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

This intro video for Unit 5 outlines what you will do to design and implement a user interface in Unity.

Build a 2D project where good and bad targets spawn with random motion and are destroyed when the player clicks them or they exit the screen.

Add a scoring UI, assign point values to targets, and trigger particle explosions when objects are destroyed on click.

Create Game Over text and a Restart Game button that stop spawning targets, reset the score, and let users replay the game.

Build a title screen with styled text and difficulty buttons that control target spawn rates in your finished game.

Debug and refine a whack-a-mole-style UI game by fixing buttons, clicks, score tracking, difficulty, and restart behavior.

Use this quiz to check your understanding of the skills and concepts from Unit 5.

Learn how to plan, run, and integrate user feedback and testing into your design and development process.

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

JP Pathway: Junior Programmer

Jr. Programmer Facilitator Kit

Junior Programmer v6.0 Common Cartridge File

Looking to bring this pathway into your classroom? Download the facilitator kit for lesson plans, teacher tips, and a sample syllabus. Download the Common Cartridge file to import the pathway content into your Learning Management System (such as Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, etc.). See instructions from your LMS provider for importing Common Cartridge files.

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

Get an overview of the course structure, goals, and tips to make the most of your learning experience.

Follow guided steps to create a Unity ID and install Unity Hub, the Unity Editor, and Visual Studio.

This introductory video to Unit 1 outlines what you will do to implement Player control.

Start your first Unity project in Unity Hub, place a drivable vehicle and obstacle, set a following camera, and customize your Unity Editor layout.

Learn to script basic vehicle movement, add physics components for collisions, and duplicate road objects in the Hierarchy window.

Script a C# camera follow system using variables so the camera tracks a vehicle and keeps the road in view.

Use methods, vectors, and variables to read arrow key input and drive a vehicle that moves forward, backward, and turns.

Apply input and camera skills to fly a plane around obstacles with arrow key pitch control and a following camera.

Plan your personal project by defining its concept, timeline, and sketch in a complete Design Document.

Explore core concepts and best practices for project planning, production phases, project management, and effective teamwork.

Check your understanding of the skills and concepts covered in Unit 1 of the course.

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

Create a new prototype project and script side-to-side player movement that stays within the play area using if-then logic.

Implement a projectile prefab launched with the spacebar and add boundaries that remove projectiles and animals leaving the game area.

Learn to script a spawner that creates random animal prefabs at the top of the screen when the user presses the S key.

Implement timed animal spawning, collision-based destruction, and a Game Over state in your scene.

Tackle a scripting challenge using arrays, random values, collisions, and spawning as a dog catches falling balls before they hit the ground.

Set up a new project using primitive objects and colored materials to block out your scene and frame the camera.

Use this quiz to check your understanding of the skills and concepts presented in Unit 2.

This quiz checks your understanding of the concepts from the Create with Code 1 Mission.

Quiz: Create with Code 1

Gain familiarity with some of the most important programming and Unity concepts, including if-then statementscollision detection, and and prefabs

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

This introductory video previews Unit 3, where you implement Animation, audio, and particle effects in Unity.

Build a simple runner prototype where a player character jumps over spawning obstacles using a spacebar-controlled setup.

Implement a looping background, obstacle cleanup, and collision-based game over using script communication in your runner game.

Animate your character’s running, jumping, and death states with an Animator Controller and sync their timing to gameplay.

Add music, sound effects, and particle systems to make running, jumping, and crashing feel more dynamic.

Use physics, scrolling backgrounds, VFX, and troubleshooting to complete a balloon game that collects tokens and avoids bombs.

Program basic player movement with constraints by researching, testing, and refining your own C# solution.

Use this quiz to check your understanding of the skills and concepts covered in Unit 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

Get an overview of Unit 4, where you will start implementing new gameplay mechanics.

Build a prototype where the camera orbits an island and a textured sphere moves forward or backward with player input.

Create a textured enemy sphere that spawns randomly, chases the player, and can knock them off the island.

Create a randomly spawning powerup that temporarily boosts player strength and visually indicates its active state.

Configure a wave-based Spawn Manager that increases enemy counts and spawns powerups each round.

Apply Sumo Battle skills to fix a soccer-style prototype where waves of enemy balls attack, powerups boost strength, and rounds escalate.

Configure non-player objects with basic movement, collisions, and prefab spawning to establish your game’s core gameplay behavior.

Check your understanding of the skills and concepts covered in Unit 4 with this quiz.

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

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

Get introduced to the final course section on preparing for the Unity Certified User exam and finishing your Personal Project.

Explore core optimization techniques to boost project performance, especially for larger mobile and web builds.

Learn to research and troubleshoot online while adding features to Prototype 1, such as switching between two cameras with a key press.

Get a high-level introduction to entity component system (ECS) concepts and how they compare to typical object-oriented or component-based designs.

Explore roles, skills, and qualifications to define your career goals and focus your professional portfolio.

Review the purpose of a portfolio, plan your own with a flowchart, and start selecting and organizing content to showcase your work.

This quiz checks how well you understand the concepts covered in the Create with Code 2 Mission.

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

Explore production phases and core workflows for designing real-time 3D digital experiences.

Introduction to real-time 3D experience design

Learn version control fundamentals, Unity-compatible tools, and how they help you maintain a project over time.

Set up version control

Review the project brief, open the Unity project, and identify supporting resources before starting development.

Explore the sample project

Learn the core object-oriented programming principles and how they support clean, efficient C# code.

Principles of object-oriented programming

Configure scene flow between Menu and Main scenes and script startup and event-based scene loading for your application.

Create a scene flow

Use DontDestroyOnLoad, static constructs, and scripts to persist user-selected data across scenes.

Implement data persistence between scenes

Write C# to initialize your app, manage data with lists and dictionaries, and persist user settings between sessions.

Implement data persistence between sessions

Submission: Data persistence in a new repo

This quiz checks your understanding of concepts from the Junior Programmer: Manage scene flow and data mission.

Quiz: Manage scene flow and data

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

Learn how abstraction in object-oriented programming hides unnecessary script details and exposes only what users need.

Abstraction in object-oriented programming

Learn how inheritance and polymorphism let child classes share, extend, and override parent class behavior to structure your code.

Inheritance and polymorphism in object-oriented programming

Learn encapsulation in C# to control access with getters and setters and structure classes with clear, single-purpose code.

Encapsulation in object-oriented programming

Learn to use the Profiler and Stats window to find CPU, physics, and rendering bottlenecks in your scene.

Profile code to identify issues

Review how to show your progress, update your portfolio and resume, and prepare for interviews.

Job preparation: Junior Programmer

This quiz checks your understanding of object-oriented programming principles from the Junior Programmer mission.

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!

Unit 5 - Introduction

1. Unit 5 - Introduction

Complete this Tutorial