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

Lesson 1.1 - Start your 3D Engines 

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

38d8fde0-c71a-4de9-b07c-31990e78391e:2c3fcc0789f6

Overview

Recap the phases of production

Overview of project planning

Design documents and project plans

Managing projects and tracking progress

Exercise: Identify tools to support your project management and tracking

Preparing to publish

Releasing your project

Operations activities and retrospectives

Summary

Use organizational and planning skills across platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals to deliver an original work. 

Level 1 Project Management

Ellen Flaherty

Senior Learning Architect - Unity

Most jobs in the design and development world require teamwork and will use project management and planning tools to ensure successful project delivery. In this tutorial, you’ll be introduced to key concepts and best practices used for project planning, production phases, project management, and working in teams.

Explain the importance of time management in the project management process

Explain the roles of communication and professionalism in the project management process

Explain the reasons to conduct a retrospective after a project is completed

Organize a QA testing plan for a project

Manage projects in the real-time development cycle

Explain the importance of defining purpose, goal, and audience

Describe the structure and content of design documents

Organize project tasks based on production roles

Investigate appropriate applications for project management

Explain the uses of a project charter

Plan projects in the real-time development cycle

Example of Project Charter.pdf

Project Design Doc TEMPLATE - [GDOC].pdf

Junior Programmer: Create with Code 1

AR Curricular Framework Resources 

Game Design Curricular Framework Resources  

Architecture, Engineering and Construction Curricular Framework Resources

Unity for Artists Curricular Framework Resources

AI, ML Curricular Framework Resources 

Many of the most creative, ambitious games and applications made in Unity were not made by one solo developer — they were made by a team of people in different roles including programmers, artists, designers, producers, audio engineers, and many more.  

Even the most ambitious independent solo developers get support from peers and the wider indie community. Whether it's the quick sense check of an idea or a full collaborative project, you'll learn a lot from working with others.

Working effectively with others requires project planning and management. Any well-run project needs a scope, specific milestones, appropriate schedules, and time management so that the greater project can be divided into small, achievable tasks for each member of the team, and so that those tasks can be organized in order to achieve the final goal.

Project management and teamwork are often referred to as “soft skills” for design and development roles. Although project management can get technical, and there are several different project management methodologies you might encounter, it primarily takes teamwork — including communication and organization skills — to be a good project manager. 

Effective project management and teamwork involves:

Clear communication with teammates, clients, and other stakeholders

A final product or output that satisfies the requirements established for the project and meets the defined goal(s)

In this tutorial, you’ll explore some introductory best practices for managing projects and working in teams.

Individuals, teams, companies, and organizations will each have their particular methods for project management, but generally most projects break down into phases. 

As you explored when learning about the real time production cycle, typically the phases of production are: 

Pre-production: The work done before full-scale production begins, such as planning, prototyping, pipeline setup, and initial designs.


Production: Creation of the product and assets within it, including the creation of final 2D images and 3D models, audio, lighting, and user experience.


Post-production: Work done after the final product appears to be complete, including quality assurance (QA), editing, testing, bug fixing, and final polishing.


Operations: Ongoing work after a product has been released to keep it running, such as sales, monetization, updates, and continued maintenance.

Properly planning for each phase of the production cycle is crucial when you need to deliver a project that is on time and works as expected. 

Diagram of the four phases of production with arrows between each phase. Pre-production points to Production, which points to Post-production, which points to Operations.

When working on projects, you need to plan appropriate schedules, manage time, communicate, and collaborate. Even if you’re working on a project independently, it’s likely that you’ll be communicating with others at some point in the production process, especially when engaging in user testing.

Let’s explore some guidance for successfully completing and delivering projects, as an individual or member of a larger team.

Documentation plays a critical role in project management. A design document acts as a single source of truth, where you can record the specific requirements for the experience that you want to create. The design document also supports producers and project managers to track design and development progress. 

When managing projects, consistently use design documents in the following ways to guide the design and development process:

Identify the purpose, audience, and goals of your project.

Identify the necessary project steps by creating a project plan.

