Day 1 | I’m Making an Indie Game
July 7, 2022
I have the dream of learning to create games, but I know nothing about anything. I have a game that I want to make called “Cycling”—a SNES-style game inspired by my favorite cycling board game called Flamme Rouge. After I build that game, I’m going to start getting into 3D design so that I can make my game tentatively called “Oliver.”
I thought it would be cool to blog about the experience of learning how to make a game with Unity and also share links and resources along the journey in case someone out there is wanting to go down the same path.
I’ve been watching a ton of Thomas Brush on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/c/AtmosGames) for inspiration. His channel seems mainly based around inspiration, so I was looking around for another means of in-depth learning. He directed me to a free learning platform called learn.unity.com. I went through a bit of their FPS Microgame series, but there were a lot of different Micrograms to choose from (https://learn.unity.com/tutorial/get-ready-for-unity-essentials?pathwayId=5f7bcab4edbc2a0023e9c38f&missionId=5f77cc6bedbc2a4a1dbddc46&projectId=612f9602edbc2a1b588a3af3#). That helped me learn about how the program works generally as well as the layout of the tools it includes, which was important. But, then, I wanted to know how to make my own Objects and take them into Unity to code them myself.
First, however, I was inspired to create my first character for “Cycling.” I wanted it to be pixel art and found these resources helpful:
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLdA4Amea7Y
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLdA4Amea7Y&list=PL7d-7Dxiak8nOHvMvuLNEm8iGrd49FRHk&index=5&t=348sI
The first video in particular I’d highly recommend. In four hours, I went from this:
To this:
I really think that this is going to be the basic art style. I’m happy with it!
I read that the programming language that Unity uses is C#, so because I learn from books better than the internet when initially learning languages, I went to Goodwill today and found an old C# book called “The C# Player’s Guide” by RB Whitake, but here’s the newest version: https://www.amazon.com/C-Players-Guide-5th/dp/0985580151/ref=sr_1_1?crid=DO4WKB3P9V1U&keywords=the+c%23+players+guide&qid=1657234981&sprefix=the+c+players+guide%2Caps%2C79&sr=8-1. Can’t beat $2. It was the only computer coding book there. Fate?
On searching for how to implement C# in Unity, I came across a page on Unity’s website that’s helpful: https://unity.com/how-to/learning-c-sharp-unity-beginners. I’m going through this tonight and am watching the Unlisted video on the Unity YouTube account they suggest watching entitled “Live Training 7th October 2014 - Coding in Unity for the Absolute Beginner”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWkUutm7Kus. This video is a more in-depth version of the article it was linked in.
