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[Dacvak]

With Unity shitting the bed on all fronts, a lot of smaller devs are looking for alternative game engines, specifically with overlapping features of Unity. Currently, there are two major paths to travel down, those being Unreal Engine and Godot.

While UE5 has a vast, insanely powerful, and versatile functionality set with some of the most forward-thinking tech available in the industry, there are still a few issues for newer and indie devs. The first being that it’s SO robust and complex that it can absolutely be overwhelming even for seasoned devs. The second is that, being owned by a mega corp like Epic, there’s no guarantee that they won’t ever pull similar Unity policy nonsense in the future.

On the flip side of things, Godot is completely open source, lightweight, and very easy to learn. That comes at the cost of polish, cutting-edge functionality, and some versatility, though. But, from what I can tell, a lot of indie devs are already flocking to Godot, warts and all.

Being an open source engine, it sort of reminds me of the earlier days of Blender, and how janky it once was. Now it’s an industry standard.

So, what does DevGAF think of Godot? Does anyone here have any significant experience?

 

[Topher]

G Godot25 is ok.

 

[Dacvak]

G Godot25 is ok.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

I'll be doing some stuff in unreal soon, but I'm def gonna take a look at Godot as well down the line, it looks interesting.

 

[Holammer]

Interesting thought, if more developers adopt Godot and contribute code & tools to the project it could very well become the next Blender.
Here are two excellent games using the engine.





Just got HoT myself, because everyone and their dog recommends it AND it's a Godot title. It's a perfect mix of Diablo and Vampire Survivors. Art even looks like it was rendered in early versions of 3D Studio.

 

[ReBurn]

After playing a couple of indies built with Godot I am impressed with what people have been able to do with it. The Unity stuff had me wondering.

 

[64bitmodels]

I like Godot because it's so simple to just get working. There's no launchers or installation. You download the EXE and then you have a working game engine. Why can't others be like that?

 

[RoboFu]

It's alright but its not port friendly and there is no official way to export to the consoles. You have to go through 3rd parties.
the NODE aspect can be weird as well.

But if all you want to do is make a PC game. you could do worse.

 

[Sephimoth]

I do plan to check it out sometime, but I've just got comfy with Unity- annoying how that worked out.

 

[64bitmodels]

On the flip side of things, Godot is completely open source, lightweight, and very easy to learn. That comes at the cost of polish, cutting-edge functionality, and some versatility, though. But, from what I can tell, a lot of indie devs are already flocking to Godot, warts and all.

That's cuz Godot is 9 years old. Unity is 9 years older than it, and Unreal has been around since the 90s.

It's a (relatively) new project and as the years go by and demand for it increases, the engine will improve to get on the level of (or even surpass) Unity. Being open source means literally anyone can contribute and improve it, so I can imagine it'll improve quite quickly.

 

[midnightAI]

I'll just stick with Unity, best solution for my game and their new financial model shouldnt affect me too much if at all.

 

[EviLore]

Godot is cool.

Generally speaking, though, free open source tools rarely replace commercial ones. If Unity is replaced it'll be by another commercial product with the resources to build out features competitively.

 

[ShadowLag]

I started getting into Godot semi-seriously a few months ago, before all this Unity junk started happening. My goal was to make the same game I had already made in Unity, from scratch, in Godot - to see how comparable they are.

Godot is better than Unity in practically every single way that matters to me. No installation, everything you actually need is built-in and yet there's zero bloat, there's no "choose your graphics pipeline addon" - it's all one core system; graphics are more than good enough for indie purposes in both 2D and 3D, GDScript is so much better than C# for writing game code that it feels like cheating, and more.

The only downsides currently would be the occasional re-occurrence of bugs that've already been fixed (due to the open source nature of things), and at times it can be a little wonky with your GPU drivers. I'd like them to improve the audio engine too, but that's just me being picky with a half-finished game.

Good riddance to Unity IMHO, they lost their way a long time ago (the user posts on their own forums are evidence of that).

