Prototyping Games in Unity?

[@iangraham6730]

I am a year in unity, and I ticked most of those boxes . . I tend to start a project, get lost in the details, before I even have a working model, then run into a problem, and finnaly give up... Jason is right, block it out first! I learned this the hard way, and lost SO much time concentrating on the details, where I should have spent that time prototyping.. "Walk before you run"

[@Sonsho]

Holy.. I know right! I start a project then find myself thinking about unique textures, then there I am downloading and installing blender/maya.. Googling shadow drawing techniques, aaaand I've lost every ounce of motivation I had in making this game.

[@idle.observer]

Dude I'm a professional developer, I've been using Unity since 2017 and I'm still ticking all those boxes. Perfectionism is a disease 😅

[@americantoastman7296]

Hey, my uni gave us this video as an assignment. And Im pretty happy about it, this has been very helpful! Love your attitude man! Thanks for the content :)

[@valverdian]

I stumbled across this video last night and watched the whole thing. Slept on it, thought about your advice and it really sunk in. I had to come back and thank you for it. This is a great video. Thank you.

[@zombievirals]

I've been using Unity for 2 years now, technically 3 years I've been learning game dev in general, and this video has changed my approach to the way I do prototyping, I really appreciate this. In all honesty, I believe this approach can apply to other engines as well. Thanks a million Jason! I started using this approach on a new game idea yesterday, and I'm already having more fun with it than what I was doing before. I got really caught up in making reusable code, making the game scalable, etc.. in my last project, I ended up burning out after a week without even having a playable game. Within 24 hours of taking this approach, I have something playable.

[@reveriejake]

Once again, great video! I have been working on my first semi-ambitious game over the past month or so. I've made several other small mobile games already but thought it would be a good time to step it up. I have been finding myself getting side-tracked on the details lately, which makes development feel stalled, which at the end makes me feel like I am wasting my time. This is not a place I need to be right now with such a project. This video has helped inspire me to take a step back and start being a bit more lazy. You're absolutely right when you say that in the prototyping phase you're looking to just convey your idea first and foremost. Not to write the most reusable and integrated code. Thanks again Jason!

[@johhatomii2691]

I really appreciate all the videos, I've grown in my knowledge and understanding with game dev since I first found this channel.

[@JPWestmas]

You bring up an excellent point. If a prototype is kind of fun without nice looking art and polished mechanics, then you really know that you are on to something!

[@roydonk2878]

Tip number two is so good (and tip 1 by extension). I've noticed I often get paralyzed starting a "project" because I overthink how to organize the code. But it shouldn't be like that-- I should just code each feature independently and create quickly with the intention to throw away and just recreate it better afterward. Half the work is already done-- just seeing how everything works. Once that's out of the way, the actual organizing will be so much easier. Thanks for such a great video!

[@michaelwilson8461]

This is absolutely a great bit of advise. Its so obvious , but how many times Ive hammered away at a class to make it perfect for what I "think" I need, or build an interface to exchange information between objects /classes , only to throw out my beautiful masterpiece because something morphed in one thing that rendered something else completely useless. I wish I could get back even a fraction of the time Ive wasted over the years. Hell I might even have a useful project completed to show for it lol I still fight myself on this , but Im starting to get over it.

[@Salmontres]

I love that you specify where begging for likes stops. One more reason to SMASH THAT LIKE BUTTON

[@vn88ttt]

Jason is slowly becoming Jason the White.

[@iangraham6730]

Haha, brilliant 👏🏻😅

[@Broudy001]

not that slowly :P

[@powercore2000]

With the pearls of wisdom he's dropping, he'll yeah.

[@zombievirals]

I can imagine game dev giving you grey hairs after so many years!

[@youneskasdi]

He's like white programmer that all other programmers look up tp seek wisdom

[@alexfish7792]

This information was so useful to me because I overanalyze and have ADHD. Some of the best assets I've developed and shared were built with the initial intent to first "just make it work". Lazy, simple, but sensible. Plus then if a month down the road you decide to rebuild, improve, or add to it,, you won't have the stress of having to spend a daunting 5 - 10 minutes just remembering and re-understanding your own project/setup/code and your reasons for building it the way you did! Thanks for the video. It was great!

[@FainTMako]

Hit the like button before you even asked man. Love your attitude towards coding. Not elitist. Fresh.

[@TraceyPatter]

Totally agree!!! This content is SO real life helpful!

