Installing Unity & Getting Started with Game Development

Objective: assist newcomers with installing Unity on their workspace and setting up an initial 2D project.

Go to the Unity web page at https://unity.com/, and select the “Get Started” button.

Select the “Individual” tab, and you want to pick the “Personal” edition by clicking the “Get started” button. All editions presented have the exact same basic core features, and the Personal edition is FREE!

Select the “Go here” under the “Returning users”, accept the terms, then “Download Unity Hub”.

This will download Unity Hub, which is a tool that allows you to install different releases of Unity and manage your projects. Once the Unity Hub installer has finished downloading, simply open it to complete the installation process, confirming your desired location for the program and accepting the terms as required.

Once the installation is complete, open the program and you will see an editor window for Unity Hub.

If you are a first-time user, this screen will basically be blank.

“Projects” is where all your projects are kept. As you can see in my example, I’ve dabbled a little bit, and some of my current and past projects are represented.

“Learn” allows you to tap into ready-made tutorials from Unity for all levels of experience.

“Community” gives you links to like-minded Unity developers and is a great way to expand your knowledge, seek inspiration, and make new contacts.

“Installs” tracks which version of Unity you have installed on your workspace.

If you haven’t yet installed Unity on your machine, select “Installs’ on the left of the window, click on “Add”, then pick the desired version from the pop-up window. In my case, for the purpose of the course I am following, I have selected the release Unity 2019.4.24f1 (LTS) which has long-term support and patch releases.

Add the desired modules to your install and select “Done”.

Once the installation is complete, it will show up in your Unity Hub.

Now, let’s click on “Projects” (left side) and create a new project by selecting “New”, using the “2D” template, give your new project a name and select the location where you want your project saved. Click on “Create”.

This will now open the Unity editor window as depicted below:

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Unity and created your first project.

In my next article, we will discuss how to organize the editor layout in order to be more efficient while developing our project. See you then!