TLDR; Godot is not missing anything from Unity that I personally need, it's all there, and it's easier and faster.

 

[rofif]

 

[64bitmodels]

Godot is cool.

Generally speaking, though, free open source tools rarely replace commercial ones. If Unity is replaced it'll be by another commercial product with the resources to build out features competitively.

I think there's an opportunity, here. This isn't an AA/AAA dev problem: they have the resources to keep using Unreal without hassle. These are indie devs we're talking here, & after an event like this, they're more likely to think twice about proprietary engines.

Not to mention how much "decentralization" and "open source" as terms have blown up in the tech space: advertising your engine like that is sure to get attention

 

[Dacvak]

I think there's an opportunity, here. This isn't an AA/AAA dev problem: they have the resources to keep using Unreal without hassle. These are indie devs we're talking here, & after an event like this, they're more likely to think twice about proprietary engines.

Not to mention how much "decentralization" and "open source" as terms have blown up in the tech space: advertising your engine like that is sure to get attention

I keep drawing parallels to Blender. It was a long, long road, but it’s now reasonably competent, even for most commercial use. That space is a little different than IDEs, but I think it’s wild how popular and useful it’d become.

Of course, then there’s something like GIMP, which has existed for 400 years and is still ass. So…

 

[The Cockatrice]

At least future boomer shooters from New Blood will stop using Unity, maybe. Obviously already in development games are prolly not going to drop it, but I think anyone starting a project now wont risk it. Will they use godot? Who knows, it's been increasing in popularity and its far better than most assume it is

 

[MAtgS]

He's got good taste in coffee.

 

[NanaMiku]

 

[DemonGamerTTT]

Long Live open source. I really really really hope Godot gain more market share with this.

 

[RoboFu]

Well another thing is people are waiting for Godot to go 4.0 in LTS.
Right now it’s 3.0 and it’s old OpenGL only. 4.0 is using Vulkan but it doesnt yet have all the features of 3.0. But supposedly soon.

 

[64bitmodels]

I keep drawing parallels to Blender. It was a long, long road, but it’s now reasonably competent, even for most commercial use.

I was thinking of Blender myself. While it won't overtake 3DS Max in the corporate space, basically everywhere else everyone uses it because it just works, and it's really powerful when you put in the effort.

There's also Krita & Notepad++ which is decently popular and used, and is also open source.

 

[64bitmodels]

At least future boomer shooters from New Blood will stop using Unity, maybe. Obviously already in development games are prolly not going to drop it, but I think anyone starting a project now wont risk it. Will they use godot? Who knows, it's been increasing in popularity and its far better than most assume it is

That video looks insane. Most indies don't need more than that level of 3D capability. And it's only gonna improve with time.

 

[Holammer]

Re-logic, the creators of Terraria are not fans of Unity's latest shenanigans and decided to sponsor Godot and FNA with 100k each and 1k dollar every month moving forward.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

Worth a read

Godot: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Impressions after one week in the engine

web.archive.org

 

[Deerock71]

The One True Godot.

 

[Spukc]

why are all these nerds talking about an engine?

only gadot engine that counts

 

[Maiden Voyage]

I've been toying with a few ideas to make some quick and relatively simple proof of concept games as a fun side hobby. Godot popped on my radar for this. Looking at their starter guide, they recommend taking the Harvard CS50 online course. Enrolled today and begun my week 0 course. I'm hoping to use this thread to help keep myself accountable.

If anyone wants to join me, the course is free and can be joined here:

CS50: Introduction to Computer Science | Harvard University

An introduction to the intellectual enterprises of computer science and the art of programming.

pll.harvard.edu

 

[Maiden Voyage]

First game done. Holy shit Scratch sucks. But I do understand why they start you with it. I spent more time trying to figure out how to do things, only to realize it's not possible with the limitations of the engine than I did actually building.

Anyway, next week is C so hopefully I can make something a bit better.

