Where do I start?

Hello Unity community!

I'm a long time gamer; be it platformers, RPG's, Indie Games, Shooters; I've done it all. Recently I've been playing far more Indie games than anything, and have grown a huge amount of respect for the people who assemble their own games on a low budget and with a very small group of people. I've also noticed that a good portion of these games (or at least the ones I've played) are built using the Unity Engine. Though I know next to nothing about the long and painful process it takes to make a video game, I'd like to give it a shot with a couple of friends of mine and see what we can come up with by creating a PC game. My question is: where do I start? Just assume I know nothing about the process, so please advise me as to where I should begin. If this is relevant, my computer specs are as follows:

Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
Processor: Intel i5 Quad Core Processor @ 3.4 GHz per core
RAM: 16 GB
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 660 2GB 192-bit GDDR5
Hard Drive: 3 TB

Thanks in advance!

 

It's good to hear you're willing to embark on such a journey! You're already much further than most by simply seeking for advice, so congratz!

The best advice I can give you is this: Always aim for immediate results. This is a golden rule that still drives me today. The second advice would be: Aim small. You think you aimed small? Aim smaller. Seriously. Let's say you're starting your first day of learning programming, try to get 2 or 3 very small projects done by the end of day. Someone may disagree, but from my experience, I'd learn more by spending 4 hours on 2 smaller than 4 hours on 1 bigger.

At some point, you will acquire enough knowledge to feel comfortable when working with Unity. The amount of stuff you will be able to complete with 4 hour will exceed be far what you did some time ago. At that point, you may consider doing a project that takes a few days (maybe a weekend?). I remember that some of the best time I spent with my friends was trying to make a game over a weekend. Prepare sleeping bags, food and drinks!

If you're going on the coding path, first chose your language. I usually don't like to go into these language debates about "Which language is the best?" but in my opinion, if I had to start from scratch today with Unity, I'd go with c#. The main reason being that it's a language that exists also outside of Unity and learning the basics is easier because there're more/better resources available. The "javascript" language that is available inside Unity is not the common "javascript" language you'd use when crafting a website, so beware when you'll be googling stuff for this language. They have the same name, but are not the same. Don't search "javascript", search "unity script" instead. There's also the "boo" language in Unity but honestly, I don't know if anybody ever tried it out.

For the artistic path, you'll need to seek advise from somewhere else, I didn't go there yet

 

Yes congrats...get ready for many failures and successes, but all fun.
I would start by learning and understanding what Will created way back when:
www.unity3dstudent.com
Start at the very beginner modules and work up.
It is in JS but it will really help you understand core concepts of what Unity can do and how they can be structured.

Then you can move over to C#.

 

@ DDP and pixelsteam: Thank you both so much! Pixelsteam, I'll head over to the link you gave me straight away. I can honestly say though that I currently have zero experience with any sort of scripting language; do you guys recommend I try to learn javascript first or C#, and what website(s) are great for learning them? Sorry I'm asking so many questions; it's the beginning of an exciting process for me and I want to be sure I do this right. Again, thank you both!

 

You should have in mind that making 3D games is really much more complicated than 2D games. I have been making 2D games for 4 years and I am just starting to be enough confident with my one year of 3D modelling and animation experience to do a 3D game with Unity.

I recommend you to try to make a 2D game with Adobe Flash or Processing. You could also try Stencyl or Construct for more simplicity.

Good luck!

 

Oh, sorry for double posting,

Here's the best game design text I ever read: http://martindesrosiers.info/GMTutorial-DesigningGames.pdf