Hey everyone :), my name is Travis and I’m an aspiring (concept artist primarily and 3D) Digital Artist. To keep it short I want to develop a game eventually, currently my aim is to improve my skills. Later on the game I’d like to make is inspired by Paper Mario. A 3D plane but with 2D characters going back and forth through the x, y and z axis. Issue is I don’t want to learn coding and I currently don’t have connections with any coders for future development. I would like to what you think would be the best option for me such as, use this engine because… better to wait for someone to come along to help code… etc.
Thank you for your time, any response would be incredibly appreciated!
If you want to make your game solo (which I actually recommend in most cases), you’ll have to learn “programming” one way or the other. Whether you are using “visual scripting” with things like gameflow or you are wrting C# code, both are programming, both require the same kind of thought process, both require strong understanding of basic math. You should watch the roll-a-ball tutorial for gameflow and the same one from unity3d.com/learn and then maybe another tutorial for playmaker and another code based one using C# and see what you find your head easier to wrap around. Personally I strongly prefer wrting code, and I’m primarily an artist as well. Some programming/coding knowledge can be very useful for you later on in your 3D art career when you can write your own tools and macros in your 3D application of choice. Unless you have unusually big problems with math and logical thinking, I think a bit of c# coding should be fairly easy to learn for you. You don’t need most of what you can do with that language, you just need some solid basics and you can make a game with that. Keep it simple.
I am also an artist. I feel I wasted a lot of time waiting for a magical coder friend to team up with, and never found one. That’s saying a lot, because at the time I was working in game studios, so it wasn’t like I wasn’t surrounded by them. I just never found a like-minded fit. I wasn’t even dead-set on my ideas. I’d have happily worked on theirs if I felt they were serious and going somewhere.
In the end I decided to bite the bullet and try to learn coding myself so I could make my dream game. I ended up loving coding as well. It took about a year. All of my coding knowledge is specialized in the context of Unity’s API, but at this point I don’t feel at all inhibited programming-wise. I feel capable of adding any feature I need, and I can make any tool I need to build content. Now I have a shipped title, and am over half way done with my dream game.
You mentioned you’re still honing your art chops, so by all means, continue with that journey. But when you feel you’re ready to try to make a game, I wouldn’t hesitate to start learning to do everything yourself. I think you’d be surprised at how much you can do. Don’t wait around for anyone.
Some people were recommending Gameflow and playmaker, but if you’re a visual thinker, I suggest you check out Bolt!
It seems pretty straightforward to use and might help you out!
If you are an artist, maybe check out some more finished game engines in the asset store. The no coding type things. The trouble with that is you will have to do most things “their” way and they don’t leave room for as much variation. However, it is a nice way to get your feet wet. Also, just do a simple game from a tutorial and change the art, and then make small variations in the code. Ask a lot of questions in scripting. Everyone is more than helpful if they know you are serious and don’t want them to write the code for you.
just learn how to code, save yourself the trouble. You might be thinking that its way too hard or so, but learning basic coding which you can apply in unity will only take you few months for a decent game
Sorry for not responding to every response as I’d like to but I haven’t been able to, nonetheless thank you everyone for the feedback so far, it’s been a great help with deciding what I should or should not do. Currently I’m attempting to improve as a concept artist or character artist, I’ve been drawing hands over and over lol. I’m definitely considering learning coding just because I would not lke to limit myself to visual scripts, I have a question and it’s if I were to use visual scripts can I write code along side it the visual scripts or can I only use what the visual scripter offers me? Once again I am super grateful for such an amazing community to be able give me that helping hand :).
I know Bolt allows you to change between visual blocks and code, so it’s both for non-coders and coders, the tool doesn’t block you in the sense that you can only use the visual blocks that are provided.
Yes, you can have written scripts running alongside visual scripts. Most of the visual scripting languages even allow you to extend their functionality with written scripts.
Just a quick heads-up. Unity is currently in the process of removing every written language except for C#. If you want to pick up written scripting that’s the language you will want to focus on learning. Just ignore UnityScript. It won’t be around for much longer.
What’s your current art ability? Good enough to land you a job with other talented developers to fill in the other roles? Because how much you can bring to the table changes how much you can specialize if you want to collaborate
