Hi All

I am very new to game programming. I have a little knowledge in C# but nothing to sing about.

I have an idea for a simple game where the player is stuck on an island and needs to survive by crafting items and finding food.

My issue is I just don't know where to start. I know I will have to learn new things and have started to learn about Unity, which I am enjoying but none of the courses show you how to plan the steps required for the game, they just show you how to do things.

I guess I am asking for some guidance on what steps would be needed to reach the end goal. Example, do I start with building the island first or do I look at the character first. If I go with the island, what do I need to learn to make this island.

I know this is not an easy question and one that may not have an answer as every project is different, but I would interested in what other people do when they start a new project and how they break it down in to smaller chunks to achieve their end goal.

Regards

Andy

I'm only just getting into game development myself, but generally speaking you could look at S.M.A.R.T goal setting to outline your project and set yourself some tasks and goals. Get a lever arch file or some other folder, create a list of things you'll need to consider, and start with whichever image or concept is strongest in your mind at that point in time, or whatever interests you the most.

Writing for years on years taught me that sometimes it's best not to work through a set structure because sometimes the first thing you think of in the story is a character, or a character's quirk, or an object or some sort of twist or location. You'll have that in your mind's eye so prominently it becomes impossible to start at the top of the list. You'll find momentum and it'll carry you further into the development process, and in other areas.

In short, do what's best for you at the moment. If the character is strongest in your mind, start there. If the island design is, go with that. If you have an idea for a plant or a tree or a tunnel with unknown and peculiar origin, develop that.

Does that help at all?

Start with a gameplay loop and what in-game actions and interactions are involved, and then from there, figure out your next milestones
I.e., with a crafting/survival game, you create the character and the food and program the harvesting and eating of such.  From there, you can add the hunger bar, or you can choose to create the crafting items for programming the crafting, to name a couple possible directions.

Once you have the character and food done, though, your next step is really up to you.

Thanks both for your comments.

Going to build a basic terrain and start work with the character. 

I will then look at the basics of crafting, eating and drinking. This will give me a small goal to work on for now and I will be able to add the food and drink bar to the game as well.

Thanks again

On 6/7/2019 at 3:58 PM, greatwolf2222 said:

I am very new to game programming. I have a little knowledge in C# but nothing to sing about.

Write simple games for training in Unity. You can find a lot of tutorials about simple games like: Pong, Snake, Arkanoid, MineSweeper, Tetris and so on. It will be good, If you will be able to write Tetris in Unity from your head without copy and paste. Just write simple code in C# Unity as frequency as you can. It is not spam it is just very good and simple step-by-step tutorials for start: http://noobtuts.com/unity I love these tutorials. They helped me very much and they are helping me now too. Sorry for my English.

On 6/23/2019 at 9:50 AM, 8Observer8 said:

Write simple games for training in Unity. You can find a lot of tutorials about simple games like: Pong, Snake, Arkanoid, MineSweeper, Tetris and so on. It will be good, If you will be able to write Tetris in Unity from your head without copy and paste. Just write simple code in C# Unity as frequency as you can. It is not spam it is just very good and simple step-by-step tutorials for start: http://noobtuts.com/unity I love these tutorials. They helped me very much and they are helping me now too. Sorry for my English.

Thanks for the tip. I am going to try and do this. My plan is to code at the weekends and then review it during the week to see where I can improve the code. It will also help to see if I understand what I have coded.