Hey, all! I thought of doing this thread a while back, but forgot until Ciro asked where everyone was from in the stream yesterday. I think it would be cool to hear some collaborator origin stories.
So here’s some questions you might answer:
What is your name? Where are you from? When did you start using Unity? Why are you participating in this project? Favorite game?
Note: Please consider your privacy comfort level if participating in this thread. There is no requirement to answer all of the questions or answer in detail. For example, you may want to limit to first name and country.
So, I am Yohann and I am living in the south of France near Nice. I am software engineer but I am not part of the game industry at all. Anyway, I really love all the aspects of crafting a game.
I have started to use Unity about 5 years ago. My parent bought me Klik & Play when I was 12, I remembered I quickly felt a bit frustrated to be limited by the game engine at this time. I have never felt the same with Unity, everything seems possible with it!
Building a game alone is one of the hardest thing, I guess. Lots of works everywhere: coding mechanics, building good UX and fancy UI stuff, create artistical content (visual assets and sound assets), create game mechanics and stories, market your game to meet its public, etc… For me, successful solo indie game creators are like the genius of Renaissance period, good in all the sciences, artistical and business areas.
So participating to this project is the opportunity to work as part of a team on a game project and also make and learn what I love to do in this industry at a professional level or almost. Feedback from the community and Unity team give me the feeling that what I have to produce is at professional level or almost regarding the quality. It is a unique experience!
Strangely I am not playing game a lot anymore. I loved playing game during my childhood and when I was a teenager / young adult. At that time, I played a lot with: Prince of Persia, Baldur’s Gate, Dune, Myth series, Outcast, FFVII, WoW from what I remember.
I am Johanna and I live in Germany. I am an electrical engineer and I did a PhD in Computer Science in 1993. That’s where my scientific career ended since I had my children - a decision I would make again anytime btw. As you can imagine it was hard to find a job years later so I ended up being a design quality engineer and at times a test engineer. With the company economizing on R&D due to Corona I just lost my job after 16 years with the company, which means I have a lot of unplanned free time right now.
It’s kind of a funny story how I came to the Unity engine - it started with me visiting the Sangrada familia cathedral in Barcolona. Gaudi’s arches are designed to a technically perfect shape as the forces will be transmitted exactly along the arches - no sideways forces of which the joints between the stones can only take a limited amount. There someplace in the museum it was said Gaudi’s arches were parabola - I thought “parabola sounds easy” and I set out recalculate the forces and shape of Gaudi’s arches. It turned out the arches weren’t parabola but catenarys yet I managed to replicate the mathematical proof. With that knowledge I set out and found the solution for 3D if you were to build a dome - which BTW the dome of St. Peter matches almost perfectly albeit Michelangelo can’t have known catenarys. And there are more mathemathically possible shapes - which I set out to visualize. First with Excel, then with JMonkey - a Java open source 3D engine where I set out to write some kind of “Cathedral editor” and since about 5 years with Unity. Shortly after I also started with Blender to make 3D assets.
I never finished the Cathedral editor with Unity - but I made a game for my husbands birthday (he can travel about in a quite correct simulation of the solar system and on the journey to each planet the will be a photo displayed) and for my children at Christmas (you wander about on an island and collect artefacts). I also made two 90 seconds animation movies so far and work on an about 10 minutes movie for the family this Christmas.
I can fully understand your
and I love the variety. Besides math and programming I am luckily a bit talented with art and can envision things in 3D, whereas audio certainly isn’t my strong side. So far I had not planned to make any money with games, which might be a different story if I don’t find a job again.
me neither. I enjoyed playing Anno, League of Legends and City Skylines in the past.
My name is David. I am from the US. I grew up near NYC, but moved out to the midwest to get my Bachelor’s in Telecommunications (with a minor in Computer Science). While at University, I met my wife and decided to settle down here. We have two girls, 4 and 2.
About 9 years ago, I began using Unity (version 3.4) when I started working for a non-profit organization at my University. We use Unity primarily for digital humanities research and occupational simulators, though we have made a few educational games as well. One of our more notable digital humanities projects was recreating what archaeologists believe Hadrian’s Villa looked like before it was left in ruins in what is now Tivoli, Italy. Many of our occupational simulators are geared toward healthcare. Our latest is a disaster response simulator for nurses.
