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

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.

Junior Programmer

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

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

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

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Allow the vehicle to move left/right

Base left/right movement on input

Take control of the vehicle speed

Make vehicle rotate instead of slide

Clean your code and hierarchy

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

CWC_U1.L4.S1_U6.mp4

CWC_U1.L4.S3_U6.mp4

CWC_U1.L4.S5_U6.mp4

CWC_U1.L4.S2_U6.mp4

CWC_U1.L4.S4_U6.mp4

In this lesson, we need to hit the road and gain control of the vehicle. In order to do so, we need to detect when the player is pressing the arrow keys, then accelerate and turn the vehicle based on that input. Using new methods, Vectors, and variables, you will allow the vehicle to move forwards or backwards and turn left to right.

When the player presses the up/down arrows, the vehicle will move forward and backward. When the player presses the left/right arrows, the vehicle will turn.

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

Gain user input with Input.GetAxis, allowing the player to move in different ways

Use the Rotate function to rotate an object around an axis

Clean and organize your hierarchy with Empty objects

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

Unit 1 - Player Control

Unit 1 - Player Control (Unity EdLab Edition)

Until now, the vehicle has only been able to move straight forward along the road. We need it to be able to move left and right to avoid the obstacles.

At the top of PlayerController.cs, add a public float turnSpeed; variable

In Update(), add  transform.Translate(Vector3.right * Time.deltaTime * turnSpeed);

Run your game and use the turnSpeed variable slider to move the vehicle left and right

Currently, we can only control the vehicle’s left and right movement in the inspector. We need to grant some power to the player and allow them to control that movement for themselves.

From the top menu, click Edit > Project Settings, select Input Manager in the left sidebar, then expand the Axes fold-out to explore the inputs

In PlayerController.cs, add a new public float horizontalInput variable

In Update, assign horizontalInput = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal");, then test to see it in inspector

Add the horizontalInput variable to your left/right Translate method to gain control of the vehicle

In the Inspector, edit the turnSpeed and speed variables to tweak the feel

We’ve allowed the player to control the steering wheel, but we also want them to control the gas pedal and brake

Declare a new public forwardInput variable

In Update, assign forwardInput = Input.GetAxis("Vertical");

Add the forwardInput variable to the forward Translate method, then test 

There’s something weird about the vehicle’s movement… it slides left to right instead of turning. Let’s allow the vehicle to turn like a real car!

In Update, call transform.Rotate(Vector3.up, horizontalInput), then test 

Delete the line of code that translates Right, then test 

Add * turnSpeed * Time.deltaTime, then test

We added lots of new stuff in this lesson. Before moving on and to be more professional, we need to clean our scripts and hierarchy to make them more organized.

In the hierarchy, Right-click > Create Empty and rename it “Obstacles”, then drag all the obstacles into it

Initialize variables with values in PlayerController, then make all variables private (except for the player variables)

Use // to add comments to each section of code

When the player presses the up/down arrows, the vehicle will move forward and backward

When the player presses the left/right arrows, the vehicle turns 

Lesson 1.4 - Step into the Driver's Seat

Overview Video

1. Allow the vehicle to move left/right

2. Base left/right movement on input

3. Take control of the vehicle speed

4. Make vehicle rotate instead of slide

5. Clean your code and hierarchy

6. Lesson Recap

Complete this tutorial