Playing video game is good, Building video game is great. Building game for today is easier than before. This is because a lot of tool that you can use to build a game. One of the great tool to develop Video Game is Unity. Unity is a video game tool for anyone, starting from personal, small startup, to the enterprise. There are a lot of game made by Unity. On this article, I will focus on the learning syllabus that can be used in higher education to teach them how to develop video game with Unity. So, let's get started.
Understanding that what you need to learn
The good news is the Unity already has a lot of material that you can learn. You can visit Learn game development w/ Unity | Courses & tutorials in game design, VR, AR, & Real-time 3D | Unity Learn to learn for free. Beside of that you can create a learning outcome that aligned with Unity namely Unity Certified User: Programmer | Game Development Certification for Students | Unity. There are two main tracks Game artist and Game Developer. As I mentioned before, this article will focus on Game Developer.
- Student on bachelor degree or diploma - Unity Certified User
- Fresh Graduate - Unity Certified Associate
- Graduate Student - Unity Certified Professional
- Game Developer - Unity Certified expert
On this article, let's deep dive with Unity Certified User.
What you need to have
You need a hardware with at least 8 GB RAM, and 5 GB free storage. I recommend you to use Windows. Windows is the largest ecosystem of gaming right?
After that I recommend you to install Unity Hub – Manage Editor versions and collaborate with other creators | Unity. Unity hub is a single installer package that help you to install Unity tools, Visual Studio, and of course the documentation. You can download Visual Studio 2022 IDE - Programming Tool for Software Developers (microsoft.com) and install Unity in the package. You can read my previous tutorial here Video Game Development in .NET Framework (ridilabs.net)
16 Weeks Curriculum
If you have a semester, you might have a lot time to deep dive the learning material.
- 2 weeks for mid-term and final-term assessment
- Mid-term can be capstone project to develop the game design document (Session 8)
- Final-term can be presentation project to present their game production (Session 16)
- 2 weeks for introduction with Unity. On this weeks, the student will learn the basic scripting, project structuring, and working model of game development (Session 1 and Session 2)
- 8 week for create with codes courses Create with Code - Unity Learn
- 4 weeks of capstone project. The student will create their own video game
Let's make it easy by creating a timetable
|
Week
|
Learning Activity
|
Recommended Delivery
|
|
1
|
Getting started with Video Game Industry
|
Classroom
|
|
2
|
Getting started with Unity
|
Classroom
|
|
3
|
Coding with Unity (Car Movement)
|
Self-Paced
|
|
4
|
Lab Cosing with Unity (Plane Movement)
|
Self-Paced
|
|
5
|
Basic Game Play (Farming Shooter)
|
Self-Paced
|
|
6
|
Sound and Effects (Tample Running Game)
|
Self-Paced
|
|
7
|
Gameplay Mechanics (Soccer Game)
|
Self-Paced
|
|
8
|
User Interface (Puzzle game)
|
Self-Paced
|
|
9
|
Game Ideation
|
Capstone
|
|
10
|
Creating Game Requirement
|
Capstone
|
|
11
|
Creating Game Mission Statement
|
Capstone
|
|
12
|
Creating Game Design Document
|
Capstone
|
|
13
|
Creating the frontend of the game
|
Capstone
|
|
14
|
Creating the backend of the game
|
Capstone
|
|
15
|
Play testing
|
Capstone
|
|
16
|
Demo Presentation
|
Classroom
|