7 ms·

Godot at GDC 2018

463 points by makepanic 8y ago

tekromancr 8y ago
Awesome! I have played with godot before, and while it has some sharp edges I am thrilled to see an opensource engine coming together so well. Great job to all involved!
- bringtheaction 8y ago
  Been following Godot for a good while but never tried it myself. I support them on Patreon anyway though, just because I think it's important that we have a truly open source game engine like Godot :) Did you try Godot 3.0 yet?
cowmix 8y ago
My kid who's in high school watched a few Godot tutorials on Youtube and then created a nice/simple game in about 24 hours. We walked me through the whole process and it is amazing the whole system is free.
- bringtheaction 8y ago
  > it is amazing the whole system is free Speaking of which, they have a Patreon. Anyone interested in the prospect of contributing financially to the development of Godot, check out https://www.patreon.com/godotengine https://www.patreon.com/godotengine
giancarlostoro 8y ago
I gotta say Godot is one of those open source projects I want to see more commercial adoption of. Not only is it well done, it is miles ahead of the commercial offerings and everything from the tooling to the engine is MIT licensed. You can do plugins not only for the engine, but the tooling itself! This means that you're not limited only by what is already available through the standard IDE they built (which is really already great) but by your imagination entirely. You can code plugins in any native language you so desire as well thanks to GDNative (this includes Rust, D, and more). Also don't forget, they've got the latest of Mono available to you, so modern C# features at your fingertips, no more C# 3.5 like a certain industry slowpoke...
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  Unity can use .NET 4.6 now. It wasn't because they were slowpokes, xamarin would not license it to them until they were acquired by Microsoft.
  - carussell 8y ago
    - Mono's license prior to the Microsoft/Xamarin acquisition was LGPL, which is open ended and doesn't allow e.g. discriminating against Unity; Unity would not accept it under those terms - Xamarin did offer a commercial license to Unity; Unity would not accept it - MS began to release their own .NET implementation under the kinds of license terms that Unity wanted years ago, but Unity didn't budge - In the meantime, MS then relicensed Mono itself—the .NET implementation that Unity actually wanted—under the kinds of terms that Unity wanted, but still Unity didn't show signs of moving until very recently The whole it's Mono's fault that Unity sucks was essentially a successful PR attempt for Unity to disclaim responsibility for their shortcomings, with the (maybe not unintentional) side effect of directing public ire towards Mono for not doing enough free work (to benefit what was already one of the industry's most successful companies!)
    - wokwokwok 8y ago
      Perpetual arbitrary changing license fees are something everyone wants to avoid. The fees went away, they started moving. Its more complicated than that, but ultimately they won: the people demanding license fees got flipped off and they got what they wanted for free. ...so, I know a lot of people have been angry about this, but by every metric what they did was a total business success. If you want the guys from Unity to act differently, you have to actually tangibly affect them (eg. pick a different engine), not just complain.
      - doomlaser 8y ago
        I sort of feel the same way, but they've just copied the Adobe and Autodesk licensing model, and its hard to blame them considering how well that has worked out for those other companies.
plexicle 8y ago
Looks great! I've heard of Godot quite a bit and have been meaning to check it out. Boy do I feel like a dummy though... I thought it was "Go"dot and it was built with and/or uses Go(lang). Can't say I wasn't just a tiny bit disappointed! In any case, I just checked out some of the videos and the IDE in particular looks pretty amazing. Will check it out for sure.
- applecrazy 8y ago
  You can actually use Golang with Godot to code gameplay using some open source bindings[1] for GDNative. [1]: https://github.com/ShadowApex/godot-go https://github.com/ShadowApex/godot-go
- Shorel 8y ago
  Not being tied to "Go"lang is the reason I am interested in it.
curioussavage 8y ago
I love Godot right now. I have made a ton of progress on my game in the last two months using it. Highly recommend it to anyone wanting to pick up game dev as a hobby.
- yanisvieilly 8y ago
  I started using Godot recently. Do you have any good tutorials to recommend?
nrjames 8y ago
I'm keen to try Godot. The only thing I'd like to see soon or at least on the roadmap is Switch support. Other open source toolkits, like Monogame, have included it. I believe Love2D also supports it now, or at least has a partner that will build projects for it.
- rushsteve1 8y ago
  According to the Godot docs[1] this doesn't seem to be a priority for them, though I would also love to see Switch support. Though in those same docs they point out a third-party which provides console ports. Not an ideal solution by any means, but it is still an option. [1]: http://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.0/tutorials/platform/consoles.html http://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.0/tutorials/platform/consol...
- keyle 8y ago
  Mate I wouldn't really worry about Switch support. Even if you could port your game to Switch, Nintendo has a tight ironclad gate on the "indie" titles that make it in the store. And if you're thinking homebrew, the only thing you could run your game on would be a Switch devkit.
  - Impossible 8y ago
    It's not unrealistic to worry about Switch support. You seem to be coming from the perspective of a hobbyist game developer, which is fine, but anyone running a serious game development project should at least consider the cost of potential console ports, even if it seems inaccesible to a hobbyist.
