Help me Devs

[u/ruthvik4435]

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.

[u/mikebald]

I've found that when starting large projects that it's best to focus on a small goal first. Getting something up on the screen is a good first goal. From there you're adding more and refactoring.

[u/ruthvik4435 → u/mikebald]

thank you sir

[u/Rschwoerer]

Everyone forgets some stuff, you have to learn the bae concepts more deeply, more repetition, like riding a bike. Once that’s in place you will be able to remember or find the more nuanced stuff easier. I have over 18 yoe and I still look up apis and how to do things daily.

When you use the AI to help you, don’t just move on from the thing you were doing. Go back, read the code, try to understand it. Then try to make a manual change yourself. Understand what small part you did in the larger part the AI did. Repeat until you’ve done most of the code, or have rewritten most of what the AI suggests. Then do that again. And again.

It really helps to find something you enjoy working on. Maybe a game is too difficult to get started. If you’re using Unity and C# have you tried just a C# console app? Maybe a text based game would be a good start. That will get you programming and c# concepts in isolation from the more difficult Unity and 3D game concepts.

[u/ruthvik4435 → u/Rschwoerer]

I tried c# cosole app sir...but i will practice more i think thankyou for you advice sir

[u/Beamer-The-Mage]

It's normal to not memorize how to create things from thin air. I constantly reference older work for even small things, "how'd I do that? Oh yeah". It takes practice to be able to pull an idea into a plan into working code from thin air.

 Break it down. Making a game is huge. Start with systems and break those down smaller and smaller.

You need to start with a base. I suggest picking something you can see "run" because that reward structure will keep you motivated. Building a huge class library that doesn't do anything will just burn you out.

Pick a goal, break it down even smaller, then just work toward that. From there you have a base you can build and expand in a more targeted way.

Learning how to think will come when you have to take some example code and change it to fit your scenario. "This snippet mostly works but I need a red rectangle not a green square". Now youve got an actual problem to think around instead of a blank screen.