How to start... no, really - how to start?

Ok, first of all - sorry. I know that this question may be asked so often that you already hate me.

I don't know how to start with unity, I try to follow tutorials and I feel like the whole process is like:
a) This is editor
b) This is how you can add an object to the editor
c) Now go and create Doom 5 by yourself looser.

I'm not a technical person. I spend over 15 years in marketing and behavioral analysis and research and maybe I know a thing or two about programming (~ 3 years of experience with C# and JS) but I feel lost. I don't want to create Half-Life 3 or something but it would be cool to create a game like undertale or very simple version of hearthstone but I don't know how to approach this. I just want to focus on story & gameplay and not on technical stuff.

- Should I go with tutorials and then with documentation and then try to figure stuff on my own?
- Should I buy Unity Plus with tutorials etc.?
- Should I give up?

I know that Unity is quite technical stuff and that's not a problem. I just feel that I'm too stupid for that and I see ~10yo kids that play with Unity so maybe the issue is with my approach?

Sooo:
How would you teach someone to use Unity if you know that they're not an engineer or programmer by heart?

 

Welcome!

First, let me point you to my FAQ where I address a couple of your issues, any maybe some you haven't run into yet.

Should I go with tutorials and then with documentation and then try to figure stuff on my own?
Yeah, all of those things! The tutorials feel really basic at times, and other times they feel like they're glossing over something you need explained more thoroughly. That's just the nature of tutorials. Keep at it, and keep doing things. I promise you it'll all eventually start to click.

Should I buy Unity Plus with tutorials etc.?
Nooooooo. There's so much great free content out there. The official tutorials are way better than they get credit for, and nothing beats the experience of just tinkering with things, breaking stuff, and fixing it.

Should I give up?
Game development is hard. I don't know what marketing material first drew you to Unity, but if it sold you on the idea that it was easy, you were lied to. It's frustrating and exhausting and takes years before you can really even feel competent (in my experience, anyway), but if you have a passion for it, it can also be rewarding.

 

I will add that if this is your desired focus, then using Unity by yourself is probably not the right approach. With a more technical partner, it could work. But by yourself, you're going to have to focus on the technical stuff at least until you're so good at it that it no longer requires your focus. (Which will take years.)

If you really just want to make a little story-driven experience, then you might want to look at some visual novel editor or some other higher-level tool.

 

NO.

 

Which technical details you don't want to take care? Programming? Including art? Sound design? All of above? Are you a writer? (Or you want to be?)
Game making is highly technical, "even" if it's "only" a herthstone (actually that's highly technical with all the animations, sound effects, synchronization, etc)
Although you can buy some visual programming solution and you can "program" in there. It's up to you, but you will be missing out the most fun part, how to make the programming part right.

If you want to start with hearthstone for example, I can offer you a little help: SharpAccent is making a tutorial series on a cardgame, you can check it out here. He also has various 2D and 3D tutorial-series on various subjects.

What is important: you won't be a game maker after watching two tutorials and even if you "get it", it won't happen. It takes a long time and a lot of practice. You just should start to use the editor without "Doom 5" or "Half-Life 3", but even without "Hearthstone" or "Undertale"-level expectations. Just start to make things. Whatever you can. And build your knowledge brick by brick, you will get there.

The pay or not to pay: well, IMHO if you can afford it, pay. Unity is doing great things, in my opinion they deserve every penny we can throw at them. But don't buy the Plus just for the tutorials, they aren't magic wands either, believe me.

 

Ok, I was unclear with my previous comment

So...

No marketing materials I just always was interested in game design etc. And I don't expect it to be easy, however, there is the difference between advanced or hard and "do everything on your own" and I feel like working with unity is like this.

Probably Sound Desing and to be honest I don't know how much programming should I know. As I said, I have couple years of experience with C# so it's not a problem however programming is not fun for me so if I can avoid writing, for example, networking code or something like this - it would be awesome.

 

I suspect that is the problem actually. Outside of prototyping, what you want to focus on is usually done outside of Unity, and presented to the developers in the form of game design documents rather than created within Unity directly.

A lot to using Unity is focusing on the technical stuff. Probably 95% of what you do in Unity in my opinion. Story and gameplay development is higher level work, part of planning a game. Unity is used for executing the plan (again, unless you are using Unity to whip out some quick and dirty prototypes of ideas you are testing).

 

I started with YouTube and am still using YouTube to learn. The trick is finding good Youtube tutorials that actually explain what you are doing as you are doing it. Another excellent source of help is learntocreategames.com. Pat's books are inexpensive and do a good job. Definitely a good starting point. This video on the Unity site is a good starter to understand simple 2D. https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/topics/2d-game-creation/2d-games-non-programmers?playlist=17093. Now it just takes lots of time, especially if there are no other Unity gurus in your neighborhood to sit down with.