 

[Crayon]

If anyone has ever been interested in coding at all, which includes if you've ever been interested in making a game because you cannot get around it, try this for 2 hours..

https://gdquest.github.io/learn-gdscript/

 

[bad guy]

I'd love to switch to Godot, but I'm so (relatively) good at using Gamemaker Studio 1 now, I fear having to learn so much again and don't have that much free time to do so. I can bang out games pretty quick in Gamemaker so I'd rather do that than learn another program and am not interested in 3D.

I need to finish them Havard CS50 vids one day, stopped somewhere in the middle

Might have to force myself to give Godot a good try, PICO8 to was a fun and educational experience even though it's too restrictive for me. Also I'm more of an artist and gamedesigner than a programmer, so I like Gamemakers n00b friendliness.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

I'd love to switch to Godot, but I'm so (relatively) good at using Gamemaker Studio 1 now, I fear having to learn so much again and don't have that much free time to do so. I can bang out games pretty quick in Gamemaker so I'd rather do that than learn another program and am not interested in 3D.

I need to finish them Havard CS50 vids one day, stopped somewhere in the middle

Might have to force myself to give Godot a good try, PICO8 to was a fun and educational experience even though it's too restrictive for me. Also I'm more of an artist and gamedesigner than a programmer, so I like Gamemakers n00b friendliness.

Did you do the problem sets? I’m curious how intense they get. I was surprised by the “homework” for week 0. I had no issue meeting the minimum requirements but I wanted to make something with more features. My hope is to test out some systems and mechanics now before I get to Godot.

 

[bad guy]

Did you do the problem sets? I’m curious how intense they get. I was surprised by the “homework” for week 0. I had no issue meeting the minimum requirements but I wanted to make something with more features. My hope is to test out some systems and mechanics now before I get to Godot.

No I didn't do the CS50 homework.
I won't hurt to try to jump into Godotright straight away. What worked well for me (with GameMaker) was watching YouTube a tutorial of the main functions of Gamemaker and a few how-tos of very simple games like breakout and astroids. I'm sure there are videos like that for Godot too.

Then start with the most simple and tiny games (googling problems/solutions along the way), or you'll get frustrated and give up. Then slowly work your way up to more complicated games.

 

[Krathoon]

Yeah. I am going to have to get savvy with Godot.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Problem Set 1 done.

Here's a run down of the problems to solve:
We had had 3 problems to submit:
1) simple hello program demonstrating we understand input and output values (ask user their name and repeat it back to them)
2) Two versions, only need to submit one:

a) easy: Have user define number of rows and bricks, recreating a Super Mario Bros style pyramid, using hashes (#) for bricks including leading spaces.​

If the user inputs 8, it would look like this:​

       #
      ##
     ###
    ####
   #####
  ######
 #######
########

b) hard: same as above, but adding 2 spaces and then replicating the same number of bricks across (using an input value of 3 here for simplicity sake:​

       #  #
      ##  ##
     ###  ###
    ####  ####

3) Two versions, only need to submit one:

a) easy: Using as few coins as possible (American currency here so quarters .25, dimes .10, nickels .05, and pennies .01), display the number of coins a person would receive based on a users input value.​

ie: if a user inputs 70, return value would be 4 (2 quarters and 2 dimes); input 113, output 8 (4 quarters, 1 dime, and 3 pennies)​

b) hard: using Luhn algorithm, perform a checksum on a user input value to determine if the credit card number is valid. If valid, determine by length of characters and starting digits whether the card is a master card, visa, or amex. Display the output as either the correct card or as invalid.​

​

I wound up doing every problem set variation because I want to challenge my comprehension and be better able to retain the lessons. I tend to find that the hard fought a lesson is, the more it sticks in my memory.

Looking forward to the next lesson

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Shared this over at Friday OT in off topic but got the next problem set done. Arrays are cool and I had no idea how easy they would be to parse and manipulate. This opens a ton of possibilities.

if anyone is reading this out in the future, my advice is to give the optional hard problems a real chance. They're not so difficult but there is no handholding with them, so it really forces you to ensure your comprehension of the material. In some cases, you can be reusing some code from the previous problems to help.

