Game engines and Unity practice

I love playing video games...

And since I love playing them, I think it's only natural that I want to do more with them, such as create them.  I think of myself as fairly creative, so it makes sense to me that this would be the next step in my evolution from Gamer to Game Creator.

Now as far as my background goes into programming, it is a short list.  I pretty much only know the basics of programming logic.  I took a fairly low level class way back in high school (and I don't remember much of it), I know a little bit of HTML and I have taken an actual programming logic class.  The programming logic class was very helpful.  It made a lot of the ideas easier to comprehend when they aren't directly applied to a specific language.

So in the end, I understand the basic concepts, but I don't know an actual language.  I've been told the language is the easy part; it's basically just looking up the syntax for what language you are using, and using the basic programming logic of what you think you want to do, and plugging the two together (logic and language syntax).  Example: this should repeat; that means I need a loop; where's the syntax for a loop in Java, etc. etc.  Ya ya it's more than that just that, I know, but that's the basic idea.

Anyway, I've been looking for a way to get started learning something...anything...in the game design/programming area.  I recently took a class in Game Design from the local community college for fun, but it just wasn't what I expected.  They had us working in GameMaker creating a 2D side scrolling game, and that isn't what I picture my game to be.  GameMaker just didn't seem to meet the requirements I have set in my mind for the games I want to create.  It also wasn't as much of the actual programming as I had hoped for.  GameMaker has options to code directly, but for what we were doing it was pretty much just plug and play.  Plug this "block of code" into that "loop block", and done.

So I've done some reading and decided it's probably easier for me to start with a pre-made game engine (besides GameMaker, if you count that).  I don't know enough programming at this point to be able to make an engine myself, and I've read that it is very time and energy consuming because there is so much that goes in to it...so my thought is why waste time creating something that has already been made, when I could jump to the good part of making the actual game I want?

There are a bunch of engines already out there made exactly for this type of thing! Engines where noobs, such as myself, can jump right in and get their feet wet.  Well, some are more noob friendly...but that is what I found out in my research.  I've looked at Unreal, CryEngine, Frostbite, and Unity.  I love Unreal games, but I have looked at the engine, and it seems so daunting.  There is so much going on, and most of the tutorials you have to pay for, and to be honest, I'm pretty cheap when it comes to buying something I don't know if I'll like.

In the end I would like to advance to one of those super high quality engines like Unreal, CryEngine and Frostbite, but with what little I know, I've decided to start with Unity.  My understanding is that Unity can do a lot of what the "higher end" engines can do, just without necessarily all the graphics and physics capabilities.  Also I've read it's a bit easier to learn than the others.

Then since I had some free time today, I did one of the tutorials on Unity's site.

http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/projects/space-shooter

It's for a simple space ship, shooting asteroids game.  I did it and it seems to work, although I can't find an easy way to just share it on here.  The only way I figured out so you can check it out is to go to my dropbox with the link below.  It should load up in your browser, but you may have to install the Unity plugin.

(You move with the arrow keys, and shoot with the left mouse button)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/260910663/Space_Shooter.html

Anyway, it was fun to create, and I look forward to making some of my own games in the near future...I have sooooo many ideas...just need to narrow them down to things that are actually feasible for me to make.  Keep checking back and we will see what I can come up with.

- Zach

ps. Let me know if that link doesn't work and I'll try something else.  Thanks!