Unity Seeking Help to Create a Game in Unity with No Prior Experience

[SomeGuy12111]

Hey everyone,

I've been thinking about creating a game for the past month or so, but I've often felt discouraged because I lack artistic talent. Since I mostly play 2D games, I’ve seen a lot of the beautiful artwork involved and felt that being a skilled artist was almost a prerequisite before even attempting game development. Despite that, I've decided to take the plunge and give it a shot!

What really pushed me over the edge was experimenting with Blender and playing games like Aunt’s House, as well as looking into the inspirations behind it, like Monster Girl Island. These experiences have made me excited to try making something with a similar style. Plus, I figure that rigging models and animating them in Blender might be more manageable for me than learning how to draw everything from scratch.

Here’s the thing—I’m still a complete beginner, and I have no idea how to get started on achieving that visual style in Unity. I have a rough idea for the game’s story and concept, but I’m mainly focused on understanding how to nail the aesthetics right now. From what I’ve observed, I’d guess it involves some specific shaders and creating models in blender, but beyond that, I’m pretty lost. Everything else will just have to be figuring out as I go.

If anyone can point me toward helpful resources, I’d be super grateful. Any advice on shaders, modeling, or Unity-specific tips would also be fantastic!

Thanks so much for your help!

 

[Winterfire]

If that's your first game, just give up already. You're not going to make it, don't waste your time.

Learning Blender is a good thing, I'd probably go for Godot if I were in you, but Unity is also fine if you really fancy it better.
However, be reasonable for your first project. Even if you tried your best, the end result would still be shit.

Read this guide I wrote: https://f95zone.to/threads/a-beginners-guide-on-how-to-make-a-game.200327/ and write a Game Design Document for a simple game.
By simple I mean something you can finish reasonably quick, 3-6 months maybe.
Make a few of those projects, learn the tools, don't be a beginner then you can start planning on making that sort of games.

 

[SomeGuy12111]

I appreciate your honesty. I am not delusional to believe that I can make those game with no experience. The game I plan on making is just a simple walking simulator with events being played at certain points maybe like going to x spot will trigger y animation to happen. This isnt going to be released for the public so the models are going to be someone's else and used for testing animations and other things for it. The main goal will be getting the style and feel down. I should have clarify that the game will not have nothing fancy in it. Just environments, models, scenes, and events that are triggered by the player to play certain scenes. But even if thats too much for me then just getting the visuals is all I care about.

 

[Winterfire]

I appreciate your honesty. I am not delusional to believe that I can make those game with no experience. The game I plan on making is just a simple walking simulator with events being played at certain points maybe like going to x spot will trigger y animation to happen. This isnt going to be released for the public so the models are going to be someone's else and used for testing animations and other things for it. The main goal will be getting the style and feel down. I should have clarify that the game will not have nothing fancy in it. Just environments, models, scenes, and events that are triggered by the player to play certain scenes. But even if thats too much for me then just getting the visuals is all I care about.

My bad, I thought you wanted to make something like Monster Girl Island (which was too much even for someone with more experience than you, and earning tons on patreon, which still ended up being abandoned). Clearly completely unreasonable for a beginner to even attempt.

Even so, what you're asking for is "Can I become a coder, game designer, modeller, animator, all at once?" and the answer is still no. You need to curb down your expectations more.

In the SFW scene the classic response you'd get is "make pong", which is kind of boring, but the reason is because even for a simple game there's a lot of things you need to learn and you'll struggle with as a beginner.
For the NSFW scene, i'd say to try and make a text adventure. They're even quite popular, see Lilith's throne for instance.

If you started with a Text Adventure you'd learn: How to put your ideas into a Game Design Document, Actually follow it from the start to the end (many people are sus about beginner devs as they might drop out of existence at any moment), how to write a scene (and you'll do a lot of writing for a text adventure), how to code (C#, in Unity's case) and of course you'll learn Unity Engine (or Godot). Even if you already knew C#, learning a game engine is no easy/quick task.

As you can see, the things a beginner has to learn are tons, and it's very likely you'll get burned out. If you throw "how to model on blender" "how to texture" "How to animate" on top of all of that, you have no chance unless you're the 1%.

 

[Winterfire]

Also, even once you learn everything, you still need to be reasonable because there are only so many hours in a day and you're a solo dev. Learning how to model a character on Blender, texture, rig and animate is essential, but in real production as a solo dev you're not going to do that otherwise your game would take ages to update for a few minutes of content.
Instead, you'd be using Vroid Studio then use your knowledge to edit it on blender to create a monster girl using that character as a template.

It's also important to love doing it. If you are doing 3D when you actually love 2D, you'd be better off using AI as a placeholder while you're learning, and then just learn drawing. It'd be more rewarding for you, and you'd decrease your chances of burning out. 3D isn't easier than 2D, just different.

So think more about what you'd really love doing, and take your time to learn each thing individually. Don't rush, and don't jump into bigger projects than you can chew.

