Learning C# by Developing Games with Unity 2021: Kickstart your C# programming and Unity journey by building 3D games from scratch

Learn C# programming from scratch using Unity as a fun and accessible entry point with this updated edition of the bestselling series. Includes invitation to join the online Unity Game Development community to read the book alongside peers, Unity developers/C# programmers and Harrison Ferrone.

Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free eBook in the PDF format.

Key Features

• Learn C# programming basics, terminology, and coding best practices
• Become confident with Unity fundamentals and features in line with Unity 2021
• Apply your C# knowledge in practice and build a working first-person shooter game prototype in Unity

Book Description

The Learning C# by Developing Games with Unity series has established itself as a popular choice for getting up to speed with C#, a powerful and versatile programming language with a wide array of applications in various domains. This bestselling franchise presents a clear path for learning C# programming from the ground up through the world of Unity game development.

This sixth edition has been updated to introduce modern C# features with Unity 2021. A new chapter has also been added that covers reading and writing binary data from files, which will help you become proficient in handling errors and asynchronous operations.

The book acquaints you with the core concepts of programming in C#, including variables, classes, and object-oriented programming. You will explore the fundamentals of Unity game development, including game design, lighting basics, player movement, camera controls, and collisions. You will write C# scripts for simple game mechanics, perform procedural programming, and add complexity to your games by introducing smart enemies and damage-causing projectiles.

By the end of the book, you will have developed the skills to become proficient in C# programming and built a playable game prototype with the Unity game engine.

What you will learn

• Follow simple steps and examples to create and implement C# scripts in Unity
• Develop a 3D mindset to build games that come to life
• Create basic game mechanics such as player controllers and shooting projectiles using C#
• Divide your code into pluggable building blocks using interfaces, abstract classes, and class extensions
• Become familiar with stacks, queues, exceptions, error handling, and other core C# concepts
• Learn how to handle text, XML, and JSON data to save and load your game data
• Explore the basics of AI for games and implement them to control enemy behavior

Who this book is for

If you're a developer, programmer, hobbyist, or anyone who wants to get started with Unity and C# programming in a fun and engaging manner, this book is for you. You’ll still be able to follow along if you don’t have programming experience, but knowing the basics will help you get the most out of this book.

Table of Contents

1. Getting to Know Your Environment
2. The Building Blocks of Programming
3. Diving into Variables, Types, and Methods
4. Control Flow and Collection Types
5. Working with Classes, Structs, and OOP
6. Getting Your Hands Dirty with Unity
7. Movement, Camera Controls, and Collisions
8. Scripting Game Mechanics
9. Basic AI and Enemy Behavior
10. Revisiting Types, Methods, and Classes
11. Introducing Stacks, Queues, and HashSets
12. Saving, Loading, and Serializing Data
13. Exploring Generics, Delegates, and Beyond
14. The Journey Continues

Harrison Ferrone was born in Chicago, IL. Most days, you can find him creating instructional content for LinkedIn Learning or trying to learn something new. He holds various fancy looking pieces of paper from the University of Colorado at Boulder and Columbia College Chicago, and despite being a proud alumnus, most of these are stored in a basement somewhere. After a few years as an iOS developer at small start-ups, and one Fortune 500 company, he fell into a teaching career and never looked back. Throughout all this, he's bought many books, acquired a few cats, worked abroad, and continually wondered why Neuromancer isn't on more course syllabi