    - keyle 8y ago
      I don't think you've tried submitting a game to Nintendo like we did, for 6 months.
kentm 8y ago
Does anyone have an opinion on Godot Vs Unreal Engine?
- ordinaryradical 8y ago
  Unreal is ahead on some of their 3D capabilities—Godot only targets OpenGL ES 3, at the moment. However, this affords Godot a huge number of target platforms on the same codebase and, in a huge turn, now that MoltenVK is being open sourced by Valve, Godot is moving its render API to Vulkan. If you want to play with all the bells and whistles now, Unreal currently let’s you use a more advanced graphical pipeline; if you want to multi-platform your game or you won’t be releasing a shader-heavy 3D game in the next year, I would at least try Godot.
- pzone 8y ago
  Unreal Engine is a paid engine with highly developed, opinionated engineering in many subsystems. (visual blueprint scripting, unified material render engine, actor model) Its featureset is advanced enough to support AAA games. Godot is a free engine offering a C# scripting environment.
  - applecrazy 8y ago
    Actually, Godot offers visual scripting, C# scripting, Python-like scripting, and C++ scripting by default. More options are available through their GDNative bindings (D, Nim, Golang, etc.)
    - rplnt 8y ago
      > Python-like scripting GDScript is nothing like python.
      - amarsahinovic 8y ago
        There is also support for Python via GDNative: https://godotengine.org/article/beta-release-python-support https://godotengine.org/article/beta-release-python-support
skybrian 8y ago
re: "The Gambling Industry is Largely Moving to Godot." I don't know, seems like the author should have at least mixed feelings about this? It can't be prevented with an MIT license, but it doesn't seem like great news?
- rlonstein 8y ago
  What is your objection[1]? If companies in that industry are contributing directly to funding development or hiring developers it's positive for the engine and for the rest of the community who get it on the same license terms. Look at how Bet365 (iirc) has kept Riak and some other bits of the Erlang ecosystem going. [1] Conceding that some minority of people find gambling addictive and they are the customers the game makers tailor their product for.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    It's exactly what you conceded in [1]. If I found out that that open source software I'm working on is ending up in slot machines, I wouldn't feel great about it, even if there's not really anything to be done about it. It just seemed like an odd thing to brag about.
    - scrumper 8y ago
      Probably one should be equally uneasy about one's OSS contributions ending up in F2P games too, since they are often highly addictive time- and money-sinks.
- floatboth 8y ago
  I'm surprised gambling needs 3D at all… related: AMD is making embedded products for gambling now (look at their YouTube channel)
  - scott_karana 8y ago
    They have very flashy, AAA-style graphics now. Check out Konami's pivot: https://www.casino-review.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CR167-Konami-Europe-1-696x392.jpg https://www.casino-review.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CR16...
DaggerDagger 8y ago
I'm really excited about Godot. I started using it and saw the limits of the 3d stuff that is there right now but I'm excited to start using it when really good 3d animation libraries become available which seem to be lacking at the moment.
stateoff 8y ago
Here is my personal opinion about Godot vs Unity. Background Unity: - I've used Unity for small to medium sized commercial industry projects (3D, VR Tours etc.). - I've used Unity for a 2D Gamejam. - Various Unity research projects. Background Godot: - I've started using Godot v2.1 with little preparation successfully on two Game jams (2D) [1] - I've contributed smaller additions and bugfixes to Godot in the past months, in order to help the 3.0 release and also to understand more of the internals. - I am currently working on a bigger 2D game in Godot 3.0. This is my personal experience and opinion: First of all: For sure Unity is great and I would not hesitate to use it again in future, especially for 3D (without having much experience in Godot 3.0 3D environment). However it has drawbacks compared to Godot, especially for 2D which is my main focus: - Terrible 2D support in Unity (for retro/pixel perfect projects). It's not that it is impossible but you need to know and work around many aspects to setup something that works. Same setup in Godot needs literally two clicks. Units in Godot are pixel units. Perfect. - No Nested prefabs in Unity. Check out their GDC 2018 keynote (end). It is even a joke to them. Well, to me it isn't. Godot does nested instances and it is a great productivity gain. - (Open/Public) Source code access in Godot. That probably only applies to people with C++ experience but it was great that I was not stuck since I could dive in and find and fix my problems. Often I found other people with the same problem, and sometimes a PR to fix it, so I could build it from their PR before the official merge and could go on doing my work. - Source code state/community for Godot. Godot has a pretty non-idealistic style of code. It's not heavily abstracted. And while one could argue if it always has best design choices at least it makes it very easy to dive in. My PRs and fixes were gratefully accepted, it is a very open and productive community. Discussions on Github were constructive in my experience. - Unity has second class Linux (editor) support. To be fair: it seems to gradually improve. Thanks for that btw. But whenever I try I get showstopping weird issues. Every build is a different problem. In contrast: Godot under Linux is flawless. To be honest: Unity Editor does much more under the hood. And again: I personally do not