Hei!
Ive been reading a few threads about that topic already but would still like to ask if you would like to tell me about your first little creations when you started newly and what you’ve learned out of them!
friendly greetings Janne!
i think the most important thing to learn early is debugging techniques. because everything you gonna create will be full of bugs.
i kind of figured debugging out just trial and error. I wish that in the all the “beginner game dev” educational content, all of the common debug techniques were hammered on.
It’s simple things like print text, use breakpoints, turn off half a thing at a time to find the problem spot - but not something you can come up on your own with right away if you havent seen some examples.
i think if i were going to design some project based tutorial, the first things i woudl do is write code full of bugs and then step by step trouleshoot them all. Because once you can do that efficiently, you are basicalyl good. Just through iteration then you will end up with code that works eventually, even if you don’t have any real training.
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really great advice! I am going to integrate troubleshooting into the learn aspect as your experience makes it reasonable.
Maybe building up a reusable framework. Unity provides a lot but once you have made a few games with Unity you realise you are often re-building the same or very similar elements e.g. UI, Controllers, FX, Health, Damage.
So if you are teaching game programming setting up a set of game development challenges with rewards for re-using components to boost good re-use strategies.
Maybe start with random teams that have to build re-usable components for a set of random games they know they could be working on.
Then the teams are re-randomized and have a game project assigned where they have to use the components.
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I always start-off by trying to recreate a simple 80s Atari/arcade game like Space Invaders or Pac-Man. Usually they incorporate all of the basic elements of gaming in a little microcosm.
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Not for someone who’s just learning. Ignore “reusability”. You need experience before you can aim for that, because without it you’ve got no idea what your “reusable” thing needs to achieve to be useful. Once you’ve reached the point where you’ve made stuff and wantto re-use things you’ve done in the past, then see what makes that easy / hard, that’s when you can start planning ahead with it a bit.
For someone starting out, just pick some small projects and make them work. Pong, Space Invaders, little platforming games, stuff like that. You’ll run into snags as you go, and solving those snags is a big part of how you learn.
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My answer is a bit different. When i started with Unity i had already been a game dev for many years (i started before Unity existed). But i learned alot from the early game engines and systems that were around back then. When i first started with Unity and booted up the editor, i felt at home. Most game engines have the same basic principles/systems (including in-house engines), its just a matter of figuring out where everything is.
For a new user of Unity, i think the best thing to do is decide if you want to do 2d (BuiltIn/URP) or 3d (BuiltIn/HDRP). Once you decide, dig in. Watch tutorial videos, and reference Unity documentation. Google will be your best friend. Theres TONS of info out there on Unity, far more than most other engines. Learn where things are in the Editor, and anything about it you can. Another good thing to do is get a pre-made scene/environment/game off the asset store or elsewhere, so you can load it up and see how things are made (some tutorials will have you download just that, so you can learn the tutorial).
I wish you the best, and dont get frustrated or give up, after all, its only about learning, and you will learn alot as time goes on…
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Been a developer for well over two decades now and still learning every day 
I’d say the most major thing I’ve learned with doing multiple client projects per year is to document everything you can as soon as possible. the number of times I’ve developed a sub-system that I felt was completely self-explanatory to use, only to have to come back to it a few years later and not have the first clue how it works, what other systems it interacts with, how to perform repetitive changes ( but infrequent enough that you forget ) etc.
In of itself its not a major problem, its just the time-sync that you end up with having to read through the code to remind yourself how it works, where some good documentation could give you a huge boost in getting back up to speed with it.
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But think about it look at the set of simplest games people can first write:
- Pong, (Controller, Collision, Sfx, Score, Menu, Credits)
- Space Invaders, (Controller, Collision, Sfx, Fx, Score, Menu, Credits, Waves/Levels, Enemies)
- Breakout, (Controller, Collision, Sfx, Fx, Score, Menu, Credits, Waves/Levels)
- Pacman, (Controller, Collision, Sfx, Fx, Score, Menu, Credits, Waves/Levels, Enemies)
- Platformers etc.
By breaking them down to their core components and mechanics and analysing them you are learning the essence of game design and starting to reuse components early is a huge advantage that will save lots of development time with later projects.
In addition it will also teach you that some components will only be re-usable across a subset of projects before becoming unusable (easier to write new components than re-work old ones). e.g. Transition of Controller from Pong to Platformer.
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2D Game
I had gotten an idea of ball constantly bouncing inside a circle. The circle had region vise painted areas. Every time when the ball bounced it changes its color and we have to quickly move the circle color to match the bounced ball color to get a score. The circle was moved left and right by tapping left and right side of the screen.
Things I learned
- Collision Detection 2D
- Circle Colliders
- Ray Casting
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I am going to keep that in mind! Thank you very much! Me myself doesn’t have much experience with Game Development yet I did and still doing 3d Graphics aswell as digital drawing but I did not wanted to let that opportunity pass! 
When I started to “script” ( follow the instructions ) an Movement script yesterday evening it didn’t worked and I felt the frustration so i work on that especially!
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I am going to add the suggested Games to the Work List! I have had a smiliar idea in mind. Thank you!
brilliant idea! I am going to try recreating that concept once im a little more advanced! thank you very much