In this beginner assignment we're going to make a
very simple but playable 2D game
to use many of the basic concepts
from the beginner tutorial modules.
We'll be making a 2D UFO game
where we'll be collecting gold nuggets.
We'll see how to create new game objects,
add components to these game objects,
set the values on their properties,
and position these game objects in the scene
to create a game.
In our game the player will control
a UFO flying around the game board in a
top-down 2D view.
We'll move the UFO using physics and forces.
We'll look at the input from the player
through the keyboard and we'll use those inputs
to apply forces to the UFO,
making it move in our scene.
We'll see how to detect contact between
the UFO and the pickup game objects
and use these events to collect
the pickup game objects.
When we've done we'll have made a simple
UFO game where the player controls the
UFO with the keyboard, picks up and counts
special collectable objects,
displays the current count,
and ends the game when all of the
game objects have been picked up.
To complete this project we'll use custom
created 2D art assets
which can be downloaded from the
Unity Asset Store.
Let's begin by creating a new project.
First open the Unity editor
if you haven't done that already.
You can create a new project by
choosing File - New Project.
This will bring us to the home screen.
On the home screen you can create a
new project either by hitting the
blue Create New Project button
in the centre of the window,
or by clicking the New button
at the top of the window.
The first thing that we need to do is
to give our project a name,
I'm going to call the project UFO Game.
The next thing we need to do is set the
destination, or path, to our new project.
I'm going to put this new project on my desktop.
You'll see we have a choice
to set the project preferences
to either 3D or 2D mode.
Since we're working in 2D
I'm going to click 2D.
This will set the preferences for the Unity editor
to useful defaults for creating 2D game.s
For more information on working in 2D,
please see the information linked below.
Now click the Create Project button
to create our new project.
Unity will create a new empty scene
for us to work in.
The first thing we'll need to do is to download
and import our art assets
from the Unity Asset Store.
To access the Asset Store choose
Window - Asset Store.
Or use the keyboard shortcut
command + 9 on mac,
or control + 9 on windows.
The Asset Store is a service that
Unity Technologies provides
where creators can both buy and sell
assets to make games.
These include art, music, scripts, effects,
all the way up to complete games and projects.
Unity also publishes content
to the Asset Store, including teaching
projects like this one to help
you learn how to make games.
By default the Asset Store is
opened as a docked tab.
Let's undock the tab so that we can
expand the window.
In the upper-right corner of
the expanded Asset Store window
we'll see a listing of asset categories.
At the bottom we should find
Unity Essentials.
Expand this category and we'll find
a subcategory called Sample Projects.
Within Sample Projects we'll find
an item called 2D UFO tutorial.
Click on the item title to open it.
Once the page loads we'll see a
download button in the upper-left corner.
Click on the Download button to begin
downloading the assets.
The Download button will be replaced
by the percentage of the download completed
once we click on it.
Once the download is complete we'll see
a dialogue labelled Importing Complete Project.
This warns us that importing a
complete project will overwrite
our current project settings.
In this case, because we've just created a
new project this is fine.
Click the Import button to continue.
Next we'll be given a choice
of which assets we would like to
import in to our project.
The default is All, which is what we want,
so go ahead and click Import.
Close the Asset Store window.
We now have our new project with our assets imported.
And the default new empty scene open.
Before creating anything in the new scene
we need to save our scene.
We can save our scene by choosing
File - Save Scene,
or by using the keyboard shortcut
command + S on mac,
or control + S on windows.
I'm going to save this scene
in the Assets directory in the
folder called Scenes.
I'm going to call the scene Main.
We can now see in our Scenes folder
the scene called Main.
It's worth noting that the
Completed, Prefabs, Scenes, Scripts
and Sprites folders
were all created when we imported our asset package.
The Completed folder contains
a completed version of the project,
which you can refer to if you get stuck.
Great, that's the end of our first lesson.
In our next lesson we're going to lay out our play field.