Where to Start / Game Advice

Hello All,

I have just started with Unity and it look awesome. I have been planing a game for a while and my friend said that if i wanted to go ahead and potentially publish it, then Unity was the way to go. So far i am impressed with what i have seen and am looking forward to getting to grips with it.

As you can imagine Unity is a big place, with every type of game thinkable able to be created, there are going to be a lot of things i might not need to know. So instead of trying to become a guru with everything, i thought i would outline what sort of game i want below and the commuinty could suggest places to start for various things etc. I have been told this is a great community so i will see what happens.

The game i want to make is a RTS Hex based game, alot like Supreme Ruler if anyone has played it. The idea is that you play as country and you produce resources, go to war etc.

I would like of course to have hex-cells that had differing types of terrain with various buffs and debuffs. though it is worth mentioning that i do not want a randomly generated map. I would like to make it myself (I have a design in mind).

Units would be on the map and would fight each other when they were adjacent to each other, with the exception of Units like Artillery and long range battleships. i would also like a research tree as well.

Any ideas on where to start etc.

Much Obliged in advance,
Jake L Blakeway
Game Developer in Training

 

Honestly, & I'm just starting myself so I'm speaking from experience, don't start with the game you have your heart set on. It's normally a big, complicated one & if you are just learning you will have mistakes & workarounds cobbled together until it works (barely) & can't be fixed or altered without massive effort & errors. Instead start small. Download the free assets & do the unity tutorials then once they are working try making minor changes to see if you grasp the basics. Maybe change the health counter to be a sliding bar, change the behaviour of enemies, the spawn rate etc, add power ups for the player that give different effects, learn UI & particles (they still do my head in).

All the while you are practicing & learning update your GDD for the game you wanted to make with any ideas you have seen/learnt. Break up the game into each core component & build a basic grey box version with simple objects (cubes, spheres etc) & try to see if you can get that bit working on your own, then go do more tutorials. Otherwise you will spend more time than needed getting annoyed & frustrated & you risk hating the game that convinced you to try making games in the first place.

 

You should probably get familiar with unity and the interface first, and try to learn as much as possible before starting on the actual project, check out tutorials and example projects and so on. When you are more familiar with it you could start making sketches or designs for the game and go from there. Also don't have too high expectations in the beginning as you might end up disappointed (happened to me when i was starting out with unity) Good luck!

 

Thank you both for your replies:

I am currently working my way through the tutorials. I was hoping there would be a strategy one, but sadly there doesn't seem to be. I am mainly a writer and a creative director of sorts - not actually sure what you would call it. I can write scripts, lore, dialogue and create a brilliant world for the game to be set in and even invent mechanics. Just don't ask me to model, code or put it all together. Sadly, many indie projects etc don't need writers. This has forced me to move into the whole development branch of things.

 

There's no reason why you can't create a world/universe/lore etc that also has rules that help define the mechanics & then start by making very simple games, sort of the pick up/put down mobile games, as practice that still comply with the world & lore. Every small game you make adds to your skills as well as to the players understanding of the world you are making. I.e is there some small, simple mechanic that you can use to make your first simple game as practice that will also comply with, & possibly be reused, in the bigger game you eventually want to make? Are there different factions/races that have slightly different takes on a mechanic so you can make it for one then copy & tweak it to use for the other etc? Breaking it all down into manageable chunks makes it easier to make, test & integrate. It might end up bigger & unwieldy code-wise but you will have made it yourself. If you decide to publish you could always try to find a professional coder to review it for you & find artists to fix up the artwork to make sure it is all consistent with the world & is lit & textured properly.

Also consider other tools to help you map it out. To me strategy is a bit like a choose your own adventure story in that you have to work your way towards the end outcome & with strategy you normally need to work towards certain units, or positioning certain items etc (maybe you can't move cannons until you have unlocked domestic horses etc). For things like that you can use white boards, post it notes, mind maps, or something like twine (www.twinery.org) where you can use the branching story functionality to be logic items (do they have horses (y) do they have horses (n) ) so you can check you have all combinations catered for. These can then basically become the code checks you use for your if statements & such & also hold scene descriptions, dialogue etc.
Once it is mapped out you can see which small chunks can be worked on, 'perfected', & then plugged into any other bit you have already made. Of course, this works for me but may not work for you.

