If you're going to use Godot's animation player, be sure to not mess with the position of the root Node, as this affects it's global position. I did this to make a key door open, but then the reset set it to 0 and I was confused as every manual movement of the key door kept putting it back to the top left of the scene, I was going insane. Only change positions of child nodes, as this position is relative to the root node.
yeah when i first started using Godot and was trying to make my character shoot lasers i felt like tearing my hair out as the lasers kept spawning at the wrong side of the character. when i found out the solution, i was beyond pissed cause i took weeks off from the project cause of that.
As mentioned in the "Learning and Community" chapter of your video, the abundance of tutorials created by content creators is certainly a compelling reason to learn it.
I recommend taking the game you want to make, and breaking it down into different small projects. Learn how to solve the specific problems, and then you can save that as a system to use in all of your future work or to improve on as you learn more. Cheers and GLHF!
I've found that most people learn the most efficiently by completing several small projects in different genres; as you said, it forces you to solve specific problems you wouldn't otherwise encounter. I like the game jam method where you give yourself maybe 3-5 days to make a small game (the short deadline will keep the scope under control).
Thanks for the advice. I think you may find my next update interesting because I'm talking more about how I plan to break it down and combine things. I've already started some of the work around it already and hearing this, I'm realising there's a fair bit of overlap in the thinking. I'd be really interested in your thoughts on the approach I'm taking to planning it all.
I've done this kind of research for years for many engines. At this point I'm pretty convinced the only reason anyone should use GameMaker is because they've already used it for years and don't feel like learning a different engine. Godot isn't perfect but I think it is more or less making all other 2D engines irrelevant. I'd even say the same thing about Unity but they have such a huge user base it'll take a lot longer. Unless Godot makes a ridiculous amount of progress in 3D, Unreal is probably safe for a long long time. Probably the only reason to not choose Godot at this point is if you are really really going for some kind of low level, highly optimized, code first experience. Then there are things like Orx, SDL, etc... that make a little more sense than trying to hack on Godot's engine IMO. But most people will just be making standard games and it is hard to beat Godot's feature set in the first place but when you add on the open source and completely free aspect... kind of makes it a no brainer for most projects IMO. There is also the caveat of no official or free console support, but IF you make it that far there are options so doesn't seem like it should be a deal breaker. And even though that probably made me sound like a big Godot fanboy, I've actually done everything I can to convince myself not to use Godot for some reason I can't even explain. I tried my best to get into Defold especially. I 'committed' to using Orx but have been fighting myself about that lately. So it is just getting harder and harder for me to deny the Godot allure.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience in game engine research. This was a really interesting read, also pretty validating that I've likely made the best decision I could have. I did enjoy that you revealed at the end that you convinced yourself not to use it, but are you being slowly turned to the dark side that is Godot? Do you think that'll be your next project?
@@TheInfiniteInkwell I do think you made a good decision. :) I am almost definitely going to use Godot for my next project. Also considering porting my current project over. :D
In regards to Godot documentation, something you might find helpful is that you can open in-engine documentation for every node in the engine.(Right click a node in the node tree to see what I mean, make sure to keep a eye on what nodes inherent from others as they can share methods and signals.) you can also hold ctrl and left click a method to open the documentation entry for it. This won't always tell you explicitly how to do something specific, but it should help you have the tools to develop your own way of doing things.
- RAM Usage: While Godot's default builds can be larger, especially for smaller games. GameMaker's efficiency is commendable in this regard. - Software Resource Usage: GameMaker's game-like interface can indeed utilize GPU resources, Godot is light in this space. - Building experience: GameMaker clear winner, Good luck compiling your game for Switch on Godot. - 2D Sprites: Hands down GameMaker is a best for creating or using any sprites whether its animated or not. - Learning Resources: Both Godot and GameMaker have a growing community and resources. While Godot might have a slight advantage in terms of TH-cam tutorials due to its popularity, both have sufficient documentation and online support. - Coding: Godot is like using a Tool to make games, GameMaker's event-based approach can be more accessible to beginners. - Particles: Godot and GameMaker have robust particle systems. However, Godot's particle editor and scripting capabilities might provide more granular control for advanced particle effects.
Or to keep getting into feature-creep. Both of which was the curse of Duke Nukem Forever with it's 12-year development hell for George Broussard and his team.
Couldn't agree more. This is why my next step around planning, is so important. My game design document helped me with that a bit initially, but I think this will help me properly define some elements.
@@TheInfiniteInkwell as for many others, I decided to switch after the fees debacle. With Godot, I've found an environment that IMHO is much more consistent and that I personally like more in every aspect
I’m a GDevelop user and that’s good open source alternative to Game Maker. Going to start learning Godot this fall, because we’re starting to make a big RPG project with another dev. GDevelop is very good, but it feels like complex systems are easier to handle in Godot.