care. I am focused on 2D and I feel I pay a lot extra. - GUI. I know that there is now a new GUI framework in Unity but I feel like it made things worse. I have a hard time getting the results I want as compared to Godot's GUI system. Not impossible per se, just not as intuitive as I would like it. Godot's GUI frameworks works similar to Qt Designer. Simple layouts and widgets. - Nodes and scripts (Godot) vs. Objects and Components (Unity). I have found that the nodes available in Godot make it very easy to come up with various setups. There is just a bunch of (useful) functionality build in. Especially their viewport/offscreen rendering on top of canvas mixed with GUI and shaders make things pretty easy. No need to script for various scenarios + the benefit of these nodes being native. - 2D Physics. Unity uses box2D (like?) physics. Godot has a custom physics engine that works pretty much like old school arcade physics. It is a perfect starting point for platformers etc. without the sacrifice in control. If your game is NOT an angry birds clone then probably a box2D like physics engine is not what you want. I was quite surprised myself that Godot boosted my productivity so much as compared to former workflows. Initially one of my first doubts with Godot was GodotScript. And I must say I was wrong. It is a great little language which helps iterating quickly. And if you are not happy with the performance, you can use C++ or C# or anything else with GodotNativeScript (around 2.6x speedups with C++ in my measurement[2]). I for myself kept GodotScript as iteration speed is more important to me than native performance, especially in the initial stage. The big negative point as already pointed out is that Godot has few proven examples of successful bigger projects. Therefor platforms may be another issue. But having the source code under control helps, plus there is a drive that hopefully spawns more interest and support in future. Godot deserves it. To conclude. For 2D I have not found a better tool than Godot. Please disagree if you like but give the tool a fair chance. [1] Small Godot based Game jam projects: https://itch.io/profile/stateoff https://itch.io/profile/stateoff [2] Personal benchmark of GDNativeScript: https://twitter.com/StateOffGames/status/944878511801753601 https://twitter.com/StateOffGames/status/944878511801753601
ineedasername 8y ago
I read most of that press release with no idea if Godot was a real thing or if it was an eloborate riff on Waiting for Godot It took clicking around their site a bit to realize it's actually a real thing. I think.
georgewsinger 8y ago
SimulaVR (Linux VR Desktop written in Haskell) is currently in the process of integrating Godot into its rendering loop. In order to do that we've been making Haskell FFI bindings for the Godot API. If anyone's interested check out: https://GitHub.com/SimulaVR/Simula https://GitHub.com/SimulaVR/Simula
- aetherspawn 8y ago
  Are the Haskell godot bindings in a usable state? Very interested
  - georgewsinger 8y ago
    They're not in a usable state yet but will most likely be by the end of the month. They are being generated in one shot via Template Haskell, and will be located here: https://github.com/SimulaVR/godot-haskell https://github.com/SimulaVR/godot-haskell Drop by https://gitter.im/SimulaVR/Simula https://gitter.im/SimulaVR/Simula to discuss this at any point. There are some other Godot people involved in this project as well if you have any questions.
tty7 8y ago
Any good tutorials to learn this ? I want to make an outrun like game but no experience in this area
- amarsahinovic 8y ago
  Here are a few YouTube channels with tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNaPQ5uLX5iIEHUCLmfAgKg/playlists https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNaPQ5uLX5iIEHUCLmfAgKg/pla... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxboW7x0jZqFdvMdCFKTMsQ/playlists https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxboW7x0jZqFdvMdCFKTMsQ/pla... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChv-gaPlKNROf6iMDhxIpUA/playlists https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChv-gaPlKNROf6iMDhxIpUA/pla... (Godot 2 videos but good) You can also find more links here: https://godot-engine.zeef.com/andre.antonio.schmitz https://godot-engine.zeef.com/andre.antonio.schmitz
kumarvvr 8y ago
Is this a good engine to begin game programming with? I am an experienced web developer with deep interest in interactive stuff.
- zanny 8y ago
  Yes, absolutely. Probably by far the optimization between being able to do anything you want while being dead simple to do it in. "Easier" engines like rpgmaker or LOVE severely limit what you can accomplish with the game, while more established engines like UE and Unity have a lot more front loaded scaffolding to do.
  - thomastjeffery 8y ago
    > more established engines like UE and Unity have a lot more front loaded scaffolding to do. This, in my opinion, is Godot's biggest advantage. UE and Unity are a lot for a new user to contend with.
  - veli_joza 8y ago
    Löve has only one limit - it's 2D. Other than that, you can use build anything you want, in simple and cross-platform way. Löve is easy in terms of API size and tooling, but it's more low-level than other engines and therefore aimed at developers that like to build their own tools along the way. It feels very liberating and productive, plus you are not stuck with sub-par editors (unless you make them such).
thrillgore 8y ago
I first discovered Godot when working on an ambitious game. While my ambitions have tempered, my stance on Godot hasn't. It's been a great product to turn out 2D games on, and I am looking forward to trying out some 3D projects with the v3 Renderer. It's not going to replace Unity or Unreal for any ambitious AAA-level title, but it can't be overlooked for rapid prototyping or 2D games. Godot is also the first project I've ever given Patreon funding for.

