Unit 2 - Introduction

Lesson 2.1 - Player Positioning

Lesson 2.2 - Food Flight

Lesson 2.3 - Random Animal Stampede

Lesson 2.4 - Collision Decisions

Challenge 2 - Play Fetch

Lab 2 - New Project with Primitives 

Quiz 2

Mod the Cube

Quiz: Create with Code 1

Lab 2 - New Project with Primitives

Gain familiarity with some of the most important programming and Unity concepts, including if-then statements, random value generation, arrays, collision detection, prefabs, and instantiation.

In this Mission, you will program a top-down game with the objective of throwing food to hungry animals - who are stampeding towards you - before they can run past you. In order to do this, you will become much more familiar with some of the most important programming and Unity concepts, including if-then statements, random value generation, arrays, collision detection, prefabs, and instantiation. In completing this Unit, you will learn how to program a basic game with the ability to launch projectiles and maneuver the player to keep the game alive.

Basic Gameplay

Unity Junior Programmer

Kickstart your programming career with Unity's Junior Programmer Pathway. Learn coding fundamentals, C#, and game development to create your first interactive projects. Start learning for free!

Junior Programmer Pathway - Learn Coding & Game Development | Unity Learn

We recommend that you have basic knowledge of Unity or complete 

Ready to code? This guided learning Pathway will take you from zero to job-ready!

Welcome to Junior Programmer! Designed for anyone interested in learning to code or obtaining an entry-level Unity role, this pathway assumes a basic knowledge of Unity and has no math prerequisites. Junior Programmer prepares you to get Unity Certified so that you can demonstrate your job-readiness to employers.

2022.3

2021.3

Junior Programmer

Course Introduction

Install Unity Software

Unit 1 - Introduction

Lesson 1.1 - Start your 3D Engines 

Lesson 1.2 - Pedal to the Metal

Lesson 1.3 - High Speed Chase

Lesson 1.4 - Step into the Driver's Seat

Challenge 1 - Plane Programming

Lab 1 - Project Design Document

Introduction to project management and teamwork

Quiz 1

Learn how to create new C# scripts, call basic functions, and use variables to modify the results of those functions.

In this first mission in the Junior Programmer pathway, you will program a car moving side-to-side on a floating road, trying to avoid (or hit) obstacles in the way. In addition to becoming familiar with the Unity editor and workflow, you will learn how to create new C# scripts and do some simple programming. By the end of the Unit, you will be able to call basic functions, then declare and tweak new variables to modify the results of those functions.

Player Control

Unit 3 - Introduction

Lesson 3.1 - Jump Force

Lesson 3.2 - Make the World Whiz By

Lesson 3.3 - Don't Just Stand There

Lesson 3.4 - Particles and Sound Effects

Challenge 3 - Balloons, Bombs, & Booleans

Lab 3 - Player Control

Quiz 3

Learn how to add music, sound effects, and visual particle effects to transform the experience of your project.

In this Mission, you will program a fast-paced endless side-scrolling runner game where the player needs to time jumps over oncoming obstacles to avoid crashing. In creating this prototype, you will learn how to add music and sound effects, completely transforming the experience of your projects. You will also learn how to create dynamic endless repeating backgrounds, which are critical for any side-scrolling games. Finally, you will learn to incorporate particle effects like splatters and explosions, which make your games so much more satisfying to play.

Sound and Effects

Unit 4 - Introduction

Lesson 4.1 - Watch Where You’re Going

Lesson 4.2 - Follow the Player

Lesson 4.3 - PowerUp and CountDown

Lesson 4.4 - For-Loops For Waves

Challenge 4 - Soccer Scripting

Lab 4 - Basic Gameplay

Quiz 4

Learn how to implement new gameplay mechanics including powerups and increasing difficulty.

In this Mission, you will program an arcade-style Sumo battle with the objective of knocking increasingly difficult waves of enemies off of a floating island, using power ups to help defeat them. In creating this prototype, you will learn how to implement new gameplay mechanics into your projects, which are new rules or systems that make the game more interesting to play. On one hand, you will learn to program a powerup, which give the player a temporary advantage. On the other hand, you will learn to program increasingly difficult enemy waves, which make survival more challenging for the player. A good balance of powerups and increasing difficulty make for a much more interesting gameplay experience.

Gameplay Mechanics

Unit 5 - Introduction

Lesson 5.1 - Clicky Mouse

Lesson 5.2 - Keeping Score

Lesson 5.3 - Game Over

Lesson 5.4 - What’s the Difficulty?