[@xaiga29]

This video is a godsend. What you say seems like it should be common sense practice, but I couldn't tell you how many times I end up getting bogged down by details and walk away because I'm trying to do too much. Thanks for the video!

[@Unity3dCollege]

You're very welcome!

[@Ryan-xq3kl]

Building my first prototypes and got a script working today! My tip is to build stuff related to something you would want to write in the future so that you will be on the right track, even if you will restart the project over and over.

[@Ewoz96]

Hi Jason ! Thanks a lot for all the advice. I have a business background so I am trying to get a better understanding of programming. Cheers !

[@nashonightmare]

Thank you so much. I struggled a lot until I found this video. Thanks again.

[@bbauer1974]

Good stuff! A concept I didn't realize until I worked on AAA titles: If a game is complex you could split it down to multiple prototypes. For example a few mechanics or level design ideas are explored in several projects or scenes, not all features that make up the envisioned game in one big project/scene necessarily. A more extreme example would be that part of your HUD/UI/menus are not even prototyped in-game but merely mock-ups to explore the look & feel...

[@idle.observer]

Thanks for sharing :)

[@pranavkushwaha6016]

Jason listen and reads my mind 🤭, I was failing my love life he made video on it. I was failing in prototyping here he comes 🤭🤩. Love you a lot Jason ♥️

[@Unity3dCollege]

very welcome :)

[@DevlexOnline]

Thanks vor this perfect video. I started a few weeks ago with gamedev. And the last 2 weeks i just researched how i can build a good architecture, but just having a simple 2D Movement and Combat developed and refactored these things 2 times. Now i understand that it‘s in the current state not the time for perfect architecture. It‘s the time for a Prototype to validate my Game idea.

[@tmoneygamestudio]

Commenting code helps you more than anyone. I prototyped the game I'm building now in 2018. The went into coding the game and didn't comment initially and now I'm refactoring some of the code from the beginning and having a hard time to remembering what I wrote it that way to start.

[@castlecodersltd]

Some great tips. Thanks for sharing ☺

[@InexperiencedDeveloper]

Another one for the books! Thanks Jason

[@michaelhayterphotography]

Hey Jason. Love your work, listen to a lot of your stuff while driving and helps a bunch. Be cool if you could actually do a live prototyping session. Doesnt have to be anything too fancy on complicated, just more seeing your process and we can ask questions as you go. Just a thought :) Keep up the great work either way.

[@HipToBeeSquare]

For my capstone project we have to create a game in a team of 5. (All designers for some galaxy brain reason). We had a month dedicated to prototyping but my teammates refused to throw any of that away and I was kinda on board with it too with a few reservations but this validated my feelings on that.

[@Ferenc-Racz]

I really respect you and your knowledge sharing. Thank you very much. Your videos are a great learning opportinities.

[@skizooooooooo]

Great tips! Also your background rocks 👍

[@ahmedkamal4390]

Thanks for the tips Jason Over-engineering really is an issue mostly with CS background people. I have slowly learned the lazy approach. Heck with object pooling and just instantiate gameObjects on the fly :D

[@Unity3dCollege]

definitely in a prototype! setting up pooling for something you're gonna toss is almost always a waste

[@sarerusoldone]

"be lazy" is generally good advice for any developer :D

[@roydonk2878]

Yes! The avoidance of tedious work is why we have so amazing frameworks/engines in the first place, to cut down on future workflow headaches haha

[@JosephDalrymple]

Developers are the epitome of lazy! "How do I never do this manually ever again?" XD

[@DAATChannel]

It took me 4 months to create a prototype that included movement and shooting that’s it 😂

[@joaolira7]

A thing that is working very well for me, is to spend more time prototyping than thinking of the final product. We started to created some little tasks with the following language: e.g.: • Need "The developer needs a simple level to create the mecanics" • Objective "Create just one simple level using pro builder, based on the concept art" After that, the guy from level design know exactly what to do, and the reason for working on that. That's my tip.

[@jorhoto7064]

Hi! @Jason Weiman please consider a tutorial on multithreading in Unity!! Thank you for your motivating and refreshing videos as always!

[@osseous42]

This video probably saved me months of time! Thank you!!

[@TamashiiRyu]

Thanks for the tips. Good timi g too as I have been spending a lot of time prototyping this summer.

[@NateTheUnGreatful]

Very useful. I'm guilty of most of these, if not all. Making me take a hard look at myself and be more aware when I'm actually sabotaging my own efforts. Thank you.

