Just so you know, there’s a lot more options than just these two for creating this type of game. 
Try test-driving GODOT first to see how you get on. Its Epic dev grants backed. It downloads in a few secs, and installs in less than a minute. It offers a real challenge to Unity across many different game types.
That’s all part of the journey. Its how you figure out if a certain game engine suits you or NOT.
That’s probably the worst way to learn tbh. Unless you want to learn a huge amount of bad habits and become a zombie: Youtube ‘infection’ 
Unreal is probably overkill for the project you’re planning. But its good to have clear goals about WHY you’re doing this. So if the goal is to gradually improve and get better and eventually end up a pro dev, then realize now that you’ll probably have to learn everything eventually anyway. So it doesn’t really matter what you start out with, as long as it keeps you going and interested.
The coding part will be a big part of your decision (that’s why its important to try a few engines first to see what you like). Unreal has Blueprints which is probably the easiest option, but it isn’t for everyone. Unity’s C# also works great. But Godot gd-script is even better / simpler. But hey the best or right answer is just to try things out. And look for similar sample projects you can try.