I really enjoy using Unity and feel very blessed to be able to use it professionally and to still even have a job in the current pandemic. One of the downsides of my current position, however, is that I am the only programmer on our staff. Which means no peer reviews. I am entirely in charge of my own professional development. For me, getting no feedback is a good recipe for bad practices. And it also perpetuates impostor syndrome. So I have joined this collaboration in hopes of 1. receiving reviews on my code and 2. making a game, because making games is fun.
These days, with 2 small children, it’s a bit harder to find the time to really get into a game. RDR2 and BioShock Infinite are both near the top of my list. When I was in my teens, I would play this one flash game called TankMania. Outside of a clone made and played by a group of Japanese players, it doesn’t exist anymore. But I played that game so much. One day, when I have time again, I am going to make a clone/spiritual successor in Unity.
David, good idea about introducing ourself, I was thinking the same yesterday.
My name is Fran, I live in Spain, I love traveling and meeting people around the world.
I studied a Computer Science Engineering, and after working some years as a programmer in UK, Barcelona and Valencia, I became a teacher. Now I teach networking subjects in a vocational training College.
In my spare time (that is not much because I also have a family) I develop an Android app for teachers published on Google Play Store: Teacher Gradebook.
In my teens, I used to play many games. I always wanted to develop a game, but I never took the step. So, I started to learn Unity and game development some weeks ago, and I saw this project like a great chance to learn from experienced people. I was not wrong. I cannot contribute on coding yet, but maybe I could help with translation.
Pick a fav game? mmmm, difficult, there are so many I enjoyed: Simulators, strategy, Skyrim, CS Go …
Hello all.
I am Harsh Narayan Jha (as you can see my name on github. I live in India and currently I am a student.
I started unity less than a year ago, going to complete year this upcoming december. I started programming really by windows bat language (.bat) and then my uncle introduced me to Python language.
I started in unity with a racing game tutorial on youtube by Jimmy Vegas. I made it and then after finishing the tutorial, I added many things to it such as position management and much more. But it sadly resulted in a non-optimized game. FPS was always below 40~50 (lowest 7.5)(hardly 60). But I kept it optimizing and reached lowest limit of 30. So I left it and started learning more to optimize that.
And so, I joined this project just because of this, to learn best practices.
Also, there is a main reason for joining this project. As will say below that my favorite game is The Legend Of Zelda series, I wished that it may also be on mobile platforms. So I started project.
Yesterday i created a targeting system (as in zelda) by myself alone. I was very amazed that my system was working. I am joining this open to learn many thing and adapt them to my project. I will give my best here and take the best by you from here. (Hope no one is disappointed)
And my favorite game, as I have already told, is
The Legend Of Zelda
(my personal suggestion to everyone, play at least a title of zelda, it’s amazing).
My name is David, too. I am from Venezuela, living in Argentina since 2014. I know it’s silly, but I made my first videogames when I was like thirteen years old, using PowerPoint. Yes, Microsoft Office 2007 PowerPoint. In presentation mode, using its animation system and hyperlinking between slides, I managed to make two games that were actually not that horrible. I realized, though, that that was not the way videogames were really made. When I first heard something about programming, I think the word scared me, or maybe I thought I was too young to understand it or something, so I dropped the whole thing and dedicated my years to just playing games.
In 2018, I wrote my first “Hello World!” and used Unity for the first time, when I started a degree on Videogame Design & Development. Sadly, personal issues forced me to quit halfway through the second semester. I got to make my first game with actual lines of code, though. It was a lot of fun, loved everything about it, and found programming to be my passion. So I kept studying on my own, making prototypes and researching on the topics I enjoyed the most.
After that, I did find a job as a programmer, but on the business side, which isn’t nearly as exciting. I’m participating in this project to get a first experience in the process of making a commercial videogame (or a vertical slice of one), get peer reviews, and continue to learn.