[@FortuneSyn]

Hey Jason, thanks for the awesome video and tips. What about when you have to prototype something that requires more of a code framework for it to work properly at all (such as a hex grid, skill systems, procedurally generated content, etc)? In these situations I often find myself prototyping the code architecture in parallel to prototyping the gameplay.

[@santiagojuarez1289]

Why are you reading this? Start prototyping now!!! Awesome video Jason

[@magictimm4090]

Great video. Thank you Jason

[@Unity3dCollege]

Glad you liked it ;)

[@AndreaLPM1]

Jason I love your videos and advices

[@hermanusjohannesbesselaar2499]

Just wanted to say thanks. I definitely get lost in the weeds with my prototyping, or maybe I should say "What prototyping". I tend to build something as if I want to release it and the 3 months in I realize that I may actually hate my game. Lol. Thanks for the tips. Without people like you who are willing to teach the next gen very few people would be able to get into game dev/programming.

[@gamongames]

Sketchfab has a surprising amount of free, CC licensed, downloadable content, a lot of it game-ready. I always give it a go whenever I need some models.

[@trueh]

This tip is very specific but, depending on the type of game you are going to develop, Game Creator (and its modules) can be a good asset for prototyping and trying common mechanics, camera angles and things like that. I also use UModeler for whiteboxing.

[@grzegorzk5149]

Thanks Jason. You just saved me a lot of time.

[@Unity3dCollege]

Great to hear!

[@raymondho2]

This is really helpful for me, Thank you!

[@ShatabdaRoy115]

That's a nice background

[@mathblodist]

my bookmark folder have so many of jason's videos lol great content

[@DonDisainer]

is the same in user experience design :o, great tips!!

[@KroneDev]

I've done a bit of prototyping through my Uni, but outside of it, I've been trying to make full, but small games. So far I've only made one (it was VERY small, flappy bird small), but I've started a process of getting ready to start another, but a bit bigger this time (still fairly small). At first I thought I was doing it this way to try to get my portfolio looking better, but now that I think about it. It could be because I've heard people say that's it's hard to finish games, and maybe I'm wanting to also get experience there(?). I feel like I should be fine taking this approach, but I'm getting very unsure if this is what I should be doing. While writing all this, I think I'm noticing that my heads a bit of a mess with this kind of subject. At times I'm thinking that prototyping might let me fill out my portfolio MORE and possibly quicker. But then I also think if I have a portfolio of finished games, then that's more quality, and should show my work better or something. I also think that the games I'm trying to make are pretty basic and generally fun so they should be worth finishing most of the time. I guess it wouldn't be bad to just continue this process, and then once I feel it's not fun and not worth trying to make it fun, I could just drop it and treat it as a prototype. I feel like that might be the best course at this point. Thoughts and questions welcome, turns out typing this out did/ is helping me sort my thoughts out. TL;DR - I might go with the process of starting making a game with the intent on finishing it, but will hold the idea/ thought that I can drop it any point and treat it as a prototype. Quality over quantity?

[@anwarka7416]

Thanks a lot for the tips.👍

[@abassianis9237]

hey, Jason thanks you for the amazing video as always! what do u think about playtesting while in Prototyping ? or should be waited until finishing the full version(beta) of the game?

[@Unity3dCollege]

playtest early and often! you'll get to the fun gameplay much faster and avoid a lot of mistakes

[@rafaelskiarteportfolio1098]

Thanks man! you are the best

[@rohitaug]

The Scriptable Objects workflow by Ryan Hipple seems perfect for prototyping. It makes everything super modular, almost too much so. I personally don't like having a bunch of scriptable objects in a big final project but a small prototype that is meant to be remade anyway is one place where I would actually use it. On where to get assets, Epic Games have been giving away a lot of assets every month, a lot of them don't restrict their use to just UE4 (Unless the asset is provided by Epic themselves). There's technically nothing stopping you from exporting them from UE4 and using them in Unity. You could just make the prototype in UE4 and remake only what works in Unity but that might be a little overkill LOL.

[@markmccorkle25]

Thank you for this! I was just about to spend 2 weeks cleaning up a prototype (instead of throwing it away and starting with the idea). This is solid advice that I'm happy to follow. To take this one step lazier, does anyone know if there is any prototype as a service company out there?

[@VGV0]

How would you decide what should be a monobehaviour and what doesn't?

