Start game dev in Unity

News & General Discussion
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Hello guys,

I m thinking about to start game development and i believe that unity is propably the most complete framework out there, but i have some questions first ( :stuck_out_tongue: ). First of all i am 25 years old and i have some programming experience in pascal and VB (from the time i was in school and some small programms i made my self) and also some basic scripting in perl. I want to start learn a game engine and its language with a plan in a year or so to be able to create a kinda basic 2d rogue rpg ( pretty much like this:

). So do you guys believe that unity is for me, or i must look on something more easy (like corona sdk), i dont have problem to sit down and learn stuff, but i wanna know if there is someone who start from basic programming knowlege and now is an average game developer with unity.

PS: i dont have plan to develop a 3d game ever, so i only care about how much difficult is to start on C# and unity (JS is not an option cause it seems to me even harder than c#)

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Yes, Unity is for you. If you want to program something as complex as an RPG, you will appreciate the extra language features that C# gives you over Lua.

There are lots of reasons to use Unity over Corona but when Unity introduced their 2D tools, the only reason to use Corona over Unity evaporated. Unity is better and, for what you want to do, it’s free.

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yes but if done correctly as i know you can emulate 3d in a 2d environment and fool the player into thinking they a 3d game, is another way of doing things if your not good at 3d game design.

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Coming from a VB background you’ll probably have some experience with component based design, so that’ll be a plus when getting to grips with Unity. C# is a little different to what you’re used to, but as with any programming language, it’s just a matter of learning the syntax and quirks of how best to use it.

A good place to start is the Learn section - the tutorials and live training sections have a lot of videos covering various topics.

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Definently start with Learn. To NomadKing, you must listen!

As for ‘skilling up’ your knowledge of programming, I highly recommend making a game that is simpler than a roguelike to start with. Keep the concept, but save it for later when you’ve got a better framework.

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Thanks for all the answers guys, i m gonna ttry out the unity engine and i really hope to make something good with it, as i hope for every one else of you. :slight_smile:

As i mention in first post i want to be able to make something smillar in one year+, but if you have an idea about what type of games i must make as far as i m learning the basics i realy want to hear. I think about rpgs because as an rpg gamer i have a lot of ideas to make something unique, plus there are just a few good 2d rpgs with roguelike elements so if i make something good there is more chances to succed (i dont want 1m+ DL’s, but 10k or so for a free game it will be much more than a good start for me).

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Back when I started there was an excellent First-Person Shooter kit, that teaches you the workflow of Unity really well, as well as some basic considerations with AI. I haven’t checked to see if it’s still there, but it’s simple, to the point, and following it will let you understand the Unity workflow much better.

When you’ve done that, I recommend a platformer. The mechanics are straightforward, and you’ll more importantly get some experience with level design. For added challenge, since an RPG is one of your end-goals, try adding a story component to it. If you can create a basic platformer with story elements, I have no reason not to think that your 2D Roguelike action RPG isn’t at the very least ‘somewhat viable’.

Also, be warned your first games are going to suck. I’m three games in (four if you count NAFRPG, which the community wisely convinced me to abandon, back in the day.) Release your games, and learn to take feedback. At first, it will suck, but as time goes on you’ll be better at separating the useful feedback from random gamers whining. Try not to take it personally, further.

Finally, act professional. You’re a craftsman, and any time you speak up, your reputation is on the line. You can be forgiven for your first games not being great, but saying/doing really dumb stuff after a certain point mean you can be safely ignored by the greater community. As a rule, treat each person as an individual, do not bring age, race, sex, religion, nationality, politics…tell you what, let’s keep this simple: just treat each person as an individual.

Most importantly express and act on your willingness to improve. You’ll fail a few times along the way, but success is your ultimate goal.

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@AndrewGrayGames , thanks for your time and the advices, do you think that this http://learnunity2d.com/category/tutorials/ is good place to start, or its better to start with more general tutorials? (ofc i ll read the documentation)

Also 1 last question: is it usefull to prototype my projects (both on learning phase and after) in a pretty basic enviroment (like gamesalad, gamemaker and stuff) or to go straight in unity and start creating it with pretty basic graphics and improve them in time?

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If you’re going to learn Unity, don’t half-do it. Use Unity. Learn the heck out of it.

And, the Learn Tutorials are a great place to start. Have fun.

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You should make this your signature :wink: