How to Make a Game in Unity: Mastermind 2D Tutorial

Initially released in 2005 by Unity Technologies, Unity is a top-rated video game making engine. As of now, it supports just under thirty platforms, including desktop, mobile, consoles, and virtual reality. It was used to create such global hits as Pokémon GO and Super Mario Run! But have YOU ever wondered how to make a game in Unity? After all, Unity is completely free to download for personal use.

While learning how to make a 2D game in Unity might seem complicated at first, it’s actually not – when you have someone to guide you, that is. Having worked as a game creator for over a decade, I will lead you through every step of the creation of your own game. Following my simple Unity game development tutorial, you will grasp a ton of essential concepts of both Unity and C# programming language. Those will help you understand how to make a game in Unity yourself.

I must note that in this Unity 2D tutorial, I will not be extensively covering graphics. The design part of the game is entirely up to you – if you have any skills and experience in the field, you can even use your own graphics and make the game as unique as it can possibly be.

What exactly is Mastermind?

When learning how to make a game in Unity, you shouldn’t start with something too complicated. Simple games are an excellent choice for mastering the basic skills that you can later build on. Therefore, to make this Unity game development tutorial beginner-friendly, I have chosen the game called Mastermind.

In its essence, Mastermind is a combination puzzle game. The goal of the user is to guess the secret code that a computer chose randomly. They have ten guesses and receive hints after each one. The clue can consist of black and white pearls: a black one means a correct ball in a correct position, and a white one means a correct ball in a wrong position. The trick is, the player has to find out which ball does the hint refer to exactly.

Apart from creating the puzzle itself, you will learn how to make a game in Unity in multiple different levels of difficulty. You will also find out how the game can show the number of guesses and the amount of time the player needed to finish the game, as well as their final score.

What concepts will you go through?

It’s great if you already know a thing or two about the way how Unity works. However, it’s by no means required for this Unity 2D tutorial. Lecture after lecture, I will make sure you understand how the Canvas system works, how to set up GameObjects, what are Prefabs, and how you can create them yourself. In essence, you'll understand how to make a 2D game in Unity.

To work with Unity, you will use the C# programming language. The Unity game development tutorial will cover all the components you need to know to learn how to make a game in Unity: private and public variables, lists and arrays, simple and nested for loops, if statements and expressions. I will explain how you can create your own functions and arguments in the code. Additionally, you will learn all about interfaces to be able to drag and drop two-dimensional objects.