Within the project plan, create a timeline with specific deliverables and due dates.

Consistently track your milestones in order to produce deliverables and meet deadlines.

Assign roles when working in teams, and define and prioritize tasks for you and all teammates.

Make sure you and all teammates are following up and following through on roles and responsibilities.

Effective time management is critical to timely delivery and completion of the project. When managing projects:

Scope time for each phase of the design and development process.

Review your project plan daily, and give brief daily status reports to the project manager or producer (often these daily updates are called “stand-ups”).

Use contingency planning for any unforeseen delays; reprioritize and update the tasks and deliverables in your project plans when needed.

Identify which project planning and management tools are suitable for you or your team; when you’ve chosen them, use them consistently.

Without clear communication, collaboration is challenging at best - and impossible at worst. Communication is one of the most important skills for working with others in any capacity, and is vital for effective project management.

When communicating with others on your project:

Be clear about your progress and any issues that impact the work of others, whether they are members of your team or supporting external collaborators.

Be respectful of others’ time — and of your own.

When critiquing work, remain constructive and sensitive to the feelings of others. Focus on making your feedback helpful, specific, and respectful.

Be open to feedback yourself by actively listening and engaging with the person delivering the feedback. Reflect honestly on how their feedback can be addressed. 

Even if you’re completing a project for personal development or fun, when working with others it’s important to respect them and have a professional attitude in your work.

When collaborating on a project with others:

Promptly reply to collaborators, peers, and clients.

Listen to others’ opinions and contributions.

In the pre-production phase at the start of the project, design documents are created to help define and scope what you are going to create. These documents include: 

Game (or Experience) Design Documents (GDDs)

Design documents contain the blueprint for your project. They include:

High level overviews; for example, an overall project vision in the Game (or Experience) Design Document

Requirements and standards for particular pipelines in the project

Detailed design specifications for particular features


In your high level design document, you should identify:

A design document can include diagrams, flow charts, sketches, inspirational images from similar products, and reference images to capture the intended look and feel of the product. 

If you don't already have a design document, you can download a PDF version of the design document template from the materials section or you can make a Google document copy.

Once the design document has been approved and the project is greenlit to be produced, a project charter is useful, especially when you are working in a team. This is a formal document that describes the entire project, including the project's objectives, how it will be carried out, and who the stakeholders are. The project charter is used in both the pre-production and production phases. 

You can download a PDF version of an example project charter in the materials section or make a Google document copy. 

Objectives and constraints of the project

Depending on your project, you may need to create additional supporting documentation during the pre-production phase to help you scope and plan for production. You can iterate on these documents throughout pre-production and production, as needed.

Technical documentation: This includes documents that specify the architecture and functionality of the technical parts of a project.

Meeting notes: If you’re working in a team, it’s useful to capture meeting notes to record what the whole team is working on, dependencies, progress, and blockers.

Proposal or pitch document: If you need to get approval from your company, or if you are asking investors to fund your project, a formal proposal or pitch document is recommended.

Example of a design document

Example of a project charter

Once you have your project clearly scoped out, it is time to start planning how to manage a project by planning appropriate schedules and managing a project plan. While the project plan is usually created in pre-production, it is used and iterated upon throughout the production phase to track the project's progress. 

The project plan takes the elements identified in the design document and project charter and sets specific tasks and deliverable dates. The producer or project manager will often create this plan and update it as necessary when changes need to be made.  They will also create a project tracker, which can be part of the plan itself or created separately, to measure progress against the defined tasks and required deliverables. 

If you don’t create and follow a project plan, the result is usually scope creep — the continuous adding of new ideas and features to your plan — which can lead to the project failing, being late, or going over budget.


Some guidelines to successfully track projects, for both individuals and teams, include:

Introduction to project management and teamwork

1. Overview

2. Recap the phases of production

3. Overview of project planning

4. Design documents and project plans

5. Managing projects and tracking progress

6. Exercise: Identify tools to support your project management and tracking

7. Preparing to publish

8. Releasing your project

9. Operations activities and retrospectives

10. Summary

Complete this tutorial