Hi All,
I`m amazed at the depth of Unity, and I think I only need a tiny percentage of its functions: I want to create a simple bingo type game with pictures rather than numbers eg click on a picture, the picture changes colour briefly and a score is added to a counter. Do I need to do the design work first (eg pretty background, button design) or do I do the mechanics of it first (eg how the buttons work)? That might help me choose what tutorials / resources to focus on.
Thanks
It doesn’t really matter which you do first but people tend to do the game mechanics first. The argument is that if you can get it to work without the graphics and to make it fun and stable then everything on top of that is just dressing. That and it makes it easier to make sure your core mechanics are optimised.
A simple bingo game for a professional engineer would take more time to make the assets than it would to write the code. The main game logic would take probably take 15-45 minutes to write. I mean its just a matrix and a horizontal, vertical and diagonal line check right?
In short. Being overwhelmed will get easier the more you know about the domain and unity. With regards to tutorials I would stay away from them. They are incredibly slow methods of learning. First I would just read the c# documentation and at any point you don’t understand just go away and find supplementary explanations until you do at a practical level i.e. until you can think of at least a couple of ways to utilise that understanding.
Once you are comfortable with c# then do the same for unity.
Then start thinking of problems you need to solve and how you would solve them using code and then try to apply that through the lens of Unitys framework. 9/10 they will be junk solutions (they are for most people even after they have learned to code) but they will get more functional/ “good” with time and effort.
Most of all find ways to enjoy it. Because there is a lot to learn across many fields to do game development and either you are going to have to find ways to be, at the very least interested in them or you are going to have to delegate those tasks to people who are.
Rule of thumb: don’t design for a game you’re not sure is “fun” or successful functionally. Keep in mind that you could design graphics for a game, then do the mechanics, and suddenly you realize the game maybe isn’t all that good, and you’ve now wasted hours or days or weeks on designs that might never see the light of day.
as scared geometry says, first make sure yuo get it working and then think about dressing it up. What I don’t agree with him is the tutorials. if you want a specific thing done, sure. try to find a specific thing you need. but if you think of using unity a lot and it isn’t a one off project, I find tutorials really good especially the learning path. it does take long but it goes through all what you need and you will find it easier to learn other stuff on your own.