Initial Launch!

Through building Sunny Valley’s farming game, I gained a foundational understanding of essential Unity development concepts, including scene management, UI setup, and basic game mechanics. Following the tutorial, I added my own NPC character and animations, further reinforcing my comprehension of Unity’s workflow. Key areas I learned are outlined below:

Project Setup: I learned how to organize scripts, assets, and scenes in a structured hierarchy to maintain efficiency and clarity

Scene Management: Setting up multiple scenes with specific roles

User Interaction: Implementing basic player interaction—like interacting with crops—helped me grasp Unity’s event system, including triggers and colliders, and refine them for consistent and responsive gameplay experiences.

Progressive Systems: I learned how to implement growth stages for crops, where plants progress visually and functionally over time. Managing crop data and visually updating sprites based on growth stages reinforced my skills in tracking and updating state over time

Scripting: Writing C# scripts to control growth logic, crop interactions, and timed events deepened my understanding of Unity’s scripting API and object-oriented programming fundamentals

Sprite Animation: This taught me the importance of visual feedback in communicating gameplay events to the player

Particle Systems: I learned how to use Unity’s particle system for water effects, including adjusting particle duration, color, and emission rates for specific game events.

Conclusion

Through completing this project, I strengthened my understanding of Unity’s core mechanics, including UI, animations, scripting, and data management to create the framework of a simple and basic farming game to build upon. The major assets used are from Sunny Valley Studio to avoid any complications when initially building the game. By implementing additional features like an NPC and custom animations, I gained confidence in my ability to adapt and build upon a tutorial foundation. This project has provided me with a solid base in game development and prepared me for more complex, original projects in Unity.