[@Wallkysek]

Hey, how does one approach multiplayer prototyping? RTS for example, by this video, the best approach would be to grab some RTS starter kit, enhance it with the core mechanic you want, but then how to decide if it's really worth making when you don't have the other player to test properly. Should you make MP prototype then? Thanks

[@Unity3dCollege]

Make it local mp or singleplayer first. It won't be a perfect representation but should let you try the idea out 10x faster

[@Wallkysek]

​@@Unity3dCollege Thank you for your response, I will try to keep that in mind, especially the "Think about it as it will be thrown away the next day". I think that is something I am currently unable to do.

[@thedebuglog]

Love the sticker on the topiary :)

[@N1ghtR1der666]

Hi Jason I was considering your unity course but I would like to know if yours is a more structured style of learning because I have done many others at this stage and don't really feel like I actually learned anything because they are mostly just copying code that achieves a specific result. I really want a course that teaches a topic and gets you to complete tasks using what you have learned without directly giving the answers

[@Unity3dCollege]

Send me an email when you get a chance. Its my first and last at gmail. Ill send you some more details and if you think of any other questions send those too :)

[@storycorner541]

Sir I want to set up my visual studio setup like yours so I can access unity codes please kindly help me with this I tried many videos but none worked for me

[@feetsalot123]

Sketchfab and Mixamo are great for placeholder/testing assets

[@groggy6590]

great video! this helped me so much. i am a beginner in game dev and i have started a devlog on my channel can you please tell me what you think of it ?

[@leatherandpoemscharmyman5774]

Hi Jason, it is a good practice to implement Interface for the beggining in prototyping for mouse interaction btw characters, animals ,entities, actions for my characters?? special for rts or tycoon games? thx!

[@xSooDx]

You should have made this video 2 days ago, before the GMTK game jam. Good Video tho 👍

[@Sylfa]

Got any tips for minimizing the size of the prototype projects? Adding in assets take a bit of time with the compiling, but in particular doubles up the assets on the disk. In most cases that's fine, but I've been toying around with a 2Gb asset pack, and... it kinda sucks that I can't just link it in without Unity making a local copy for it.

[@gamedevjourney4231]

What should I do if my game idea is so big that even prototype wouldn't contain everything I want in the game. Should I try to find the main game loop? The main game mechanic? The main game visuals/theme? Where do I start? I think the most fun is the gameplay/gamedesign. What do you do in the game the most time and is that fun? Even if it looks like sh** at the beginning? So should I implement the main mechanic even if it doesn't look good? Or the assets I use don't fit together? I have this really big game idea in my head but don't really know how to start and if it's worth it spending (at least) years to develop that game.

[@bodhisattabhattacharjee3338]

The last point you discussed - "Be Lazy" --> is my problem I spend too much time overthinking some steps and ultimately I get bored and never continue with the project

[@jonathanjblair]

The problem I find with many starter kits in the asset store is two fold. First, many of them try to do too many things so it takes me longer to understand how to use it than write the code myself. Second, often once I see how they did something I'm like "wow that code is horrible" and I rewrite it anyway. There are some good ones though, mostly ones that are focused on 1 system not a whole game genre.

[@Unity3dCollege]

yea i definitely wouldn't want to use a starter kit for the basis of a real project, just for prototypes to throw away :)

[@yojanamamgain2732]

Awaited video....

[@Unity3dCollege]

Hope you enjoyed it!

[@reveriejake]

I do wonder how closely these tips relate to Tycoon type games. It feels like the systems are inherently complex and intertwined with one anther. Do you have any experience with tycoon style games?

[@Unity3dCollege]

I've done a few prototypes of them but never a production one. Prototyping them is pretty fun, might make a good video

[@reveriejake]

@@Unity3dCollege I would be interested in seeing that. I'm trying to create a 3D tycoon/business management game where you can build your own movie theater. I've also got a few other ideas floating around that I wan to prototype out but just can't seem to get it 'out of my brain and into a game' if that makes since haha.

[@hugabuga-il6125]

Thanks❤❤

[@jcoco44]

freesound.org Tons of free sound effects and music! Double check the licensing if you want to include it in an actual project, but it is great for prototyping!

[@ExplorandoLoImpresionante]

Can you translate this please ...hola don Jason disculpa que te moleste d pero eres la persona en unity español mas activa y te queria preguntar de un error que estoy teniendo con las versiones de unity al construir mi proyecto para android obtengo este error ...internal call registration writer error.. y de verdad no se que hacer pruebo otras versiones de unity que tengo y sucede lo mismo al exportar .. al momento de compilar aparece en mi barra de tareas que la aplicacion Internal Call Registration se detuvo.. y luego aparece el error Internal Call Registration en la consola de unity.. ayuda porfavor

[@man0mule]

this is great info, but what if your struggling to figure out how to block it out because you new to coding and can't figure out how to do what you need?