 

Thanks for the Link,

As for breaking things down. I could try and creating the trading system. That is one part:

In the final game i would love to have around 30 resources, spread out in such a way that you can never produce them all. There would be a global market where players and AI would automatically purchase from, but generally this would be expensive, instead, players and AI are encouraged to trade with each other, or in common markets (groups of nations that agree to trade with each other at preferential rates (Think something like the Eurozone))

I could make a much more simplified game, where you have to buy resources when they go low and sell them when they are high. I am not sure exactly how to go about it, or whether or not it would be a easy thing to do. It wouldn't need flashy graphics, just a interface...

 

I think this will be a exciting project though, and i look forward to working with engaging with members of the community to help build up my skills

 

If that will eventually be a core part of balancing your game then certainly start with it to test the concept. The graphics don't have to be flash if all you are doing is testing the economics you build.

Good luck

 

Just some advice from someone who has attempted a few games at heart. Start with a simple game, use simple concepts till you learn exactly what your going to get into. I tried to make a game like kingdom hearts(Action rpg ect...) and yeah you can say I'm pretty crazy. Let alone I tried to do it by myself since I wanted to impress some friends. I think the best thing to do is stick to what you like doing in game development such as programming or 3d modeling, ect.

Don't try to tackle all the roles as yourself and this is coming from others who have helped me here and on other various forums. If you try to do it all yourself you'll get no where, just more stress and work on yourself than is needed. I'm sure we all have our dream games that we want to see come to life but sometimes we just gotta wait it out till we are ready. By ready I mean having or being a part of a team who may share the same visions as you. For now I would go with whatever it is you like about making games like I stated above. Coding, modeling, traditional art, music, whatever it is and get good at one of these areas. Try to recruit some people who want to build an rts like you in these different areas when your ready and thats how you get started with more serious projects. Sometimes the most simple games can actually attract alot of people and you may not even know it.

Anyways this is just a word of advice as I always struggle with this sometimes too. Its tough making games, let alone a good one that would be recognized by many. Currently I'm a 3d modeler who specialized in making weapons, hard surface objects, and some environmental pieces. I try to get better every day in that field because I know I can hopefully one day become a puzzle piece that can fit for someones project or even my own.

Good luck on your journey and don't rush through things as the basics lead us to do advanced things.

~Zeph

 

@jakeb_93 : You seem to be set on starting with a full RTS game. I won't get into detail on why not to, because there are plenty of other good posts on this forum and elsewhere that explain the whys and why nots of starting with a big project. Suffice it to say that you may be doing yourself a disservice because your total time spent working on the project may be shorter, and will most certainly be more pleasant, if you stop to learn the basics first.

My general advice:

If you are new to Unity and game development, my honest answer is to first work through most or all of the tutorials and topics in the Unity Learn section, with some picking and choosing among the Live Training Archive. This will go a long way to helping you learn Unity and the things you need to know there.

Don't just watch the videos and hope the information will stick. You need to open Unity and try out the things you are learning. Look for ways what you are learning can be used beyond the scope of the basic tutorials.

While you are learning, create some prototype games. There are plenty of free assets on the Unity Asset Store, including a number from Unity itself. Start with something simple, like making a character run around a level made out of Unity primitives (cubes, planes, spheres, et cetera). You'll quickly start realizing all the things you don't know and where to focus your learning.

Then do something a little more complicated. Make a simple game where the character runs around and beats on things with a sword or maybe throws magic spells. Now you're learning audio, GUI, particle systems, scoring, enemy spawning, navigation meshes... and a whole lot more a new Unity user doesn't even know they don't know.

Then when you can complete a basic game prototype, you can start looking at making a prototype for something a little more complicated.

It may seem like you're wasting a ton of time before you "get started" with this method, but what you are really doing is saving yourself frustration and wasted time later by learning now. In fact, I'd bet your total time from now to a complete RPG will be less by stopping to learn smaller lessons first.


Also remember that the Unity Learn section has basic tutorials on C#. If you are new to C#, I recommend reading Rob Mile's "The C# Programming Yellow Book", which was created as the basis for a first year programming course and is available for free to download. It is not Unity specific, but the book has good examples and will get you started in understanding general C# programming.