Learning Unity - Create with Code (Part 2)
Since the initial update, I've continued with Unity's Create with Code course to the end of the first unit. The big realization: creating things with Unity is really easy! Well, sometimes it's easy...
And then sometimes your car decides to use a construction barrel as a ramp and takes flight. In retrospect, this is the kind of thing that's probably easy to fix by messing with some physics settings, but at the time, I just opted to use a different obstacle. But hey, the finished product doesn't look too bad, and matches what the tutorial was aiming for!
The first project #
As it turns out, dropping assets into Unity and attaching scripts to them to allow for them to react to player input is pretty straightforward. I'm glad I understand the foundational elements of programming, because the course doesn't really see fit to explain terms like variables, methods, classes, etc., except in that they are words you can type into your script to make objects do things. To me, the key takeaways here are:
- Player control is pretty simple, but making it feel good is hard. When games from 1985's Super Mario Bros. to 2018's Spider-Man live and die by their feel, this is an important detail for developers to keep in mind.
- The Unity docs are pretty solid, especially for familiarizing yourself with the API. This link, for example, explains the ubiquitous Vector3 class and what properties you can manipulate to change an object's position in 3D space.
- Planning game development is a daunting task, but one made easier by breaking the game into its most important parts. This Google Doc is a rough design doc for my personal project, which I hope will be a 3D horror game. But breaking it down and really identifying what the minimum viable product is among all those features is a really useful exercise to stay focused and guide development.
Next steps #
From here, I'll be moving into Unit 2. I also want to spend some time looking into how to implement the initial features of my personal project. Stay tuned for progress in both.