There is nothing wrong with following a tutorial before you implement something (as long as you don't just copy and paste the code from the tutorial). The best way to approach any programming problem before you start hacking code together is to research the problem first. This may involve reading a book a journal, an online tutorial or planning it out on paper first.

Its only after repeating something many times that you store it as useful knowledge. So unless you are rewriting your A* every day although you can remember the gist of it such as the open closed list you may need to refresh yourself by following a tutorial before you remember the whole thing.

Going through a tutorial, well, yes but all the way you read or listen and you tell yourself, "Ok, I don't fully get it but I will when I need it" and then you forget.

Instead of being passive, receiving the information from the tutorials, become active and learn to find the appropriate tutorial and make it your own.

Try to start with for instance an Angry Bird game. If you keep it basic, this is not so hard and full of good little challenges.

First you need the platform and you choose computer for safety.

Then you need to design the level, the starting shooting point, a few boxes.

Then you deal with the input, reading about vector, getting the starting and end point of the mouse drag and bam your ball...no your ball does not do much. You need some physics and you read about AddForce to kick your ball. You now need to clamp your forces using the Mathf class.

You then learn about collision and finally since you feel you have learnt a lot, you are now able to create an explosion, or change the amount of force each projectile is applying.

FInally, you want to make it nice so you add some environment and learn about parallax background.

Now not only you made a game but the amount of search got around the net, you probably found some good pages that you bookmarked for later, you got your way around the unity docs and the unity answers forum, and you feel ready for next game.

Thanks, I'll try to do that or make something that's basic enough but will help me find my way around Unity and coding in it.

There is nothing wrong with following a tutorial before you implement something (as long as you don't just copy and paste the code from the tutorial). The best way to approach any programming problem before you start hacking code together is to research the problem first. This may involve reading a book a journal, an online tutorial or planning it out on paper first.

Its only after repeating something many times that you store it as useful knowledge. So unless you are rewriting your A* every day although you can remember the gist of it such as the open closed list you may need to refresh yourself by following a tutorial before you remember the whole thing.

Thank you for the tips, I appreciate it

Great topic. And I totally understand where you are coming from, legininja.

I come from a designer background, so learning coding has always felt like a means to an end. I worked at studios where there was a clear distinction between those who Build Games (engineers) and those who Design games (uh, designers!).

Now that I'm solo, there was never a question that I would have to step up my programming skills. I don't know what I would do without tutorials! As others have mentioned, you'll do great by picking a simple, established game genre and just start building towards that. All those tutorials you've done are just free code snippets waiting for you to grab and re-purpose for your game! The more you do a certain function, the more you'll remember by heart. But until then...

Copy & paste! There's no shame in copy-pasting especially when implementing something you've never done before. You'll also cut down on typos that will haunt you as bugs later. My scripting teacher once said: copying and pasting is what separates the professional from the amateur.

Great topic. And I totally understand where you are coming from, legininja.

I come from a designer background, so learning coding has always felt like a means to an end. I worked at studios where there was a clear distinction between those who Build Games (engineers) and those who Design games (uh, designers!).

Now that I'm solo, there was never a question that I would have to step up my programming skills. I don't know what I would do without tutorials! As others have mentioned, you'll do great by picking a simple, established game genre and just start building towards that. All those tutorials you've done are just free code snippets waiting for you to grab and re-purpose for your game! The more you do a certain function, the more you'll remember by heart. But until then...

Copy & paste! There's no shame in copy-pasting especially when implementing something you've never done before. You'll also cut down on typos that will haunt you as bugs later. My scripting teacher once said: copying and pasting is what separates the professional from the amateur.

Thank you for being understanding. I was watching a video where game industry professionals/ established people in the gaming industry (Triple A commercial devs and indie alike, even though personally I don't like the term "indie' as we're all game developers just making games at varying quality.)

In that video Notch made the suggestion of getting code off the internet and playing around with the code and then creating a game, not your biggest game, but something manageable and that you can actually finish.

Thanks again for being understanding, I'll take your words to heart.