Next up is algorithms. I'm excited to get to python and javascript, as it seems like these are more viable than c itself.

Also tempted to give code academy a go afterward and simultaneously once I start learning Godot proper. I am finding myself really enjoying the logic puzzle approach of coding in general.

Learn to Code - for Free | Codecademy

Learn the technical skills to get the job you want. Join over 50 million people choosing Codecademy to start a new career (or advance in their current one).

www.codecademy.com

 

[hyperbertha]

I've been toying with a few ideas to make some quick and relatively simple proof of concept games as a fun side hobby. Godot popped on my radar for this. Looking at their starter guide, they recommend taking the Harvard CS50 online course. Enrolled today and begun my week 0 course. I'm hoping to use this thread to help keep myself accountable.

If anyone wants to join me, the course is free and can be joined here:

CS50: Introduction to Computer Science | Harvard University

An introduction to the intellectual enterprises of computer science and the art of programming.

pll.harvard.edu

What languages can you program with on godot?

 

[Maiden Voyage]

What languages can you program with on godot?

GDScript, C# natively. Can add on C and C++

Programming languages​

Let's talk about the available programming languages.

You can code your games using GDScript, a Godot-specific and tightly integrated language with a lightweight syntax, or C#, which is popular in the games industry. These are the two main scripting languages we support.

With the GDExtension technology, you can also write gameplay or high-performance algorithms in C or C++ without recompiling the engine. You can use this technology to integrate third-party libraries and other Software Development Kits (SDK) in the engine.

Of course, you can also directly add modules and features to the engine, as it's completely free and open source.

Introduction to Godot

This article is here to help you figure out whether Godot might be a good fit for you. We will introduce some broad features of the engine to give you a feel for what you can achieve with it and an...

docs.godotengine.org

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Well, this week sucked. I can't for the life of me figure out the hard problem set called Tideman. I've watched videos on it and still can't comprehend how you're supposed to get to the answer without breaking the instructions rules. Basically every solution I looked at implemented additional functions, which is not allowed. Or they utilized functions or methods we haven't yet been taught, which is also not allowed.

They taught us how do a lot of cool things with arrays but gave no knowledge of how to apply this to 2d arrays, which tideman requires to solve.

This week really deflated my desire to keep going. Not sure yet if I will continue. Sucks because the previous weeks were actually quite good.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Well, this week sucked. I can't for the life of me figure out the hard problem set called Tideman. I've watched videos on it and still can't comprehend how you're supposed to get to the answer without breaking the instructions rules. Basically every solution I looked at implemented additional functions, which is not allowed. Or they utilized functions or methods we haven't yet been taught, which is also not allowed.

They taught us how do a lot of cool things with arrays but gave no knowledge of how to apply this to 2d arrays, which tideman requires to solve.

This week really deflated my desire to keep going. Not sure yet if I will continue. Sucks because the previous weeks were actually quite good.

Seen this one?



I mean, programming exercises suck balls. At university I sometime worked all night on some problems for C++ and it was a lot of trial and error. Barely any relation to what you would eventually do for programming as a hobby / job. Keep it up. It's only a bump on the road.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Seen this one?



I mean, programming exercises suck balls. At university I sometime worked all night on some problems for C++ and it was a lot of trial and error. Barely any relation to what you would eventually do for programming as a hobby / job. Keep it up. It's only a bump on the road.

Yes, he is the only one I saw that seemed to solve the problem correctly. I wound up following his walkthrough afterward to wrap my head around it. Solid work.

Line 177 of his code is specifically where I was stuck. I'm not sure if I just missed it in class, but I did not realize I could just create a pre-defined struct (a 2d array in this case) as a single variable. I kept trying int and it wouldn't work. I didn't even get to the hard part--recursion.

