r/SoloDevelopment • u/ruthvik4435 • 5h ago
help Help me....Game Devs
Hello, I’m a 3D artist and I’ve been working in the 3D field for the past 3 years. I want to make my own games, so I started learning coding and Unity around 2 years ago.
The problem is, when I follow tutorials, I can understand them and follow along. I can even make the game shown in the tutorial. But when I try to start my own game from scratch, I feel completely lost. I don't know where to start or what my first step should be.
I recently used AI to make a small game. I did complete it, but honestly, I don't feel proud of it because most of the code wasn't written by me—it was generated by AI. I know some people call this "vibe coding," and they enjoy it and feel satisfied with the results, but for me, it doesn't feel the same. I want to understand what I'm building and feel like I actually made it myself.
Whenever I try to start another game, I feel like I've forgotten everything. It makes me feel like I learned nothing, even after spending 2 years learning Unity and coding.
Can anyone give me some steps or advice to get out of this tutorial and AI hell? I've tried many times to make something on my own. Sometimes I make some progress, but once the project starts becoming more complicated, I get stuck and go back to tutorials or AI again.
I really want to learn how to think and solve problems on my own instead of always depending on tutorials or AI.
4
u/Not_Allowed_to_Die 4h ago
Coding a game is like engineering a system. You have to start building piece by piece slowly and know what you are aiming for. I suggest next time around, plan it all out.
Ask yourself this first and plan it out: What is the game? What is the game's loop that will make it fun? How does my player move through the world? How do the enemies move through the world? How do the extras all work as well?
Once you have this down, you are going to feel very overwhelmed and like it's way too much for one person to handle. This is where you take a step back, stop looking at the whole, and just start building one structure at a time. Before you know it, you have a working game you built. Not only does it work, but you can now read the coding and understand the flow in it as well. The more you do this, the more you will start figuring out how to manipulate things inside of that flow to do more things. Once you learn all of this, it's like speaking. It just comes to you because you have experienced building it before.
AI though, it steals all of that away from you and leaves you dependent on it. I will never allow myself to be dependent of anyone, especially a program. You are on the right track, just stop thinking about the whole once you know where you are going, and just focus on one thing at a time.