Challenge 5 - Whack-a-Food

Lab 5 - Swap out your Assets

Quiz 5

Introduction to user feedback and testing

Learn how to implement a User Interface - or UI - into your projects, such as a title screen and score display.

In this Mission, you will program a game to test the player’s reflexes, where the goal is to click and destroy objects randomly tossed in the air before they can fall off the screen. In creating this prototype, you will learn how to implement a User Interface - or UI - into your projects. You will add a title screen with a difficulty select menu that will control how challenging the gameplay is, you will add a score display that will track how many points the player has earned, and you will add a Game Over screen, which will allow the player to restart and try again. In learning these skills, you will be able to create a fully “playable” experience that the user can enjoy from start to finish without having to restart the application to try it again.

User Interface

Next Steps - Introduction

Lesson 6.1 - Project Optimization

Lesson 6.2 - Research and Troubleshooting

Lesson 6.3 - Sharing your Projects

ECS Survival Guide

Career research and preparation

Introduction to portfolios

Debug the App

Counting Prototype

Quiz: Create with Code 2

Prepare to continue developing your Unity and C# skills independently, including learning how to complete your personal project.

In this Mission, you'll prepare to continue developing your Unity and C# skills independently, including learning how to complete your personal project and how to prepare for the Unity Certified User: Programming exam, which you can take through your school program, if available.

Publishing Your Project

Introduction to real-time 3D experience design

Set up version control

Explore the sample project

Principles of object-oriented programming

Create a scene flow

Implement data persistence between scenes

Implement data persistence between sessions

Quiz: Manage scene flow and data

Submission: Data persistence in a new repo

Learn about data persistence and an introduction to the core pillars of object-oriented programming.

In this mission, you’ll learn about data persistence, or how to manage the loading and unloading of data between both scenes and sessions. Along the way, you will be introduced to the core pillars of object-oriented programming, which will help you structure your code throughout the mission. There will only be one practical example throughout the mission, which will build on the new functionality you create with each tutorial. At the end of this mission, you’ll take everything you learned and apply it to a new project by building a persistent score system for a small game.

Manage Scene Flow and Data

Abstraction in object-oriented programming

Inheritance and polymorphism in object-oriented programming

Encapsulation in object-oriented programming

Profile code to identify issues

Job preparation: Junior Programmer

Quiz: Apply object-oriented principles

Submission: Programming theory in action

Deep-dive into the pillars of object-oriented programming and their application, then learn how to profile and optimize code.

In this mission, you’ll refactor the inventory project you completed in the previous mission using the pillars of object-oriented programming as a guide. You’ll deep dive into the inner workings of each pillar individually, so you can better understand its value in developing applications. Next, you’ll learn how to profile your code to identify any optimization bottlenecks that would slow down the final build of your application. To close out this mission, you’ll develop a small application for your portfolio that uses fully optimized code built on OOP principles. 

When you complete this mission you will complete the Junior Programmer pathway - CONGRATULATIONS!

Apply Object-Oriented Principles

c16d7a63-0db1-4f1c-81b5-072968e726d8:557b55aacd55

Prototype 2 - Starter Files.zip

Create a new Project for Prototype 2

Add the Player, Animals, and Food

Configure project settings for the Input Manager

Get the user’s horizontal input

Move the player left-to-right

Keep the player inbounds

Clean up your code and variables

Lesson Recap

Demonstrate basic Unity programming skills, such as identifying and editing methods, selecting the correct variable type, and comprehending simple scripts

Level 1 Code Comprehension

Joy Horvath

Instructional Designer

Control the execution of code with common logic structures 

Level 1 Application Scripting

CWC_U2.L1.S1_U6.mp4

CWC_U2.L1.S3_U6.mp4

CWC_U2.L1.S4_U6.mp4

CWC_U2.L1.S5_U6.mp4

CWC_U2.L1.S6_U6.mp4

CWC_U2.L1.S2_U6.mp4

ChangeInputSystem.mp4

You will begin this unit by creating a new project for your second Prototype and getting basic player movement working. You will first choose which character you would like, which types of animals you would like to interact with, and which food you would like to feed those animals. You will give the player basic side-to-side movement just like you did in Prototype 1, but then you will use if-then statements to keep the Player in bounds. 

