Unity, Is this safe waters for buoyantly handicapped ?

I have no experience in programming or game design to say the least; but i would love to start doing game development and Unity looks cool to say the least. Am i too ambitious, too much of a dumb clueless optimist (which I have been known to be), trying to swim out in deep waters before I can doggy paddle in that blow up pool in the back yard?

1 Is the Unity platform a good place to start as a TRUE NOVICE?
2 If not, then where should I get my cherry popped?

 

I started with Gamemaker... it is not that great really don't expect to be making games like on the market today but for me it was a good introduction to Game Design and the software my University happened to use as well sooo...

https://www.yoyogames.com/studio

Check them out, looks like they have gotten a bit more advanced since i last used it myself lol

 

1, Yes it's modular and it's drag n' drop interface and ability to run in the editor lets you play as you learn.
2, Just dive in -> Learn Unity

 

I think Unity is fine for a beginner, as long as your willing to persist and realise that making even a simple game like pong is not easy.

Good luck

 

Absolutely no. Unity is a good place to start, you chose well.

 

I started exactly like you! New nothing about game design or development. Unity was a good choice for me.

 

Unity lets you get into programming at an easier pace than a lot of software. There's less nonintuitive busywork getting a line of code to "let's see what this does" stage than many IDE's - no command line fiddling, no #include lines you have to worry about, no "what do you mean, adding dependencies?", and C# and UnityScript/Javascript as languages are themselves somewhat more forgiving than ObjC or C++. Possibly the only environment that would be easier in this sense (without being "baby's first programming language" at least) will be Swift for XCode when it's released.

You'll need to learn code, but Unity helps make that easy.

 

You're right it took me nearly two hours to write a Pong Clone - QuickPong

I hit a snag with the physics settings, pong has none-realistic physics, e.g. no gravity, spin or friction.

 

Pong is a pain in the arse to make for a non-programmy thinker like myself to program if I can't use colliders and rigidbodies

Unity has some great tutorials, go through them all very closely. The assets and such used are very high quality too so you feel like you're making a very snazzy thing

 

That's what I used colliders and rigidbodies, like I said had trouble with Unity's physics being too complex had to play with the settings to get pong working the way.

Just remember to have some fun with Unity's physics, e.g. build a block wall and then make a cannon to shoot it down!

 

Oh i'm perfectly fine with Unity's physics system in general, i use it a bunch in most things i do with Unity, it's just not suitable for games like Pong or Breakout, they rely a lot on precise predictable collisions, which Unity's 3D physics at least (Havent tried 2D) is not perfect for at all, particularly for fast moving objects

 

True enough physx is not a discreet pyhsics engine so you are not going to get the same results each time

 

Sorry what? PhysX is discrete. Given the same input you will get the same results every time. Where are you coming from?