Really annoying that the teacher wouldn't give us more than generic pseudocode that works great if you're not dealing with 2d arrays. I want to figure out bubble sort and merge sort but I am so burnt out on tideman that I think I'd be better suited trying to create my own program to implement it. Something not involving 2d arrays as the very beginning step.

From what I saw online, it seems like tideman is the hardest problem for most students. That makes me feel better, but if the quality of the instruction continues on like this and I don't have resources other than just googling the answer, I can't learn effectively. Then I'm just wasting my time. I'll for sure give next lecture a shot, but I'm skeptical. Maybe the duck will be more helpful on the next problem.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Yes, he is the only one I saw that seemed to solve the problem correctly. I wound up following his walkthrough afterward to wrap my head around it. Solid work.

Line 177 of his code is specifically where I was stuck. I'm not sure if I just missed it in class, but I did not realize I could just create a pre-defined struct (a 2d array in this case) as a single variable. I kept trying int and it wouldn't work. I didn't even get to the hard part--recursion.

Really annoying that the teacher wouldn't give us more than generic pseudocode that works great if you're not dealing with 2d arrays. I want to figure out bubble sort and merge sort but I am so burnt out on tideman that I think I'd be better suited trying to create my own program to implement it. Something not involving 2d arrays as the very beginning step.

From what I saw online, it seems like tideman is the hardest problem for most students. That makes me feel better, but if the quality of the instruction continues on like this and I don't have resources other than just googling the answer, I can't learn effectively. Then I'm just wasting my time. I'll for sure give next lecture a shot, but I'm skeptical. Maybe the duck will be more helpful on the next problem.

If it was just an online course for curiosity then might be worth looking into another way of learning if the program is just typical university boring exercises that try to trap students into way overthinking the actual problem rather than learning.

I had to go through this shit because it was part of the engineering program, « learned » C++, assembly, VHDL and others where teachers would force us to use a program that had no actual previous classes to learn the language. Can’t say I remember much from all this period other than teachers typically suck and don’t want to help.

I also want to learn a bit for gaming on the side as a hobby and Godot is one of my main engine target.

I had bookmarked this guy’s channel in the past as it seemed super interesting, again haven’t had time to try it, but the topic of making your first 3D engine in C (or C++?) is kind of interesting to understand the fundamentals.



The channel itself seems stacked with amazing tutorials, goes into almost all topics.

One thing for sure, in general when you go at those depths, you need a solid mathematical background. Engines handle all that.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Maiden Voyage best of luck. Learning to code can be complicated and I can imagine those excercises being boring as fuck.
I'd advise trying to do something simple on your own, since that will give you more motivation.

Myself, I just started with Godot. I'm used to coding so so far so good, and it seems more feature rich than GameMaker.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

I just spent 2 hours banging my head against the wall trying to get this code to work. Finally realized I had input the wrong digits in my gx and gy arrays....

Anyway.... on to the next problem, recovering jpgs off a memory card that were 'deleted'.

Glad the class and problem sets are more feasible now. I will probably return to tideman and the different sorting algorithms when I wrap up the class. I really want to have the knowledge of bubble and merge sorting in my wheelhouse.

---

e: Finished the last program on the memory problem sets. Weirdly I encountered a memory leaking bug that prevented me from running the application. I guess I took up all the memory in the stack while I was testing. I had to run update50 to get the container to reboot so I could actually try again. Only problem was that I did not realize this until a ways into my troubleshooting, so I lost some more time there.

Also, it's kind of weird that we spent so much time learning about memory location and how to manipulate it, then only use it once during the problem sets. Weird to have a lecture on one topic and homework on another.

Anyway, tomorrow I will start the next lesson on data structures.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Thought this would be of interest

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Some deals on Good dev courses

Learn To Make Games in Godot 4 By GameDev.tv

Kickstart your game dev career with these online courses on Godot 4! Make games in 2D & 3D and get a bunch of handy assets. Your purchase helps Kiss the Ground.

www.humblebundle.com