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

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

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 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 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

ace0e2d9-d453-4694-b1be-2680ad93a849:cd507b334550

Explore the player’s animations

Make the player start off at a run

Set up a jump animation

Adjust the jump animation

Set up a falling animation

Keep player from unconscious jumping

Lesson Recap

Control the execution of code with common logic structures 

Level 1 Application Scripting

Joy Horvath

Instructional Designer

CWC_U3.L3.S6_U6.mp4

CWC_U3.L3.S4_U6.mp4

CWC_U3.L3.S5_U6.mp4

CWC_U3.L3.S3_U6.mp4

CWC_U3.L3.S2_U6.mp4

CWC_U3.L3.S1_U6.mp4

The game is looking great so far, but the player character is a bit… lifeless. Instead of the character simply sliding across the ground, we’re going to give it animations for running, jumping, and even death! We will also tweak the speed of these animations, timing them so they look perfect in the game environment.

With the animations from the animator controller, the character will have 3 new animations that occur in 3 different game states. These states include running, jumping, and death, all of which transition smoothly and are timed to suit the game.

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

Manage basic animation states in the Animator Controller

Adjust the speed of animations to suit the character or the game

Set a default animation and trigger others with anim.SetTrigger

Set a permanent state for “Game Over” with anim.SetBool

Select the appropriate common Unity methods to use, e.g., Awake, Start, Update, FixedUpdate, Collision, and Trigger Events, given a desired feature to code

Achieve a desired result by using Unity API methods, given Unity’s script documentation

Achieve a desired result with different parameters by using various method overloads

Distinguish a correct use of any given Unity API method from an incorrect use

Control or trigger the state of components, such as an Animator Controller, Light, AudioSource, or User Interface element by using appropriate methods

Construct an input listener, given a scenario where a specific type of input is required

Print a message consisting of concatenated strings and variable values to the console by using Unity's Debug.Log method

Compose scripts that utilize various APIs

Unit 3 - Sound and Effects

Create with Code - Unit 3: Sounds & Effects

Unit 3 - Sound and Effects (Unity EdLab Edition)

In order to get this character moving their arms and legs, we need to explore the Animation Controller.

Double-click on the Player’s Animation Controller, then explore the different Layers, double-clicking on States to see their animations and Transitions to see their conditions

Now that we’re more comfortable with the animation controller, we can tweak some variables and settings to make the player look like they’re really running.

In the Parameters tab, change the Speed_f variable to 1.0

Right-click on Run_Static > Set as Layer Default State

Single-click the the Run_Static state and adjust the Speed value in the inspector to match the speed of the background

The running animation looks good, but very odd when the player leaps over obstacles. Next up, we need to add a jumping animation that puts a real spring in their step.

In PlayerController.cs, declare a new private Animator playerAnim; 

In Start(), set playerAnim = GetComponent<Animator>();

In the if-statement for when the player jumps, trigger the jump:
playerAnim.SetTrigger(“Jump_trig”);

The running animation plays, but it’s not perfect yet, we should tweak some of our character’s physics-related variables to get this looking just right.

In the Animator window, click on the Running_Jump state, then in the inspector and reduce its Speed value to slow down the animation

Adjust the player’s mass, jump force, and gravity modifier to get your jump just right

The running and jumping animations look great, but there’s one more state that the character should have an animation for. Instead of continuing to sprint when it collides with an object, the character should fall over as if it has been knocked out.

In the condition that player collides with Obstacle, set the Death bool to true

In the same if-statement, set the DeathType integer to 1


Everything is working perfectly, but there’s one small disturbing bug to fix: the player can jump from an unconscious position, making it look like the character is being defibrillated.

To prevent the player from jumping while unconscious, add && !gameOver to the jump condition


The player starts the scene with a fast-paced running animation

When the player jumps, there is a jumping animation

When the player crashes, the player falls over

Animation States, Layers, and Transitions

We’ll really polish this game up to make it look nice using particles and sound effects!

Lesson 3.3 - Don't Just Stand There

Overview Video

1. Explore the player’s animations

2. Make the player start off at a run

3. Set up a jump animation

4. Adjust the jump animation

5. Set up a falling animation

6. Keep player from unconscious jumping

7. Lesson Recap

Complete this tutorial