As my favorite games, I’d have to say, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Pokemon Silver and Emerald, Maplestory, Hollow Knight, Tera, Overwatch, and Skyrim (although I think I’ve spent more time modding than playing it).
When did I start using Unity you ask? Well - I have not… Nor any game engine for that matter. Yeah - jumping off the deep end with both feet here.
I am however a Blender artist and am learning rigging and animation, and hope to put some of these skills to good use, learn about the workflow, and explore the idea of a pivot / shift in career.
I am currently the Creative Director at my local Community Access Television station (part time,) and the other half of the day I work in shipping. [I will leave it up to the reader to decide which job I might look to replace…] At the station I take on some of the special projects which include filming and editing. I create backgrounds for our green screen studio using both 3d modeling and photographic reference, and also have created motion graphics for show openings.
I can not say I have played too many modern games as of late, though I do occasionally play a bit of Polytopia on the phone. My heart for games though is in historical miniature wargames (my budget and time say otherwise.)
Greetings all, I am a part timer/hobbyist. I work a fulltime job that has nothing to do with gaming, programming or any sort of tech. I transport jet fuel to airports. I have always had an interest in programing and started with Basic back in the 80s. Then moved to Perl, then ASP and now C#.
What is your name?
John
Where are you from?
Colorado USA
When did you start using Unity?
5 or 6 years ago I think.
Why are you participating in this project?
As a hobbyist, I don’t get to collaborate much. I thought this was a great opportunity to learn about some of the collaborations tools/process and working with others to reach a goal. With the bonus of contributing to a cool game.
Favorite game?
There are soooo many great games out there that this question is like asking me “Which of my kids is my favorite.” Yes, I’m 54 and I still play games.
I’m looking forward to contributing to this project and hopefully many more future initiatives.
Hi everyone! I’m Dylan. I grew up in San Diego, CA and still here as of now. Was working as a high school math teacher for four years but knew it wasn’t for me around January last year, so I saved up some money and planned to go on a 6-9 month rock climbing trip which ended up getting postponed because of COVID and wildfires. Decided to get into computer science and game development in September and I’ve been essentially studying it full time since then while I prep to apply for grad school.
I’m excited to participate in this project because I’m curious to see all of the different approaches to game development that the Unity community brings to the table and learn as much as I can from everyone. I’d love to make a meaningful/sizable contribution as well, but that would honestly just be gravy on top – I’d be happy enough just to be able to squash a few bugs!
My favorite game right now has to be Hades. I’m a sucker for games that make you grind for upgrades, and I like that the game rewards you with such an expansive story despite the core loop being fairly small.
Shoutout to Outer Wilds which I just finished as well – what a mind-blowing experience!
It’s such a great idea to have a thread for people to introduce themselves!
My name is Xiao (pronounce similar to Shawn), and I’m from China. I’m currently working as a software engineer in California, USA. I started using Unity when I had an idea of making a game to teach people to play piano when I was in graduate school 5 years ago. I really enjoy the learning and the development process, and wanted to become a game developer ever since. I want to join this project to get a overview of how a team of talents work together to make a commercial game, and learn about testing, art pipeline, and such. Hopefully it will help me to form my own studio one day.
I love games. I have been playing all kinds of games on all kinds of platforms. My favorite game right now is RimWorld and Slay the Spire. I found Indie games so much fun nowadays because they really shows personality and I almost stopped playing AAA games.
My name’s Matt, and I’m originally from Buffalo, NY but now live in Indianapolis, IN with my wife and two little girls.
I’ve used Unity on and off for about 5 years, but never taken the time to really sit down and learn it - more just messing around for fun. I’ve picked up bits and pieces over the years, but would like to take it to the next level. That’s why I’m participating in this project - I’d like to get a feel for what working with a development team feels like, and to learn how those who are significantly more experienced than me approach problems and to learn from all of you! I’d also like to see how everything fits together. Often, when you’re learning by yourself in bits or pieces, you’ll learn individual systems, but never see them interact and grow through the development cycle. This will be awesome to see!
