Metroidvania Tutorial Series - Gorgeous Main Menus in Unity

In this episode of the Unity Scene Persistence series, we design and build a fully animated main menu system that plugs cleanly into our scene persistence framework. Instead of throwing UI together and hoping it works later, we build the menu the same way the rest of the project is built — modular, scalable, and maintainable. By the end of the video, we’ll have a professional-feeling main menu with animated lighting, text effects, smooth scene transitions, and a UI setup that will scale with the rest of the project. In this episode you'll learn how to: • Build a complete Unity main menu scene • Set up clean UI architecture for menus • Create animated text and UI elements • Add animated lighting to bring the scene to life • Implement smooth scene transitions when starting the game • Connect the menu into the Bootstrap / persistence system This episode is part of a larger series where we build a clean scene persistence system from scratch — including Bootstrap scenes, player spawning, map systems, and scalable architecture. If you're ready to move beyond quick prototypes and start building Unity projects that can actually scale into full games, this series is for you. 🎟️ Early Access Early access episodes are available for YouTube Members and Patreon supporters. 👉 patreon.com/NightRunStudio 🔗 Assets Used in the Project (Free for Commercial Use) Mattz Art – Kobold Warrior Pack https://xzany.itch.io/kobold-warrior-2d-pixel-art Mattz Art – Flying Demon https://xzany.itch.io/flying-demon-2d-pixel-art Minimal Fantasy GUI – Eta https://etahoshi.itch.io/minimal-fantasy-gui-by-eta Unique Free Spell Icons – Marvyra https://marvyra.itch.io/unique-free-8-bit-spells/devlog/859741/my-free-8-bit-spells-is-now-available Frostwindz – Priest Animations https://frostwindz.itch.io/pixel-art-vfx-priest Frostwindz – Lightning Animations https://frostwindz.itch.io/pixel-art-skill-animations-lightning Otsoga – Training Dummy https://otsoga.itch.io/training-dummy Brullov – Generic Character v0.2 https://brullov.itch.io/generic-char-asset Brullov – Castle of Despair https://brullov.itch.io/2d-platformer-asset-pack-castle-of-despair Szadi – Pixel Fantasy Caves https://szadiart.itch.io/pixel-fantasy-caves