Unity.

I hate Unity.

Okay, I don’t actually hate Unity—that’s a strong word—but I am mad that I picked it up as my first game engine.

Background

I didn’t really start coding until my first year of undergrad. By then, I was already playing catch-up with my peers, many of whom had been coding since they were kids. I spent so much time just trying to keep up that side projects weren’t really an option—unless I wanted to give up my social life, which just wasn’t in the cards for me.

By senior year, I finally had room to take Computer Science electives. I knew early on that I wanted to take a game development course, so I signed up for the only one available: Advanced 3D Game Development.

The prerequisite for this course was to already know how to use Unity…

I didn’t. But that didn’t stop me from spending my entire winter break (a month and a half) grinding through Unity tutorials. I played around, learned the basics, and by the time the semester started, I was confidently telling myself (and others) that Unity was simple and I could take on whatever was coming.

Simple to say, that class kicked my ass, but with a lot of hard work and some serious Googling, I still pulled off an A.

Why it wasn’t the best choice

Unity is SO overwhelming. As an aspiring game developer, I was able to push past the daunting experience that was learning Unity on my own through the help of Unity Learn (free tutorials provided by Unity). But even with the help of these resources, it is not the most beginner-friendly interface to use.

As someone who wasn’t super comfortable with coding, a lot of these tutorials and things were a huge crutch—whether I realized it or not. I learned a lot, sure, but I was never able to fully finish a project that I was proud of and I think that made me feel helpless a lot of the time, even now.

“Unity is an industry standard” is one of the biggest motivators for using this game engine over others. I can see the appeal but honestly, being able to make solo projects and refine things as much as you can in a much more familiar and user-friendly space (no matter how limiting) can help you gain confidence and make you look more competent to others—especially if they don’t know much about what you do.

Game engines like Godot or RPG Maker may not be as technical, but I think they are much better choices if you just want to dip your toes in and actually finish something. I know people say to pick one thing and master it, but maybe that just isn’t my style. And if I had to start over, I don’t think I’d pick Unity.

Reading this now, Unreal Engine is the real industry standard, but this entire post reflects the mindset I had a couple of years ago. Honestly, if I had more experience with Unreal, I might be saying the exact same thing about it. At the end of the day, my advice is this: being taken seriously and having something to show is the first step to getting anywhere.

My Goals Now

I don’t intend on abandoning my old Unity projects, but I do want to move on from the engine itself. It’s not for me and I have just grown to be okay with that.

I’d love to spend some time learning JavaScript to build a stronger skillset in full-stack development and fall back to MicroStudio to fulfill my game-making cravings here and there. If the future permits, maybe I’ll make some JavaScript games too, as that seems like something I would be interested in.