If you dream about creating the next blockbuster game that goes viral and makes your fortune, Udemy offers two courses that could help you make a start. One introduces the Unity engine while the other targets Unreal we have a special offer for both of them.

Nowadays, to start from scratch, combining libraries and resources to make your own gaming engine, is both unusual and extravagant. Instead it's customary use large frameworks comprised of libraries, sources, assets and IDEs to tap into readily available and highly performant infrastructure and take it from there. Of course there are exceptions to the rule as we found out in this interview with Eugeny Butakov, creator of the successful mobile game, Psebay.

If you want to follow the route of using a proprietary games engine, then Learn to Code by Making Games - The Complete Unity Developer and The Unreal Engine Developer Course - Learn C++ & Make Games will be of interest, and I Programmer readers can take advantage of a discount code to slash the usual cost of these courses.

Both courses are well established, but never out of date, getting updated when deemed necessary to reflect the latest developments in the two most popular gaming engines, Unity and Unreal.

Of the two engines, Unity is considered the easier to get started with, as you get to write code in the high level and memory managed language of C#, in contrast to Unreal's powerful but low level C++.

C# aside, JavaScript (as well as Boo, which is deprecated in later versions) is the other programming language supported by Unity, so  you can shift your skills off the Web and into the development of games. Currently, however, C# IS the language of choice of most Unity developers, and really it couldn't be otherwise since it lies in the background of the makings of blockbuster hits like Deus Ex: The Fall; Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft , Temple Run Trilogy, Assassin’s Creed: Identity and Hitman: Sniper.

On the other hand some top class popular games have been built with the Unreal engine, including: Batman: Arkham City, BioShock Infinite, Borderlands 2 and Gears of War. Of course that's barely scratching the tip of the iceberg!

Getting those first comparisons out of the way, let's first focus on the Unity course. It's intended for total beginners in both the art of programming and game development. It provides an introduction to programming concepts from an Object-Oriented perspective which you subsequently apply to coding with C#. You are also introduced to the design and workflow that is followed in the course of developing games.

This course starts off with the very basics, like familiarizing yourself with Unity's environment, moves on to talking about Statics and Singletons, Objects and Classes, and advances with physics  such as Gravity and Collisions, tangling them smoothly  together on the way of building our very own game, the end target of the class, complete with Levels, Sprites, Characters, animations and actions, which we furthermore deploy on mobile devices too. Coding is initially done in Unity version 4 but for the more advanced stages version 5 is used instead.

As far as the second offering of Unreal (version 4) goes, the comparison is simple; just replace Unity with Unreal and C# with C++, but otherwise follow the same recipe customized tor Unreal's needs.It's something only natural as both classes are taught by the same instructors, Ben Tristem and Sam Pattuzzi who also teaches Computer Science at the University of Cambridge.

So with both classes adopting the same patterns and teaching style, and therefore both ideal to jump start your game programming career, the question is, if not both, which one?

It's difficult to tell them apart, but there's a few hints and directions one can follow in order to make an educated choice.

If it comes down to the degree of difficulty required to master one of the two programming languages in question, then C# as the modern and easier C++ counterpart, wins hands down.But then, there's also Unreal's Blueprint visual script editor (covered in the class), with which you can make games without writing any code!

Market reach and availability is another factor; both environments are capable of cross-platform development and as such they span the whole range of the devices and desktops, but the scale is titled towards Unity, since more or less it occupies more than 40% of the market share, the mobile one especially.

Both enjoy active communities and quality documentation, so that's not a deciding factor, while as far as graphics quality and performance goes, Unreal is generally admitted as having the edge over Unity.  

The last point to take into consideration is pricing. Despite the fact that they are both free to get started, things change as you move down the road. 

One is certain though, that whichever path you choose to follow, you're going to be in need of an expert guide, a role that both classes comfortably and emphatically fill.

I Programmer is pleased to be able to bring you a 75% discount code valid until December 31, 2016 for both of these courses. Follow the links:

Learn to Code by Making Games - The Complete Unity Developer

The Unreal Engine Developer Course - Learn C++ & Make Games

and use the code IPROGRAMMER75.

More Information

Learn to Code by Making Games - The Complete Unity Developer

Unreal Engine Developer Course - Learn C++ & Make Games

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How To Create A Viral Mobile Game - interview with Eugeny Butakov

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