I love strategy games! I’ve sunk thousands of hours into the civilization series over my life. Also a big fan of classic Nintendo games since an SNES is what I grew up with. Right now I’m playing 7 days to die with a group of about 6 which is completely different from what I normally play, but it’s a great game to play in a group - lots of fun! Also… it’s a Unity title in development, so it’s fun to experience what folks are doing with the engine.
Great to meet you, looking forward to contributing in the future, but will probably just sit back and learn from you all for now!
This thread is really cool, and sorry for not posting to it before.
So: hello! My name is Ciro and I am originally from Napoli, in the south of Italy.
My journey in games started 10 years ago with Flash, when from simple advergames I moved to my own indie projects. I did a couple of years as a tester at EA in Spain, then in 2012 I financed my first real game through Kickstarter, a brainy puzzle game. That was also the year I made the switch from Flash to Unity. Eventually the game would come out in 2014, taking me more than 2 years to make (and which you can find it here, or just see the trailer).
Later on I made another small-ish commercial game (trailer here + it’s on Steam) which came out in 2016.
After that, I joined Unity Technologies, and here we are. Since then, it’s been 4 years of crazy trips around the world and plenty of talks, workshops, and training sessions delivered (here’s some live talks). In between talks, I managed to create a framework for helping kids make games (the Unity Playground) and, now, start Open Projects (spoiler: you are inside it!).
All of these indie development adventures kept me moving around, so I did Napoli > Rome > Madrid (Spain) > Rome > Madrid > Brighton (UK) > Copenhagen (Denmark), which is where I am now.
Now heading Creator Advocacy for Unity in Europe, and very lucky to have had the opportunity to conceive and launch this initiative, which is being and is going to be very unique. I’m really looking forward to see what we will be able to make together. In fact, a personal thanks to everyone who’s contributing!! The response to the initiative has really surpassed our expectations by far!
You’ve… never felt frustrated with Unity?.. we have a job for you as a testimonial!!
Also agree with this, indie games FTW!
That’s super cool, I’m actually surprised you haven’t made one yet…?
Best series ever! They always manage to reinvent themselves!
Bold! (I love Blender, by the way)
Actually, so much respect for the fact that you still manage to contribute to this project in a significant way!
Top game, it’s one of those that make me envious as I’m like “I wish I made this” (and there are plenty).
Same here… I’m very disconnected from the AAA world. Only Nintendo ones They feel like AAA but made with love
(and, just to be clear, all AAA are made with love by their developers, but often due to a coating of AAA-ness and bad business and project management, it shines through less - which is a shame)
You totally nail what I also think it’s the value of this project!
My name is John Chapman, and I’ve spent most of my life in the state of Louisiana, though now I live and work in Missouri. I started programming at a very early age, which naturally led me to seek an undergraduate software / electrical engineering degree. But I soon found out that I really liked physics, and got a Master’s and Ph.D. in that. Now, I work as the Chief Medical Physicist (don’t know what a Medical Physicist is? Neither does anyone else, but this might help: AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PHYSICISTS IN MEDICINE) at a cancer clinic and am also faculty at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. Despite this diversion towards Physics, I still haven’t lost the programming bug…and in case my recent forum post ( Localized Phoneme / Mood / Pose Expression System - Learn Content & Certification - Unity Discussions ) doesn’t quite make it apparent, I really like building large systems for games. After reading that post (or perhaps this one), you will understand that brevity is not a skill I possess =D.
I’m participating in this project for two major reasons:
(1) Since there is a team behind moving this thing forward, it forces constant progress. I often find myself taking one step forward and two steps back when I’m working on my own projects because I like perfecting them before moving on. That problem is eliminated with Open Projects.
(2) I love teaching. I love getting down into the nitty-gritty details and helping others to understand. I’ve made some game dev tutorials on my YouTube channel, hoping to attract an audience eager to learn, but they never got much traction. I hope that at least my contributions to this project (and overly verbose explanations) helps someone to understand something on a deeper level. I have actually thought about doing a “from scratch” tutorial series on building the codebase of Chop Chop from the ground up. But, for one, my time availability is sporadic…and I’m not quite sure anyone would actually be interested.
