Not all the way done yet with the course, however I feel the need to leave some feedback as this is getting beyond a little frustrating.
In the first part of the course (the “Delivery Driver” section), Rick does a fantastic job of stepping back and explaining why things are done a certain way and actually ‘teaching’ the content in a manner that leaves you feeling you have a real understanding of what you are learning.
However having moved on to the next section (Quiz Master), I feel like all I am doing is listening to a narration of a wiki. It is like Gary is just blasting through the explanation and not taking the time to actually teach and demonstrate the subject matter. I could get much the same outcome from simply putting a screen reader on the Unity wiki actually. Then at the end we just get told ‘Write down this, it works, now do it a little differently yourself’ without taking the time to show the how and why in parts and demonstrating each major step.
I have covered many of these topics in the 2018 version of the 2D course (Number Wizard) and so have a grasp of the fundamentals. Yet somehow I felt even more lost going over this part of the course than I did before starting it. For example I had to go and watch the Unity provided C# tutorial on youtube about ‘for loops’ because the explanation in that part of the 2021 course was so convoluted jumping too and fro in the project when it came time to do the coding, had I not already had a primer of the topics beforehand from the 2018 course I probably would have just given up in this section.
Another example of this is in the ‘Arrays’ section, Gary spends most of the time show how to make the array without actually demonstrating how it actually works in Unity (again with a large portion of ‘reading off the slides’ content). Instead, perhaps we could have been shown first how write a very basic array of static strings ourselves in VS Code along with the explanation, then given a simple for loop (with a promise of explanation how it works in the next video, eg. “ignore this part for now”) to print those strings to the debug console rather than the reading off the slide explanation. Then go on to actually integrate the array into our project.
I think perhaps this part of the course could do with a review or overhaul, with more time spent on explanation and smaller, incremental steps along with a focus on demonstration of basic core subjects. I feel the course needs to be a little more mindful that (for most) this is the first time beginners have been presented with these topics. Things like syntax and why certain arguments are used how they are, Coupled with demonstrations of core principals in a very basic manner (like Ricks fantastic use of the Debug console throughout the first part, please do this more!) before being fleshed out to be incorporated in to the ‘game’ would go a long way to better teaching students and perhaps lead to a superior outcome. Less large chunks of reading from slides and big blocks of code at the end of each video would make the information easier to digest.
I will provide more feedback as I continue through the 2021 course, hopefully the Snowboarder section proves to be more manageable and informative. Thanks for the great work you all do!
Edit Just popped over to Udemy as I also own the same 2D course there and it seems perhaps you ordered things backwards here, as on the Udemy site the snowboarder section comes before the Quiz Master one!