Godot Game Engine
Thursday, October 26, 2017
godot
A few months back I ran into an blog post by willnationsdev.wordpress.com and it hit real close to home. I also have been doing "game development" for a while and jumping around game engines. Thanks to this article I discovered Godot and jumped again to another game engine. My previous jump had been from Unity to Unreal.
The Usual Process:
- Come up with game idea
- Work on the game and make progress
- Hit a point where doing something is hard/weird with the current engine
- Get frustrated
- Look for another game engine
I'm the problem. If the game engine was the problem then none of the game engines I have used in the past would have a showcase section in their websites. This is something I have been fighting my entire "game development" life. Hopefully Godot can help me get past this problem.
When I first discovered Godot I was hesitant to use/try it because I had invested so much time and money (Unity $1500) on other engines (Unreal, Unity). But since I like to mostly make 2D games and Godot has a 2D dedicated engine I said why not.
Here are some of the 2D features from their website.
- Fully dedicated 2D engine, no hacks.
- Work in pixels as your units, but scale to any screen size and ratio.
- Custom 2D physics engine that works in pixel coordinates.
- Flexible kinematic controller for collision without physics.
- Blit 3D models as sprites into 2D.
Notice how they have a dedicated 2D engine, no hacks. When I was working with Unity and Unreal a lot of 2D related thins felt like hacks. From what I have read things have improved for Unity and unless I missed something Unreal 2D state seems to be just like when I left it (correct me if I'm wrong).
As I worked my way through their documentation every concept and design decision made sense to me, that was huge and encouraging. It also turned out that Godot has a lot of built-in tools that eliminate the need to use external tools. I honestly wish I had ran into Godot sooner but Godot is very young, which is great because they have accomplished so much already.
I know this post is all over the place but hopefully as I write more I will get better at it. If I think of anything else I will update this post with more information. If you are on the fence about Godot willnationsdev.wordpress.com is a good read as well as Godot site.