I’m working through the create with code tutorials which is detailed step by step guide to make 5 different games. I say games but the first 1 isn’t really a game it’s more learning basic transform code movement. The next ones are more like games. It’s not til the last tutorial you learn to make them into actual games with difficulty levels, scores and game over screen.
I’ve never done any coding before so this is exactly what I needed to get started. I’ve set up a Twitter account to keep track of how I’m getting on I’m @kmo861 if anyone wants to follow. Also what would be a good next step after this create with code tutorial?
I am glad you enjoyed create with code, I am always telling new users to check it out as I think its the very best introduction to unity on offer.
I recommend next you try and create a very small game of your own. Think of something realllllly simple to start with, and try and get a basic version of it running without using tutorials.
Each time you get stuck, lookup help for that specific problem, and voila you are a developer Thats all it really comes down to, splitting up your game into a set of problems and then finding solutions for each.
You will find if you take this approach (finding help for specific problems rather than following full tutorials) you will learn at a decent rate and be independent.
A good starter project would be something like a 1 level top down shooter, which you could then add a few levels to after getting an intial version up and running. Or something like breakout, that is also a good thing to start with
I’m thinking of something like a car racing game but there is a lot I need to learn that I don’t think these tutorials cover before I could do that. One thing I mite try is a breakout game or a snake game like ones that used to be on Nokia phones. I’m thinking once I’ve learnt everything possible from these tutorials I mite be able to work somethings out myself hopefully.
Breakout is a really good one to start with in my opinion, I would totally start there I would try racing after you have tried at least 1 or 2 projects first, as there is quite a lot more involved work to get a racing game up and running because of all the physics that can be involved.
Also dont stay on tutorials too long, just start trying to make something for yourself an look up help when you get stuck each time, even if that is every single step along the way. You will learn way quicker and end up with something unique at the end
Yea once I’ve learnt everything I can from these tutorials I’m going to try something myself even if it’s not exactly a game just get it doing different things that you can do in games. I’m thinking of playing around with the tutorial games and added extra bits to them. Like for 2nd tutorial where you feed animals I mite try doing it so you need to feed different animals different foods. Also going to practice more with spawn positions and timings of things like 3rd tutorial you set obstacles to spawn every 2 seconds so I’m going to change that to random times so it’s a bit harder.
I pretty much started how I started programming many-many… many (too many) years ago. I downloaded the thing, installed and started to do things and watched what happens. Plus documentation, plus one or two tutorials (I think it was very early gamedev.tv-predecessor something - they are paid, but I honestly say it was and is worth it).
One key thing to learn either coding or using game engines: do stuff and see what happens. Do whatever many time it takes to achieve the desired effect (or close enough). Over time, you’ll get better.
I’m a little biased, because since I have never done any tutorials, I don’t think people need to do tutorials.
I taught myself C++ as a teen back when 14.4k modems were considered high speed interwebs. I made text games, BBS door programs, etc. Then picked up C# in the 2000’s, and absolutely loved it. It was like they took everything I liked from C++ and threw out everything I hated. No online tutorials or vibrant forums back then, instead we had things historians call “books”. You may have seen one on a museum tour. I made some games using C# and managed DirectDraw, some non-game apps and IT related tools, etc. Good times. Boy do I sound old.
Eventually picked up Unity in the 4.x days, but it was difficult to get going on. My biggest issue was I was used to writing the game loop, having my code be at the center of the application, but Unity essentially is the game loop and you hang your scripts off of it at various access points. That took some patience. But there was the manual, which I’ve read almost entirely several times (I highly recommend doing this), and the forum, and you solve one problem at a time. Tutorials were bad to non-existent, or even worse… in JS!
Eventually you figure out at least 1 strategy to solve almost any problem, or at least remember you read about how to do it somewhere and go find it. You get more experience, you know multiple ways to come at any problem, and can choose which way is actually best for you in each situation. At that point I think you’re doing pretty good. Good luck, have fun
Lucky! Sadly we didn’t have internet, not even a phone line, most of the western computational devices were on CoCom-list (80-ies, behind the iron curtain), so we had to smuggle in even my first C64…
Later I had a Kernighan-Ritchie 1st edition back then and later a The Art of Computer Programming from Knuth. Actually those weren’t mine, but since no one else wanted them our local library allowed me to borrow them for a year or two… Those books thought the majority of what we consider basics today.
And yes, we were sleeping in paper boxes and we never drank out of a cup, we used a rolled up newspaper…
I started playing around with making browser flash games when I was around 11 (around 2004/5ish), dropped it when I was 14 because it was just way too much work for me at the time (both in skill and dedication), after I was done with school and the army(joining the army is mandatory in Israel) in 2016 I thought about what I wanna do in life and looked into game dev again, wanted to go 3D and knew about unreal engine, found unity by mistake while doing research and haven’t looked back on this decision, still not making ends meat with it, but hoping i’ll get there soon.
learning how to do thing (both in flash and in unity) was mostly done with trail and error, I think it’s the best way to gain insight into the engine.
(e)books are an awesome source of information too, lucky for us youngsters we got a global library at hand open 24/7, getting a good programming book is so easy now.
The final year of my undergraduate degree I had a class with a professor whose pet project was cellular automata. He showed off a few examples of complexity in nature and his software in use, and I was hooked.
Near the same time I read up on Oblivion a bit, about the promises for Radiant AI. That got me interested, and it seemed similar to what this professor was talking about.
I got it in my head to make a game that used those elements, so I downloaded Unity and starting playing around from about the time of my join date for this forum. Never really did much in the way of tutorials, just explored specific things as I needed them.
Books are old fashioned now ha ha. I’m all for working things out by myself if its possible, but how do you work out even the most basic thing like make a ball go forward without knowing any coding? I’ve just completed the 2nd challenge in the create with code tutorial and honestly wouldn’t have had a clue where or to to even start without the tutorials. I know working things out yourself will help you learn more but you need some idea how to at least try to do something.
I come from MMO development, reverse engineered server emulators. Even though you dont have the actual source code, you have enough to work with (client/server). My job was to re-place stock textures (1024x1024), with higher resolution textures (4096x4096), and some model work.
I always worked for someone else, but wanted to do it myself. Had used Unity on a previous project (2014), So i was familiar with its workflow, etc., but really didnt take it serious until one night of adjusting drop tables for mobs, i said "f@#k this…i can do better than this.
The rest is history… love Unity, the functionality, and possibilities are endless…
I think with Unity it is better to learn C# first, then afterwards bring that knowledge to Unity. Start by just making some simple console apps in VS without Unity.
Books are the most efficient way to learn. The other efficient way is having a skilled tutor.
Tutorials are less efficient (as they walk you through and can skip fundamentals), and video tutorials (unless you’re dealing with certain fields) are the worst, as they waste time.
Yeah, master the first 5 chapters or so of any C# book, and you’re probably good. If you encounter things you don’t understand, you can always look those things up as needed.
Video tutorials are good at presenting in an entertaining way, but are terrible at teaching. Invariably they will go too fast or too slow for you, and you will have to back up dozens of times. The same thing written down, it is easier to just reread.
They also don’t usually explain why they are doing things, or what are the rules about how what they are doing is done. Written tutorials are bad at that too. A book moves more slowly, but is taking the time to build you a solid foundation properly before moving on.
I’m a gamer through and through. Always wanted to make my own games, but was daunted by the tech stack and holy cow if I wasn’t right game development became a crunchier, more demanding area of tech then web development. That’s what I initially picked to pay rent as it was a bit more forgiving on my, well… cynical depressed doomer mind I guess. Turns out you could make games in Flash if you were really good. Newgrounds was big in those days.
So I went about and learned what OOP training I could wring from my employer at the time. Turns out I understood OOP quite well but then all of that AS3 tech died, at least for the web. So I was set back a few years and had to go back to HTML and Javascript. Ugh.
I downloaded Unity on a whim since I heard C# was OOP. Turns out it’s not that far removed from what decent AS3 code used to look like. Better yet, the framework itself added some stuff on top that made getting into Unity’s coding aspect a relative breeze. I mean, I’m still bad at math but the beauty of programming is that you can, well… parameterize the hell out of calculations and look things up on the internet. Before I knew it, I was making prototypes.
I’ve only been using Unity for a year now and I’m not at that stage that I’m confident I can make a full game yet. I do have a great humanoid prototype which I’ve been iterating over the past year, with the intent of one day making an adventure game with a decent length and meaningful gameplay. For me the best way to learn is by examining one thing at a time. And accepting it’s a process to learn enough of those things to put something together that looks good.
As a “next step” I would envision the type of game you want to make first, and try to keep it’s scope as small as possible. Do not try to make your magnum opus, but do focus on making a game close to what you enjoy playing yourself. Make a few prototypes before committing to one. I’ve seen how much difference it can make to iterate on one prototype a few times before. One I made in 4 months, and rewrote the whole thing in 2 weeks at some point and it looks waaay more polished right out of the gate.
Thats all it really comes down to, splitting up your game into a set of problems and then finding solutions for each.
Sadly we didn’t have internet, not even a phone line, most of the western computational devices were on CoCom-list (80-ies, behind the iron curtain), so we had to smuggle in even my first C64… 