From whom and for whom
Where I started and what difficulties I had to overcome on the way to development. The article is aimed at those who are starting, thinking of starting or already developing their first game. What for? Because at the stage of development of his first game, he himself read articles about similar experiences more than once, after reading which he “wound snot on his fist” and continued development further. From the idea to the release to the store.
Attention! The article turned out to be long, so stock up on tea! If you don’t want to read for a long time, then squeeze out the tips at the ends of the article.
How it all started
It was the third year of university
I am a sailor by education, however, after the first voyage, I realized that the prospect of being on the “earth” for 6 months a year did not please me, although no one is offended by the salary in this industry.
Choosing a direction
There is an urgent need to find a “business” that will bring pleasure, you will not have to break away from the modern world for a long time and have financial prosperity in the future comparable to my profession by education. The end of the 4th year of university and my choice fell on the IT industry, namely the python developer. After spending 2 weeks on theory, in particular the technical documentation of the language, I began to develop logic and performing tasks every day for six months, until at the end of December 2018 I discovered game dev.
And here’s Unity!
It looks comical or even banal, but I fell for a click-bate video with a similar title “How to make your first game in 15 minutes” or “I make a cool game in 5 minutes without registration and SMS”. After looking at these materials, an idea appeared in my head, to allocate a couple of days in my schedule, and satisfy my curiosity by installing this development environment on my computer. After poking different buttons, and writing the code using the “copy-paste” method, I was indescribably delighted! My creative nature inside me rejoiced. After all, it was so nice to watch what you “yourself” wrote a couple of minutes ago, now makes the cube spin, move or change color. It just so happened that the development environment installed on my computer turned out to be Unity.
Why Unity?
It’s free, not so difficult to learn, a large community and tons of resources for self-learning, so it’s great for novice developers. The mobile market is filled with projects created on Unity. Even such large companies as Blizzard, Riot Games, CD Project RED have released well-known hits like Hearthstone, Wild Rift and Gwent using this platform. Having made a strong-willed decision, I decided to go to game dev with Unity.
Preparation for development
Formation of an idea
Having decided on the choice of a working platform for game development, I went to read articles by people who already had at least some experience in this field in order to choose the direction I needed. PCs or smartphones? 2D or 3D? Single or multiplayer?
After reading a large number of articles and analyzing them, all the tips converged to ensure that:
The project should not be developed for more than 2 months, otherwise the probability of losing enthusiasm increases and it will end up on the shelf “then I’ll finish it” before reaching the release;
The project should be simple, easy, preferably have a little zest. Otherwise, having imagined a cool AAA project with a network mode and an open world in your head, you risk “breaking your teeth”, losing all motivation to develop and getting lost somewhere in the abyss of depression and despair;
My choice
2D mobile arcade with a network mode for up to 6 people, rating system and reward. Development, which took not 2, but all “12 months”.
Arguments “for”:
It seemed to me that it would be easier to make 2D objects move than the same 3D ones;
The mobile market is huge and its share is more than half of the entire gaming industry;
I don’t know how to write stories for games, and I have no experience in this, so I decided to focus on fun. And it’s always more fun to play together! Therefore , the network;
The life span of games with online mode is longer, where you can compete with friends for the best result, than in games where there is a simple plot, after which you will forget and never come back.
Arguments “against”:
The game was already becoming not so simple, as advised by more experienced colleagues;
The complexity and duration of development for an inexperienced “chick” increased many times.
The arguments “for” were very attractive and I decided to take a chance. As they say – “What the hell is not joking” and “Was not”!
Getting to know Unity and learning about it
Learning something from scratch is like learning to ride a bike. The main thing is to try and work hard, and then sooner or later it should definitely work out.
I started small, namely, I moved different objects in space, writing the most primitive code.
Tip: know that whatever you do or don’t want to start doing, it’s with a probability of more than 90% has already been done before you. Learn how to search for the right information!!!