[@eduardorabanal2803]

Thanks a lot Jason! When the prototype is done, how I get feedback of it? Do you think is a good idea to offer it as free download on itch.io?

[@Alzimovich2]

Hey Jason, where did Torbjorn go? 😢

[@Unity3dCollege]

Stolen by a 2yr old girl.. she really wanted it lol

[@DeviantDog]

You mentioned an unlimited account with bit gym or something have you got a link?

[@Unity3dCollege]

Bitgem3d.com

[@DeviantDog]

@@Unity3dCollege awesome thank you so much btw love your videos, share them all the time. And having been a programmer for 15 years your code is great!

[@cklester]

I have an idea to make a game similar to Triple Town. I'm leaning toward using Godot, but I would like to consider anything more simple, something that is little-to-no-code. Is there anything like that out there available? What would you recommend for a game like that? Thank you!

[@anupamkumar4109]

Hey jeson can you do 2d shooter like contra or cuphead with power up, health, minimap, damage etc

[@Gonzakoable]

Can we have links to what you recommend at the desc?

[@pikachufan25]

this answear so many questions that i have. except one. how Long is too Long for a Prototype

[@beardordie5308]

Yes spending too much time prototyping is why several of my game jam games ended up unfinished relative to my original goal. Also I shouldn't even start Unity until I have a solid idea of what I want to accomplish instead of jumping in and getting a capsule moving around.

[@darsheelrathore3069]

Nice man

[@vipinkumar-ru2xw]

i keep having a namespace error showing that SceneManager does not exist. Pleases help anybody

[@k3nny373]

to smart for words

[@miau_miauAI]

Bro, check the youtube link of your video

[@ahasanulhaque5906]

asset source - kenney.nl/

[@publicalias8172]

Don't ask bored, veteran programmers how to do something in your prototype, this is something I've realized as weird as it sounds. If it works in a prototype it works, you likely don't have the time or ability to do it their way, make it work your way, then make it pretty later.

[@Foodupadhyay]

humble bundle

[@wort3120]

Even if this is a 2 years old video, thanks! That were really nice tipps! Now i'm gonna throw away my allready overengineered and overthougt project and start with a real prototype :,)

[@daravefa]

kenney.nl is my go to asset site, it works on donations and has a ton of quality assets

[@Unity3dCollege]

Agreed! Great assets. (and highly recommend donating if you grab stuff and can :)

[@aldrigvila]

Hey! Get a new mic! Thank you! Love the content!

[@bhaveshsolanki7245]

hey I am currently in 12th class and want to become self made game developer . Do self made without any college degree get jobs in aaa companies

[@Unity3dCollege]

yep... I got my degree in electronics (0% relevant), less than half of the gamedevs I know have a CS or programming degree and tbh it's really not needed as long as you can learn :)

[@bhaveshsolanki7245]

@@Unity3dCollege thank you for answering 😃

[@cunty_croft]

who noticed the brackeys merch

[@drednac]

Man I wasted years constantly getting lost in irrelevant or low priority problems .. it's like time flies at different speed and you loose the big picture, sometimes you just get overwhelmed by the information and the problems and you just loose the ability to judge what is important and what is not .. It's terrible. I definitely has to learn rapid prototyping in general and get rid of the coding snobbishness. Sometimes it's really hard to tell where is the line between overengineering and good design.

[@itscody9272]

Did anyone recognized that nice url? :D

[@Meowzors]

oh no the webcam mic

[@ggjosh3296]

nah... its because he has his mic about a foot and a half from his mouth. We just worked on a new configuration for his next video. :)

[@trinosan]

Mostly said it with the unit test advice, but don't try to learn something when prototyping. I've had a little too many scenarios where I said "I wanna do this cool mini game, see where it leads" and then go "Oh, and while I'm at it let's learn how to use this new complicated tool" only to end up frustrated, unfocused and indirectly lose interest in the original game idea.

[@mutluemre93]

3 views and 10 likes. Good job, KZbin!

[@compilerdefiler3995]

how to develop multiplayer games

[@vipinkumar-ru2xw]

though it is not from this video but please help

[@youneskasdi]

Itch.io is a great place for free assets

[@cardieshe1371]

Hello Jason!