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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Make a course folder and new project

Import assets and open Prototype 1

Add your vehicle to the scene

Add an obstacle and reposition it

Locate your camera and run the game

Move the camera behind the vehicle

Customize the interface layout

Lesson Recap

CWC_U1.L1.S1_U6.mp4

CWC_U1.L1.S3_U6.mp4

CWC_U1.L1.S2_U6_2.mp4

CWC_U1.L1.S7_U6.mp4

CWC_U1.L1.S4_U6.mp4

CWC_U1.L1.S5_U6.mp4

CWC_U1.L1.S6_U6.mp4

In this lesson, you will create your very first game project in Unity Hub. You will choose and position a vehicle for the player to drive and an obstacle for them to hit or avoid. You will also set up a camera for the player to see through, giving them a perfect view of the scene. Throughout this process, you will learn to navigate the Unity Editor and grow comfortable moving around in 3D Space. Lastly, you will customize your own window layout for the Unity Editor.

You will have a vehicle and obstacle positioned on the road and the camera set up perfectly behind the vehicle. You will also have a new custom Unity layout, perfectly optimized for editing.

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

Navigate 3D space and the Unity Editor comfortably

Add and manipulate objects in the scene to position them where you want

Position a camera in an ideal spot for your game

Control the layout of Unity Editor to suit your needs

Prototype 1 - Starter Files.zip

Unit 1 - Player Control

The first thing we need to do is create a folder that will hold all of our course projects, then create a new Unity project inside it for Prototype 1.

On your desktop (or somewhere else you will remember), right-click > create New Folder, then name it “Create with Code”

Create a new Unity project using the Universal 3D template - remember to use a version of Unity 6.
For a reminder on how to create a new Unity project, you can reference this tutorial.

Name the project “Prototype 1” and set the file location to your new Create with Code folder.

Select Create Project, then wait for Unity to open your new project.

Now that we have an empty project open, we need to import the assets for Prototype 1 and open the scene

Download the Prototype 1 Starter Files, then extract the compressed folder.
Windows: Right-click on the file > Extract All.
Mac: Double-click on the file.

Import the asset package into your Unity project
For a reminder on how to import packages, you can reference this tutorial.

In the Project window, in  Assets > Scenes > double-click on the Prototype 1 scene to open it. 

Right-click and drag to look around at the start of the road.

Since we’re making a driving simulator, we need to add our own vehicle to the scene.

In the Project window, open Assets > Course Library > Vehicles, then drag a vehicle into the Hierarchy window. 

Hold right-click and WASD to fly to the vehicle, then try to rotate around it.

With the vehicle selected and your mouse in the Scene view, press F to focus on it.

Hold alt + left-click (on MacOS: option + left-click) to rotate around the focal point or hold alt + right-click to zoom in and out.

Use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out and hold the scroll wheel to pan.

If anything goes wrong, press Ctrl + Z (macOS: Cmd + Z) to undo until it’s fixed.

Important: You will orbit around the last object that you framed in the Scene view. So it’s important that you first Frame the vehicle (by pressing F), and only then try rotating around it.

The next thing our game needs is an obstacle! We need to choose one and position it in front of the vehicle.

Go to Course Library > Obstacles and drag an obstacle directly into the Scene view

In the Inspector for your obstacle, in the top-right of the Transform component, click the more options button > Reset Property > Position.

In the Inspector, change the XYZ Location to x=0, y=0, z=25

In the Hierarchy, Right-click > Rename your two objects as “Vehicle” and “Obstacle”

Now that we’ve set up our vehicle and obstacle, let’s try running the game and looking through the camera.

Select the Camera in the Hierarchy window, then press F to focus on it.

Press the Play button to run your game, then press the Stop button to exit Play mode.

Note: If you don’t see your camera preview, you need to enable the Cameras option in the overlay menu in the Scene view. 

In order for the player to properly view our game, we should position and angle the camera in a good spot behind the vehicle

Use the Move and Rotate tools to move the camera behind the vehicle looking down on it

Hold Ctrl/Cmd to move the camera by whole units

Last but not least, we need to customize the Unity Editor layout so that it’s perfect for editing our project.

In the upper-right corner, change the layout from “Default” to “Tall”.

Move the Game view beneath the Scene view.

In the Project window, open the dropdown menu in the top-right and select One-column layout.

In the layout Dropdown, save a new Layout and call it “My Layout”.

Vehicle positioned at the start of the road

Obstacle positioned in front of the vehicle

We’ll really make this interactive by writing our first line of code in C# to make the vehicle move and have it collide with other objects in the scene

Lesson 1.1 - Start your 3D Engines

Overview Video

1. Make a course folder and new project

2. Import assets and open Prototype 1

3. Add your vehicle to the scene

4. Add an obstacle and reposition it

5. Locate your camera and run the game

6. Move the camera behind the vehicle

7. Customize the interface layout

8. Lesson Recap

Complete this tutorial