getting into a team, but I’ll start off as solo for now. I know this will be painful undertaking, and there’s always times where action fail to measure up to big dreams and big words… If that ever happens to me, it happens to me, but I’ll get back up, because well, pissh, this is my childhood dream haha. Okashi, yes, I’m considering of purchasing it. Thanks for burgzer link too. Yep, I’m doing the graphic, writing and audio as well, along with coding, although I also have zero skills in music composing and sound-effects making. But yeah, I’m willing to learn.
I’ll be making my fare with Unity a close contact with Unity site. As I learn Unity and C#, and as I later learn and attempt to create my own 2D RPG Kit in Unity, I’ll be using Unity’s site to ask question, post feedback and show progress on regular basis. So yeah, guys, if you notice me here and there posting, please entertain me if I’m needing help.