Godot at GDC 2018

463 points by makepanic 8y ago

Awesome! I have played with godot before, and while it has some sharp edges I am thrilled to see an opensource engine coming together so well. Great job to all involved!

bringtheaction 8y ago
Been following Godot for a good while but never tried it myself. I support them on Patreon anyway though, just because I think it's important that we have a truly open source game engine like Godot :) Did you try Godot 3.0 yet?

cowmix 8y ago

My kid who's in high school watched a few Godot tutorials on Youtube and then created a nice/simple game in about 24 hours. We walked me through the whole process and it is amazing the whole system is free.

bringtheaction 8y ago
> it is amazing the whole system is free Speaking of which, they have a Patreon. Anyone interested in the prospect of contributing financially to the development of Godot, check out https://www.patreon.com/godotengine https://www.patreon.com/godotengine

giancarlostoro 8y ago

I gotta say Godot is one of those open source projects I want to see more commercial adoption of. Not only is it well done, it is miles ahead of the commercial offerings and everything from the tooling to the engine is MIT licensed. You can do plugins not only for the engine, but the tooling itself! This means that you're not limited only by what is already available through the standard IDE they built (which is really already great) but by your imagination entirely. You can code plugins in any native language you so desire as well thanks to GDNative (this includes Rust, D, and more). Also don't forget, they've got the latest of Mono available to you, so modern C# features at your fingertips, no more C# 3.5 like a certain industry slowpoke...

