Buying Unity Toolkits to learn

RickyGC

I want to make a 2D Infinite runner. I need to learn to use Unity and buying a complete toolkit seems like a good way to learn how everything goes together etc.

These toolkits seem pretty expensive though.

Can anyone recommend a specific kit that would suite my needs or should I figure it out from scratch?

FanieG

@RickyGC - There are so many ways to go about learning, so my advice should be seen as just 1 out of a million options, but I used a book called "Game Development with Unity by Michelle Menard". It can be ordered from any local bookstore. Got mine through exclusive (ISBN-13: 978-1-4354-5658-7). She presumes that you are a total Noob that has never used a PC. By the end of the book you would have created an entire game from start to finish. The only drawback is that all the scripting is done in JS (but really well explained). I am also busy working through the "Cooking with Unity" video tutorials which are done in C# and are real great. Unity's own tutorial projects are also highly recommended. Good luck.

Tuism

I think there's no need to buy anything - figuring out what does what how in Unity or any other engine is a matter of doing tutorials and googling whenever you want to do something and can't. The community here also helps a ton.

If you're set on doing 2D only, try starting with Game Maker. If you're adamant that you want to use Unity only you may be approaching this the wrong way - game makers learn problem solving and logic building and game loops, not necessarily tools. I'm a Game Maker user now, but half the time I'm still googling a bunch of stuff I do all the time... And I'm almost certain that's what'll happen when I learn Unity - I'll use it with the stuff I've learnt from GMS and google technical syntax and whatever stuff.

RickyGC

@FanieG Thanks for the advice. I understand there are endless possibilities of where to start. I like taking things apart and putting them back together. I have 0 experience with Unity, so would this be advised?

I'll definitely check out those books! I might need the step-by-step help to start.

RickyGC

@Tuism, the idea of buying the complete template is appealing, because I also want to get a game going and done :) It's exciting. I want to learn, but I don't want to spend 8 weeks playing with cubes. I know I probably need to crawl before I can walk, but I'm special like 'dat :P

I've played with Construct before. It's a pretty cool tool to make a game quickly, but I want to learn a powerful tool that I can grow with.

FanieG

@RickyGC - GameMaker is extremely powerful. When I started, I too had the misplaced assumption that Unity is somehow better than GM. Believe me, this is not the case. As Tuism rightly said. GameMaker will make future learning much easier. Maybe check out both, Unity and GameMaker. Do a few tutorials in both and then see which 1 you prefer.

Also, I've been using Unity for 7 months now, and still play with cubes :) Gotta love those cubes

Elyaradine

Um. Not really answering your question, and I haven't actually used this site much at all (all of my learning's been on-the-job, experimentation, and Googling the bits where I get stuck), but from what I've seen it's pretty cool.

http://unitygems.com/

Tuism

1) You're learning to make games, and that intrinsically means a game loop and game mechanics. If you think you'll "get further" in 8 weeks playing with things other than cubes, you're wrong - cubes (and circles and shapes and colours and lines and and and) lets you get to game loops and mechanics quicker, and trying to art things or polish things can only slow your learning down.

2) The thinking "I'm going to learn, and while I'm learning my first learning project will be a good enough product" is also wrong. Hanging onto that idea will either delay your learning, or discourage you so much that you stop learning. Everyone should start with throwaway, tiny ideas. If those ideas DO become something amazing, great, if not, the worst thing you can do is to hang on to them endlessly while you could be learning much much faster by trying something else.

3) The thinking "I'm different, I'm special, and I'm better than other people who've tried and will succeed where they've failed" is wrong. We're all very talented and special here, trust me, I've been here long enough to really be able to say. But if you ask anyone - including @dislekcia and @blackshipsfillthesky and any and all of the grandmasters, they will tell you how they started - by making a ton of small things, failing at them, and making more small things, and repeat, repeat, repeat. This "advice" may sound condescending, but it's the best piece of advice I ever got. Don't be precious about the work, fail more rather than trying to win it all first shot.

4) Don't spend money until you have to! And you don't have to spend anything when you're learning because you won't use 1% of paid features of neither Unity or Game Maker while you're learning.


Those are my feelings on the subject. It's really not a dig at your capability - I'm sure you're super talented and motivated, but overall, the collective experience here is that the best ways to learn applies equally to everyone!

RickyGC

@Tuism, thanks for the advise, noted!

I get what you're saying and its true. Thing is I still want to start with a specific type of game and make a working game, all while learning more about Unity... That is my goal at heart. Becoming a Unity / game making master is not my current goal :)

But tons of small things sound good and not having to buy anything makes more sense since I'm still learning and won't know how to fully use any of it. So I will start with cubes :P breaking my desired game into small projects, working towards the final idea.

garethf

Nothing wrong with buying scripting assets to learn from them.

Many an art noob has studied the paintings of the masters in an attempt to understand how they did what they did, likewise with beginner writers and musicians. No reason why you can't do that as a programmer/designer. How much money you're willing to spend is up to you, of course.

Can't really recommend any kits for the style of game you want to dev though. Haven't looked at that type of thing.

RickyGC

@garethf this is probably the coolest one I've seen - https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/9236 but rather expensive to learn from.

Tuism

I took a look at that and I think you'd learn MUCH more from building your own infinite runner, and also that toolkit is way specific - what you could learn from that would almost never be useful for anything else you might wanna do.

Think about what you want to build and think about what parts go into it. For an infinite runner:

1. A general speed that applies to everything in the game
2. A loop that generates scenery pieces/enemies/actors to the right of the screen
3. Actors that move according to patterns as well as the speed in point 1.
4. Moving the player actor
5. Shooting or otherwise doing whatever attack. Collision detecting shots/attacks/actors
etc etc.

This has been discussed before, but one of the best ways to learn is to copy something existing! Find a game that you like, and try to copy it. You'll work out so much of what makes a game - or how it works. It's kind like designers looking at an image and reproducing it in photoshop using whatever they know how, or googling.

RickyGC

I did exactly that :) just going to focus on each part for now. But I realise I would need to sharpen up my knowledge of the interface first. So I will get there.

Thanks for the advise guys!

Here is a link to the Webplayer