Hey all,
I have struggled in the past with learning how to develop games. I know how to code but every time I try to learn unity I run out of motivation due to the lack of direction. When I saw the announcement for this game jam I was excited to try it out since it was a good motivation to learn. My question is: In the 2+ months till the game jam what is the best way to learn and prepare for this event? Or is a game jam not the place to start for something like this
Having a project to work on is a great way to learn in a focused and targeted way. You have a specific goal in mind after all.
What are you looking for? Making a game is much more than coding. So I am wondering if it will be too much for you to handle, and it'll just become unfocused.
If you have or can make a plan of something reasonable you want to do, that's fine. If you want to focus on coding, maybe something simpler would be more useful?That being said, there's probably Unity resources you could use available as well.
If you want to learn Unity, starting with the official documentation/introduction is a great way to do so.
A good way to practice is also doing some mini jams yourself. For this jam in specific the theme will be based on one of GMTK's videos, for for some practice you could put a list of some of those videos into a random selector and let it choose one at random and try to work on it for the next 3-4 days or so, giving yourself some time. Maybe even a week when starting out. Noting down what you had trouble with so that you can focus on learning that aspect more. Just don't pressure yourself, the point is to have fun not to stress out. But this can give you a theme from which you come up with an idea and try to work on it. Most people's first jam doesn't turn out that great, so don't feel to bad if you don't get it to where you want it to be. From what I've seen many people don't even end up finishing. So there really isn't that much pressure.