gameswithgo 8y ago
Unity can use .NET 4.6 now. It wasn't because they were slowpokes, xamarin would not license it to them until they were acquired by Microsoft.
- carussell 8y ago
  - Mono's license prior to the Microsoft/Xamarin acquisition was LGPL, which is open ended and doesn't allow e.g. discriminating against Unity; Unity would not accept it under those terms - Xamarin did offer a commercial license to Unity; Unity would not accept it - MS began to release their own .NET implementation under the kinds of license terms that Unity wanted years ago, but Unity didn't budge - In the meantime, MS then relicensed Mono itself—the .NET implementation that Unity actually wanted—under the kinds of terms that Unity wanted, but still Unity didn't show signs of moving until very recently The whole it's Mono's fault that Unity sucks was essentially a successful PR attempt for Unity to disclaim responsibility for their shortcomings, with the (maybe not unintentional) side effect of directing public ire towards Mono for not doing enough free work (to benefit what was already one of the industry's most successful companies!)
  - wokwokwok 8y ago
    Perpetual arbitrary changing license fees are something everyone wants to avoid. The fees went away, they started moving. Its more complicated than that, but ultimately they won: the people demanding license fees got flipped off and they got what they wanted for free. ...so, I know a lot of people have been angry about this, but by every metric what they did was a total business success. If you want the guys from Unity to act differently, you have to actually tangibly affect them (eg. pick a different engine), not just complain.
    - doomlaser 8y ago
      I sort of feel the same way, but they've just copied the Adobe and Autodesk licensing model, and its hard to blame them considering how well that has worked out for those other companies.

plexicle 8y ago

Looks great! I've heard of Godot quite a bit and have been meaning to check it out. Boy do I feel like a dummy though... I thought it was "Go"dot and it was built with and/or uses Go(lang). Can't say I wasn't just a tiny bit disappointed! In any case, I just checked out some of the videos and the IDE in particular looks pretty amazing. Will check it out for sure.

applecrazy 8y ago
You can actually use Golang with Godot to code gameplay using some open source bindings[1] for GDNative. [1]: https://github.com/ShadowApex/godot-go https://github.com/ShadowApex/godot-go
Shorel 8y ago
Not being tied to "Go"lang is the reason I am interested in it.

curioussavage 8y ago

I love Godot right now. I have made a ton of progress on my game in the last two months using it. Highly recommend it to anyone wanting to pick up game dev as a hobby.

yanisvieilly 8y ago
I started using Godot recently. Do you have any good tutorials to recommend?

nrjames 8y ago

I'm keen to try Godot. The only thing I'd like to see soon or at least on the roadmap is Switch support. Other open source toolkits, like Monogame, have included it. I believe Love2D also supports it now, or at least has a partner that will build projects for it.

rushsteve1 8y ago
According to the Godot docs[1] this doesn't seem to be a priority for them, though I would also love to see Switch support. Though in those same docs they point out a third-party which provides console ports. Not an ideal solution by any means, but it is still an option. [1]: http://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.0/tutorials/platform/consoles.html http://docs.godotengine.org/en/3.0/tutorials/platform/consol...
keyle 8y ago
Mate I wouldn't really worry about Switch support. Even if you could port your game to Switch, Nintendo has a tight ironclad gate on the "indie" titles that make it in the store. And if you're thinking homebrew, the only thing you could run your game on would be a Switch devkit.
- Impossible 8y ago
  It's not unrealistic to worry about Switch support. You seem to be coming from the perspective of a hobbyist game developer, which is fine, but anyone running a serious game development project should at least consider the cost of potential console ports, even if it seems inaccesible to a hobbyist.
  - keyle 8y ago
    I don't think you've tried submitting a game to Nintendo like we did, for 6 months.

kentm 8y ago

Does anyone have an opinion on Godot Vs Unreal Engine?

ordinaryradical 8y ago
Unreal is ahead on some of their 3D capabilities—Godot only targets OpenGL ES 3, at the moment. However, this affords Godot a huge number of target platforms on the same codebase and, in a huge turn, now that MoltenVK is being open sourced by Valve, Godot is moving its render API to Vulkan. If you want to play with all the bells and whistles now, Unreal currently let’s you use a more advanced graphical pipeline; if you want to multi-platform your game or you won’t be releasing a shader-heavy 3D game in the next year, I would at least try Godot.
pzone 8y ago
Unreal Engine is a paid engine with highly developed, opinionated engineering in many subsystems. (visual blueprint scripting, unified material render engine, actor model) Its featureset is advanced enough to support AAA games. Godot is a free engine offering a C# scripting environment.
- applecrazy 8y ago
  Actually, Godot offers visual scripting, C# scripting, Python-like scripting, and C++ scripting by default. More options are available through their GDNative bindings (D, Nim, Golang, etc.)
  - rplnt 8y ago
    > Python-like scripting GDScript is nothing like python.
    - amarsahinovic 8y ago
      There is also support for Python via GDNative: https://godotengine.org/article/beta-release-python-support https://godotengine.org/article/beta-release-python-support

skybrian 8y ago

re: "The Gambling Industry is Largely Moving to Godot." I don't know, seems like the author should have at least mixed feelings about this? It can't be prevented with an MIT license, but it doesn't seem like great news?

