I am attempting to make game objects spawn at random points along the Y-Axis

Question

I am attempting to make a flappybird style game that is underwater with the PC dodging mines and collecting fish to score points. The issue that I am having is that the mines spawn off screen as intended and fly across the screen, however, they spawn in a straight line. I am following a tutorial as I dont know C# so I am practicing to get knowledge up. But in doing so I am not sure where I am going wrong and google searched yielded no solution.

This is the code for spawning in the mines

private void HandleMineSpawning() {
    Timer -= Time.deltaTime;
    if (Timer < 0) {
        Timer += TimerMax;
         

        float heightEdge = 10f;
        float minHeight = offset + heightEdge;
        float totalHeight = camSize * 2;
        float maxHeight = totalHeight - offset *.5f - heightEdge;

        float height = Random.Range(minHeight, maxHeight);
        CreateMineOffset(height, offset, mineSpawn);
    }

And the code that should create an offset on the Y-axis

private void Awake() {

    minelist = new List<Mine>();
    TimerMax = 1.5f;
    offset = 20;

}


private void CreateMineOffset(float offsetY, float offsetSize, float xPosition) {

    CreateMine(offsetY - offsetSize * .5f, xPosition);
    CreateMine(camSize * 2f - offsetY - offsetSize * .5f, xPosition);
    
}

Answer 1

This was written for a 3d game but I am sure you can modify it for a platformer game. Set the y spread to a high value and set the x to a low value. The Z spread can stay at zero for your game.

Hope this helps.

public GameObject itemsToSpread;   
GameObject spawn;

public int numberOfItemsToSpawn;
public float Space = 10;//Distance between game objects

//Offset values go here
public float itemXSpread = 5;
public float itemYSpread = 100;
public float itemZSpread = 0;//Add value here for a 3d distribution

// Start is called before the first frame update
void Start()
{
    for (int i = 0; i < numberOfItemsToSpawn; i++)
    {
        SpreadItem(); 
    }        
}

void SpreadItem()
{
    Vector3 ranPos = new Vector3(Random.Range(-itemXSpread, itemXSpread) + Space, Random.Range(-itemYSpread, itemYSpread) + Space, Random.Range(-itemZSpread, itemZSpread) + Space) + transform.position;        
    spawn = Instantiate(itemsToSpread, ranPos, Quaternion.identity);          
}    

Output:

For your game, try these values.