Use unity for a game between papers, please and football manager

Hi there.

I have a game almost completely planned for quite some time but no programming experience, I'm currently looking into engines to make it become reality, looking for all help / hints / tips I can get.

I'm a complete beginner but I'm going to take this very seriously, I'm taking a break from my business to concentrate on this full time (which is a childhood dream of mine). The game would be best described as as a game between papers, please and football manager, so there will be a main calender running with random / fixed events happening every x days. It would be more involved than PP, more stats and different things to do, but way less than a football manager game (which actually simulates each football game, gives detailed stats on shots missed etc - no need for this, let's say it's a horse racing manager and all I simulate are horse races with some simple stats like speed, endurance. Not really simulating AI / other "teams" either.).

The game would basically consist of about 10 different screens, similar to a football manager where you have one screen for building up your stadium, one for hiring new players, one for after match stats and so on. Another big part would be dynamic events in a CYOA style (like for example europa universalis or crusader kings use), think of "Your horse is naughty. Do you want to train it with love (click here, x happens) or send it to the glue factory (click here, y happens)?".

Graphically unity3d would be overkill thus, I don't even need any animation. There would be a lot happening under the hood but nothing so complex it couldn't be resolved with pen, paper and a lot of dice throws. Reasons I'm even thinking about unity are:

• I haven't found anything that would be much better suited, either
• I'm interested in doing other games later on, so learning unity won't be wasted time / energy
• seems to have a good community / lots of resources

So my questions are:

• is it feasable to do this in unity with c#?
• which other platforms would be better? I can start anything since I don't know anything yet, I have time and money to sink into this
• anyone know any tutorials / docs about how to build a game like this?

If I choose unity I wouldn't jump right into this game but try to learn it from the start and do smaller projects first and so on, I just need to decide where to start. Thanks for reading, looking forward to any advice!

 

I think you already know it's feasible to use Unity and C#

If this game is basically just rules - simple enough that you could make a board game out of it with dice - with no/minimal graphics, then any and every platform someone mentions will be powerful enough to make it.

Here are what I see Unity offering you:
1. A chance to learn an excellent language, C#
2. Cross compilation to lots of target platforms for distribution (PC, iOS, Android, and many more)
3. A large community (think resources/tutorials)
4. A great editor environment with heaps of plugins to solve common problems via the asset store

However, you should avoid getting hung up about what engine/language to use for your game, because there is really no such thing here as wasted learning. Learning Unity & C# will help you learn many related languages and engines, and is an excellent feather in your cap, even if you end up writing your game in ActionScript, Java, or whatever.

The real challenge as I see it is actually writing out the nitty gritty of the rules. I would probably spend the time writing it all out in such detail that someone who hasn't ever played the game could theoretically do so with a copy of your rulebook and a dice (and lots of patience - remember this is a thought experiment). When you have done that the game will practically write itself.

If you want to you can also work on this alongside smaller projects to learn the Unity ropes (as you mentioned). In that case start here. You also might like to download Visual Studio Community Edition

Someone will probably be able to link you some good C# tutorials, but no doubt Google is your friend.

Good Luck

R

 

No matter what software you choose, this should be your mentality when diving into the world of development. Too many people wanting to start projects try to make their dream project first and end up failing and getting put off, so you're going in with the right attitude.

As for getting started, I would say here http://unity3d.com/learn
http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/index.html

We also have the Asset Store https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/

When it comes to other platforms, I'd say try them out, see what is best for you in terms of learning and your goals. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses.

 

Thanks for your answers!

The game would be in (abstract) ways similar to epic manager https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1106152318/epic-manager-create-your-own-adventuring-agency which they say was developed in unity too, that's what lead me here.

The resources on this site seem cool but I want to do something more rigid / structured to get into c#, something where I can for example commit to x lessons a day.

Would this course be a good start to c#? https://www.udemy.com/unitycourse/?dtcode=0S4bCSZ2d9En
It's not free but has good reviews and seems fun / relevant since it's also about games and unity.

 

Are you making an app to pick the results for the racing sheets?

 

Don't spend any money yet.

http://unity3d.com/learn

You can learn alot for free. My only suggestion would be to use Visual Studio instead of MonoDev( the builtin code editor that comes with Unity) if you have a PC.

http://www.visualstudio.com/products/visual-studio-community-vs

That's the free version that I'm personally using now, you have cool stuff like code hints and better auto completion .

 

I've actually started that course already now, found a coupon code that reduced it to $30, like it so far, would give it 4/5 - at full price I'd be more critical. Thanks for the hint with visual studio, downloading now, I was dabbling with Java in Eclipse before and I'm already missing the auto closing brackets etc.

Feeling I've made the right choice, the forum is really nice and c# seems to be even easier than java.

 

Welcome to Unity. I love VS. My co-workers dog me since I really NEED an ide to write code , but eh.

Welcome to Unity !. It's changed my life( I taught myself how to code and now I make a decent salary no degree!)