rlonstein 8y ago
What is your objection[1]? If companies in that industry are contributing directly to funding development or hiring developers it's positive for the engine and for the rest of the community who get it on the same license terms. Look at how Bet365 (iirc) has kept Riak and some other bits of the Erlang ecosystem going. [1] Conceding that some minority of people find gambling addictive and they are the customers the game makers tailor their product for.
- skybrian 8y ago
  It's exactly what you conceded in [1]. If I found out that that open source software I'm working on is ending up in slot machines, I wouldn't feel great about it, even if there's not really anything to be done about it. It just seemed like an odd thing to brag about.
  - scrumper 8y ago
    Probably one should be equally uneasy about one's OSS contributions ending up in F2P games too, since they are often highly addictive time- and money-sinks.
floatboth 8y ago
I'm surprised gambling needs 3D at all… related: AMD is making embedded products for gambling now (look at their YouTube channel)
- scott_karana 8y ago
  They have very flashy, AAA-style graphics now. Check out Konami's pivot: https://www.casino-review.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CR167-Konami-Europe-1-696x392.jpg https://www.casino-review.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CR16...

DaggerDagger 8y ago

I'm really excited about Godot. I started using it and saw the limits of the 3d stuff that is there right now but I'm excited to start using it when really good 3d animation libraries become available which seem to be lacking at the moment.

stateoff 8y ago

Here is my personal opinion about Godot vs Unity. Background Unity: - I've used Unity for small to medium sized commercial industry projects (3D, VR Tours etc.). - I've used Unity for a 2D Gamejam. - Various Unity research projects. Background Godot: - I've started using Godot v2.1 with little preparation successfully on two Game jams (2D) [1] - I've contributed smaller additions and bugfixes to Godot in the past months, in order to help the 3.0 release and also to understand more of the internals. - I am currently working on a bigger 2D game in Godot 3.0. This is my personal experience and opinion: First of all: For sure Unity is great and I would not hesitate to use it again in future, especially for 3D (without having much experience in Godot 3.0 3D environment). However it has drawbacks compared to Godot, especially for 2D which is my main focus: - Terrible 2D support in Unity (for retro/pixel perfect projects). It's not that it is impossible but you need to know and work around many aspects to setup something that works. Same setup in Godot needs literally two clicks. Units in Godot are pixel units. Perfect. - No Nested prefabs in Unity. Check out their GDC 2018 keynote (end). It is even a joke to them. Well, to me it isn't. Godot does nested instances and it is a great productivity gain. - (Open/Public) Source code access in Godot. That probably only applies to people with C++ experience but it was great that I was not stuck since I could dive in and find and fix my problems. Often I found other people with the same problem, and sometimes a PR to fix it, so I could build it from their PR before the official merge and could go on doing my work. - Source code state/community for Godot. Godot has a pretty non-idealistic style of code. It's not heavily abstracted. And while one could argue if it always has best design choices at least it makes it very easy to dive in. My PRs and fixes were gratefully accepted, it is a very open and productive community. Discussions on Github were constructive in my experience. - Unity has second class Linux (editor) support. To be fair: it seems to gradually improve. Thanks for that btw. But whenever I try I get showstopping weird issues. Every build is a different problem. In contrast: Godot under Linux is flawless. To be honest: Unity Editor does much more under the hood. And again: I personally do not care. I am focused on 2D and I feel I pay a lot extra. - GUI. I know that there is now a new GUI framework in Unity but I feel like it made things worse. I have a hard time getting the results I want as compared to Godot's GUI system. Not impossible per se, just not as intuitive as I would like it. Godot's GUI frameworks works similar to Qt Designer. Simple layouts and widgets. - Nodes and scripts (Godot) vs. Objects and Components (Unity). I have found that the nodes available in Godot make it very easy to come up with various setups. There is just a bunch of (useful) functionality build in. Especially their viewport/offscreen rendering on top of canvas mixed with GUI and shaders make things pretty easy. No need to script for various scenarios + the benefit of these nodes being native. - 2D Physics. Unity uses box2D (like?) physics. Godot has a custom physics engine that works pretty much like old school arcade physics. It is a perfect starting point for platformers etc. without the sacrifice in control. If your game is NOT an angry birds clone then probably a box2D like physics engine is not what you want. I was quite surprised myself that Godot boosted my productivity so much as compared to former workflows. Initially one of my first doubts with Godot was GodotScript. And I must say I was wrong. It is a great little language which helps iterating quickly. And if you are not happy with the performance, you can use C++ or C# or anything else with GodotNativeScript (around 2.6x speedups with C++ in my measurement[2]). I for myself kept GodotScript as iteration speed is more important to me than native performance, especially in the initial stage. The big negative point as already pointed out is that Godot has few proven examples of successful bigger projects. Therefor platforms may be another issue. But having the source code under control helps, plus there is a drive that hopefully spawns more interest and support in future. Godot deserves it. To conclude. For 2D I have not found a better tool than Godot. Please disagree if you like but give the tool a fair chance. [1] Small Godot based Game jam projects: https://itch.io/profile/stateoff https://itch.io/profile/stateoff [2] Personal benchmark of GDNativeScript: https://twitter.com/StateOffGames/status/944878511801753601 https://twitter.com/StateOffGames/status/944878511801753601