The player will be able to move left and right on the screen based on the user’s left and right key presses, but will not be able to leave the play area on either side.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Adjust the scale of an object proportionally in order to get it to the size you want

More comfortably use the GetInput function in order to use user input to control an object

Create an if-then statement in order to implement basic logic in your project, including the use of greater than (>) and less than (<) operators

Use comments and automatic formatting in order to make their code more clean and readable to other programmers

Identify the purpose of common methods found in MonoBehaviours such as Start() and Update()

Define the major features of a script such as namespaces, classes, variables, and methods. 

Comprehend simple code by identifying essential programming structures

Identify common data types, including ints, floats, doubles, bools, strings, arrays, lists, and dictionaries

Devise comments that describe a given code block

Recognize naming conventions conforming to Unity standards, given a set of code blocks

Distinguish object-oriented code from data-oriented code

Distinguish an ECS (Entity Component System) class from any other type of class, given a code block containing a class definition

Interpret basic code in a Unity code base

Correct common syntax errors (e.g. missing semicolons, missing curly braces, type mismatches, etc.) by using the IDE's error checking features

Change a variable's accessibility in the Inspector by editing its access modifier to public or private

Efficiently code with correct method and parameter names by using the IDE’s intellisense (autocomplete) features

Print debug messages to the console by calling the Debug.Log method

Change the default scripting IDE

Improve simple code using the features of an IDE

Implement simple logic in code by using if and if-else statements

Control the execution of code by using logical operators such as AND and OR in conditional statements

Control how many times certain lines of code run by using for loops, foreach loops, and while loops

Control the order and timing of executed code by using coroutines

Control the execution of code by using switch statements

Modify the values of numeric variables by using mathematical operators

Control the execution of code with common logic structures

Unit 2 - Basic Gameplay

Create with Code - Unit 2 - Basic Gameplay

The first thing we need to do is create a new project and import the Prototype 2 starter files.

Open Unity Hub and create an empty “Prototype 2” project in your course directory on the correct Unity version. 
If you forget how to do this, refer to the instructions in Lesson 1.1 - Step 1

Click to download the Prototype 2 Starter Files, extract the compressed folder, and then import the .unitypackage into your project. 
If you forget how to do this, refer to the instructions in Lesson 1.1 - Step 2

From the Project window, open the Prototype 2 scene and delete the SampleScene 

In the top-right of the Unity Editor, change your Layout from Default to your custom layout

Let’s get all of our objects positioned in the scene, including the player, animals, and food.

If you want, drag a different material from Course Library > Materials onto the Ground object 

Drag 1 Human, 3 Animals, and 1 Food object into the Hierarchy

Rename the character “Player”, then reposition the animals and food so you can see them

Adjust the XYZ scale of the food so you can easily see it from above

The code you’ll add in the following steps uses a system called the Input Manager to handle player controls. If you’re using Unity 6.1 or higher, your Unity project is likely set up to use a different system called the Input System. To ensure the Input Manager code works correctly, you need to change a project setting to allow both systems to run side-by-side.

From the main menu, select Edit > Project Settings, then select the Player category from the leftmost panel.

2.  Enable support for both input systems:

From the Active Input Handling dropdown, select Both.

Select the Apply button to confirm the change.

The Unity Editor will automatically restart to apply this setting. After restarting, your project will be correctly configured to handle input from both the original Input Manager and the newer Input System.

If we want to move the Player left-to-right, we need a variable tracking the user’s input.

In your Assets folder, create a “Scripts” folder, and a “PlayerController” script inside

Attach the script to the Player and open it

At the top of PlayerController.cs, declare a new public float horizontalInput 

In Update(), set horizontalInput =  Input.GetAxis(“Horizontal”), then test to make sure it works in the inspector

We have to actually use the horizontal input to translate the Player left and right.

Declare a new public float speed = 10.0f; 

In Update(), Translate the player side-to-side based on horizontalInput and speed

We have to prevent the player from going off the side of the screen with an if-then statement.

In Update(), write an if-statement checking if the player’s left X position is less than a certain value

In the if-statement, set the player’s  position to its current position, but with a fixed X location

We need to make this work on the right side, too, then clean up our code.

Repeat this process for the right side of the screen

Declare new xRange variable, then replace the hardcoded values with them

The player can move left and right based on the user’s left and right key presses

The player will not be able to leave the play area on either side

We’ll learn how to create and throw endless amounts of food to feed our animals!

Lesson 2.1 - Player Positioning

Overview Video

1. Create a new Project for Prototype 2

2. Add the Player, Animals, and Food

3. Configure project settings for the Input Manager

4. Get the user’s horizontal input

5. Move the player left-to-right

6. Keep the player inbounds

7. Clean up your code and variables

8. Lesson Recap

Complete this tutorial