For the last 20 years I have been a software developer, working within the Microsoft Development Stack, building systems and websites for various companies and clients – in both employed and freelance roles.
At the same time I have also been a complete video game addict. For 30 years I have been completely absorbed by the immersion and engagement you get with games.
From puzzle games to First Person Shooters, from the early Atari and BBC Micro to the modern PC and consoles, I have found games that I have loved – and played constantly – and games that I have hated.
Some gaming friends still mock me for the one and only time I tried to play Europa Univeralis IV while drunk, got completely confused by the interface, declared war on Turkey [apparently] in the first 5 minutes then rage quit when my country was annihilated
Throughout all of my years gaming I had dreamed of creating my own game, but the combination of a lack of available time coupled with an endless number of existing games still to be played kept me from actually ever starting.
That is until 4 weeks ago.
A chance conversation that brought up the subject of Unity, along with the Humble Bundle: Unity 2019 Bundle – complete with 1 year Unity Learn Pro Subscription – caused me to install Unity with great excitement…
…and then subsequently ignore it (mostly) for two weeks while I watched endless tutorials and videos on how to actually do more than just put a box on the screen and make it spin.
Following through tutorial videos, reading sample code and digging through sample projects I decided I had absorbed enough knowledge to create my very own Multiplayer FPS game…
Things did NOT progress smoothly.
After 3 days sweating, swearing and crying I finally got a box to move around the screen and pickup some objects. It could even shoot and damage objects. It was a very slow but rewarding process, however it made me realise that the size of the task I had set for myself was way too big to tackle with such little experience.
Just reading around the subject of multiplayer networking architecture, and its own idiosyncrasies and complexities made me rethink my initial – and rather lofty – goals.
Next up in part 2: Starting again but with a very, very simple single player game.
British Guy in Sweden 
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