 

[peterppp]

For the NSFW scene, i'd say to try and make a text adventure. They're even quite popular, see Lilith's throne for instance.

lilith's throne is very complex though, so i wouldn't use that as a reference for a practice project, especially if your goal later is NOT to make an advanced text game but a graphical game.

 

[Winterfire]

lilith's throne is very complex though, so i wouldn't use that as a reference for a practice project, especially if your goal later is NOT to make an advanced text game but a graphical game.

Still less complex than what he wanted to originally make, which proves my point.

Also, that's not true, while he may not need 1:1 the things a text adventure would have, you ought to be able to make one.
You don't need to know "some C#", but all of it, even if you won't use a couple of concepts. Same goes for the engine, it's even more true for a more complex game.

 

[peterppp]

Still less complex than what he wanted to originally make, which proves my point.

Also, that's not true, while he may not need 1:1 the things a text adventure would have, you ought to be able to make one.
You don't need to know "some C#", but all of it, even if you won't use a couple of concepts. Same goes for the engine, it's even more true for a more complex game.

it's not less complex in what it has, the text. then it's much more complex. you'd be learning something you wont use in a later graphical game.

i dont think you know how complex games like lilith's throne are. you should have suggested a CYOA text game.

 

[Winterfire]

it's not less complex in what it has, the text. then it's much more complex. you'd be learning something you wont use in a later graphical game.

i dont think you know how complex games like lilith's throne are. you should have suggested a CYOA text game.

Well yeah, I am talking about mechanics, not text.

It's like making a breakout game with a single level, then comparing it to a full fledged breakout game with hundreds of levels containing many designs. Core concepts are the same, just more content. Hence why I mentioned to make something he can finish within 3 to 6 months.

 

[SomeGuy12111]

My bad, I thought you wanted to make something like Monster Girl Island (which was too much even for someone with more experience than you, and earning tons on patreon, which still ended up being abandoned). Clearly completely unreasonable for a beginner to even attempt.

Even so, what you're asking for is "Can I become a coder, game designer, modeller, animator, all at once?" and the answer is still no. You need to curb down your expectations more.

In the SFW scene the classic response you'd get is "make pong", which is kind of boring, but the reason is because even for a simple game there's a lot of things you need to learn and you'll struggle with as a beginner.
For the NSFW scene, i'd say to try and make a text adventure. They're even quite popular, see Lilith's throne for instance.

If you started with a Text Adventure you'd learn: How to put your ideas into a Game Design Document, Actually follow it from the start to the end (many people are sus about beginner devs as they might drop out of existence at any moment), how to write a scene (and you'll do a lot of writing for a text adventure), how to code (C#, in Unity's case) and of course you'll learn Unity Engine (or Godot). Even if you already knew C#, learning a game engine is no easy/quick task.

As you can see, the things a beginner has to learn are tons, and it's very likely you'll get burned out. If you throw "how to model on blender" "how to texture" "How to animate" on top of all of that, you have no chance unless you're the 1%.

No, that's on me I should have worded it better and clarify on what I want to achieve. The miscommunication is my fault. Your guidance has been extremely helpful. Starting a text adventure sounds like a solid plan because while I have dabble in some of the other areas such as blender and coding (which is what I am learning). None of it really had a direction per se. I would just learn a couple of lessons and mess around with what I have learn with and forget about it. Creating that text adventure would give me valuable feedback and a goal. And when I eventually get bored or stuck with that, using blender to see if I can animate or model anything that I have written in the text adventure doesnt sound too bad. Though, like you said the biggest hurdle would be burnout. It will happen... Putting that aside I still need to thank you for taking the time out of your day to comment on this post. What you have said has been really been insightful for me and have given me a direction to go to.

 

[peterppp]

Well yeah, I am talking about mechanics, not text.

me too. i'm not saying a text adventure is a bad idea, only to reference lilith's throne as an example because it is about as advanced for text games as monster girl island is for graphical games. you're trading one advanced project as reference for another.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Winterfire]

me too. i'm not saying a text adventure is a bad idea, only to reference lilith's throne as an example because it is about as advanced for text games as monster girl island is for graphical games. you're trading one advanced project as reference for another.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Saying "X is popular" equals to "You should remake X", especially with a lengthy context saying the exact opposite?

Are you an american voter by any chance

-edit-
/s ^ obviously, since what I am saying seems to be flying over some people's head.
Anyway, not going to reply further as I want to avoid going off-topic, what I said seems pretty clear to me, and the OP seems to have solved his doubts.

 

[AllNatural939]

I don't know, I feel like you're trying to learn how to fly before even trying to crawl... and that's being a simple human who can't fly XD Since you mentioned Blender, do you even know how to make a donut?... I think everyone who has ever used Blender has gone through the basics, which is trying to make a damn donut XD After that, and many months later, comes the process of trying whatever it is you want to try with human figures... Why Unity? Do you have any programming experience? Why not Unreal, why not Godot, why not something simpler? Have you asked yourself all that?