ineedasername 8y ago

I read most of that press release with no idea if Godot was a real thing or if it was an eloborate riff on Waiting for Godot It took clicking around their site a bit to realize it's actually a real thing. I think.

georgewsinger 8y ago

SimulaVR (Linux VR Desktop written in Haskell) is currently in the process of integrating Godot into its rendering loop. In order to do that we've been making Haskell FFI bindings for the Godot API. If anyone's interested check out: https://GitHub.com/SimulaVR/Simula https://GitHub.com/SimulaVR/Simula

aetherspawn 8y ago
Are the Haskell godot bindings in a usable state? Very interested
- georgewsinger 8y ago
  They're not in a usable state yet but will most likely be by the end of the month. They are being generated in one shot via Template Haskell, and will be located here: https://github.com/SimulaVR/godot-haskell https://github.com/SimulaVR/godot-haskell Drop by https://gitter.im/SimulaVR/Simula https://gitter.im/SimulaVR/Simula to discuss this at any point. There are some other Godot people involved in this project as well if you have any questions.

tty7 8y ago

Any good tutorials to learn this ? I want to make an outrun like game but no experience in this area

amarsahinovic 8y ago
Here are a few YouTube channels with tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNaPQ5uLX5iIEHUCLmfAgKg/playlists https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNaPQ5uLX5iIEHUCLmfAgKg/pla... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxboW7x0jZqFdvMdCFKTMsQ/playlists https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxboW7x0jZqFdvMdCFKTMsQ/pla... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChv-gaPlKNROf6iMDhxIpUA/playlists https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChv-gaPlKNROf6iMDhxIpUA/pla... (Godot 2 videos but good) You can also find more links here: https://godot-engine.zeef.com/andre.antonio.schmitz https://godot-engine.zeef.com/andre.antonio.schmitz

kumarvvr 8y ago

Is this a good engine to begin game programming with? I am an experienced web developer with deep interest in interactive stuff.

zanny 8y ago
Yes, absolutely. Probably by far the optimization between being able to do anything you want while being dead simple to do it in. "Easier" engines like rpgmaker or LOVE severely limit what you can accomplish with the game, while more established engines like UE and Unity have a lot more front loaded scaffolding to do.
- thomastjeffery 8y ago
  > more established engines like UE and Unity have a lot more front loaded scaffolding to do. This, in my opinion, is Godot's biggest advantage. UE and Unity are a lot for a new user to contend with.
- veli_joza 8y ago
  Löve has only one limit - it's 2D. Other than that, you can use build anything you want, in simple and cross-platform way. Löve is easy in terms of API size and tooling, but it's more low-level than other engines and therefore aimed at developers that like to build their own tools along the way. It feels very liberating and productive, plus you are not stuck with sub-par editors (unless you make them such).

thrillgore 8y ago

I first discovered Godot when working on an ambitious game. While my ambitions have tempered, my stance on Godot hasn't. It's been a great product to turn out 2D games on, and I am looking forward to trying out some 3D projects with the v3 Renderer. It's not going to replace Unity or Unreal for any ambitious AAA-level title, but it can't be overlooked for rapid prototyping or 2D games. Godot is also the first project I've ever given Patreon funding for.