I have lots of favorite games, but these days I find myself gravitating towards games with a narrative focus and well-developed characters. That was a big part of the motivation behind building the Character Expression System, which is described in the forum link above.
Hi,
my name is Marcos Camacho, I’m from Bolivia so my native language is Spanish, I’ve worked in many fields not only including Computing Systems, which is what i officially studied.
I worked in small games and publicity using unity and other systems, also worked in commercial software development, which is what i currently do, i have a small break so i’m happy to have found open projects i was looking for something like this some years ago, i hope this be the first of many projects more.
I started using Unity at the university 8 years ago but didn’t use it recently so i’m really rusty
For my favorite game, i would have to do a really extensive list, so I’ll try to put the ones that are on the top of my head and those would be
Dark Souls, Zelda the breath of the wild, Hades, Dead cells, Guilty gear, Slay the spire and XCOM
i also play online Dota 2, Smite, Rogue company, LOL, and The Cycle
i could go all day really, so i’ll stop there, i’m really looking forward to being able to apport something to this beautiful project you all have here.
My name is Brett Huang. And I am now a Unity3D programmer(junior level) working in Montreal Canada.
I come from mainland China, Guang Dong province. I speak Mandarin, Cantonese and English. Now I am learning French since I moved to Montreal 2 years ago.
I worked as a game designer back in China for 6 years and self-taught my programmer skills, C# and game engine knowledge. Luckily I got my current job as my first programmer job since 1.5 years ago. I am very grateful.
Unity open project is one big surprise happened in my life. I always want to learn from the best but I got little chance. The unity meetup is held only a few times per year. And things got worse since the pandemic…
I like this project so much that I started to make videos sharing the project to developers in China.
So if somebody who understands Chinese can follow my YouTube channel specific for this open project. My Youtube Channel about open project
Hello Everyone! My name is Rupa and I am from New Jersey.
I got interested in Unity and game development last year as I had to stay at home due to Covid . I could no longer continue substitute teaching which left me with a lot of spare time to learn and practice. I have always been interested in programming as well as creating digital designs.
I had started with teaching Basic language a long time ago, and had continued to learn C, OOPS, Visual Basic, SQL servers, and more. Having extensively used Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop for my freelancing design work and creating various icons, logos, web banners over the last 15 years, it is great channeling my creative energy somewhere new. I am happy to have found Unity where I can put all my skills to use to create new games.
As my knowledge of games is primarily oriented towards children’s learning, I created a game to teach kids to spell colors.
My first game is now online on Google Play and called ‘AR Colors’. It is still a work in process, as I am continuously working on improving the quality of it.
I found out about this Open project recently and thought this would be a great opportunity to learn about collaborating with Github and expand my knowledge about the process of creating games.
My name is Walter Gordy. I grew up in Colorado (shout out to jandd661), and I’m living in Canada. I’ve worked as an electrical engineer for the last 10 years, but have always been a programmer at heart.
In 2015, I discovered game jams, and I’ve had a lot of fun doing them! I even won a Unity Professional license once. Now I’m picking up Unity again after a few years. You guys have been really busying at Unity!
I found this project browsing Unity’s github projects, and I’m excited to learn a lot and even contribute. I’m looking forward to participating, even if I’m out of my league and I can help just a little.
As for a favorite game, I’m a big fan of Kerbal Space Program. A neighbor worked on real world satellites and was surprised how well the game’s experience translated to having good conversations about space stuff. What a great Unity game!
My name is Charly and I live in Marseille, France. I started using Unity 2 months ago. I am really excited about this project which seems a great way to learn how to make a game. I want to be a game programmer btw. My favourite game would be Heavy Rain, though I really loved Ori and the blind forest too!
Hello, i started developing games as a hobby when i was 5 on scratch loved it, now I’m getting back into doing it seriously as like a hobby, i have a very rudimental knowledge of, c#, c++ and python, is there anything you need me to do? just moving from unreal to unity. don’t have a completely solid understanding yet and want to view this as an experience to learn and develop my skills on the new platform. im in the united kingdom. Favorite games are elite dangerous, Albion online and the Forza horizon series. Im 14 and also speak mandarin if that helps.
They feel like AAA but made with love