I would suggest working on a smaller project first before diving into making your main game. Maybe try competing in a game jam or working on a small game over the course of a week. Its helpful to work through a small project to give you an idea of how tackle combining multiple systems. Tutorials usually only go over one system at a time so many people get confused when they try to put it all together. I actually spent 4 years working on a game I thought I would finish in a few months because as the project got more complex, it became difficult to troubleshoot simple issues and then I ended up rewriting thousands of lines of code to implement a new feature because I didn't write my code to be modular. I would also suggest setting up your steam page as soon as possible. Believe me, Its not something you want to wait until the end to do.
Thanks for sharing your experience - I really appreciate it. That's a killer having to redo all that. It's so upsetting when that happens. I had considered a smaller title, but I think my concept should work quite well - especially when it comes to modularity and reusability. I have to modularise a lot of the work I do for my job, so it was a bit of a given in my approach when I started thinking about this. I'm going to share a little bit more on how I'm going to chunk up the game's development in and the planning in my next video. I've already started to do it on paper, but need to flesh it out a bit more before I share it.
@@TheInfiniteInkwell Neat ! Still , that's a nice advice, it will give you more exp, plus, you mightend up meeting problem you never thought of, and earn info from that you could use in your game ;) Plus it'sa great way to keep motivated since in jams you get your result fast
Congratulations on choosing Godot Engine. It's interesting that not so long ago there was criticism that Godot was lacking in tutorials and community help. One of the problems with the FB group that I see is that some beginners over use it (multiple posts in short succession about their specific problems) to ask basic questions that are exposed to the entire community diluting the enjoyment of seeing interesting posts showcasing game progress etc. This is different to the forum where we can scan topics to read what peaks our interest. The Discourse server is probably worse where all messages are stacked up and scrolled (so I never go there). There was a Godot Q&A site where I got most of my answers to difficult problems that I was misunderstanding, and now those topics have been migrated to the forums.
Thanks! That's a bit of a shame the FB group has gone that way. I'm on the Discord server but I haven't done much digging yet. What I have found really helpful has been people's comments here on TH-cam when I've had issues in videos and also Reddit - so surprising good. I've found other people with similar issues and people have assisted pretty regularly. I wasn't a big Reddit fan until the last year and I've found some parts of it are great (I do realise there are dark places on there though).
I worked through Clear Codes entire video, also warning theres 2 videos. I think the 2nd one is a bit shorter but it's still some hours. Anyway at the end of it all the 1 and only issue I had that I couldn't figure out how to fix was with the skeleton animations throwing a boat load of errors. Everything still seemed to function but the errors were defiantly there. Anyway overall in my opinion it's a great course to work through.
You will do great, Will look forward to future updates on your game and your experience. I also use Godot, love the engine, love the community and love that it's open source.
I've been using Game Maker for 20 years and I love it so I can't switch but long term viability sure had me worried. There's just this couple features of Godot that makes me jalous.
@@jobiej7416 Heartbeast's book is good but it is a bit outdated on old versions of game maker... As Inkwell said there is not as many youtubers but the documentation has at least an example for every functions.
Im brand new to game development (minus creating some projects in rpg maker mv which doesnt count cause ya know theres no coding required whatsoever) and ive been having the same struggle of bouncing around trying to find the perfect engine thats a mix of not too overly complicated but powerful enough to expand with and I went from Godot to gamemaker but gamemaker seems more complicated than it needs to be when it comes to creating simple things like ui you have to have code draw the ui ect it was just too much and the system is overly complicated when it comes to setting basic things like collisions. So im back with Godot. I just finished the GD Quest Zero to Beginner Learn Gd script Web app. Its an interactive way to learn the basics of Gd script, I now have a basic understanding of Functions, variables, data types ect. Still struggling on the more advanced things like dictionaries and arrays but ill get there! I recommend doing the interactive app its amazing for getting a grasp on the basics!
Plus with Gamemaker since it's so old 98% of the tutorials you find are outdated and no longer are useful as you can't follow along because the code no longer works which makes it incredibly difficult to learn anything. For example every single Shaun spalding tutorial is outdated and can't be used as learning material because the code doesn't work anymore.
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll take a look at that course. I learnt a lot from my test level and I'm excited to learn more. The thing for me was knowing roughly what I wanted to build and finding an engine that would let me build it. The game design document helped me a lot in learning ion what I wanted to make and the things I'd need to consider.
I am excited to see what you come up with in Godot. Thanks for sharing. I run Unreal Engine, and my computer is strong. Lately, I've been experimenting with Godot and Unity to see which one will work best for 2D games. You can make 2D games in Unreal, so there is a chance I might just stick with it. We will see.
@@ian_the_demon4713 True make sense, currently wanted to learn programming which is why I was playing around with Godot and Unity but love the work flow of Unreal Engine 5 better. Another reason to mess with it is because the tile drawing is better atm from Godot and Unity versus UE5 which is limited.
Thanks so much! I think because my machine couldn't run even UE 4, I had to opt out of it. If you're comfortable with it definitely keep building with it. The only thing that might be worth considering is how heavy it can be, if you're looking at your 2D game being a little lighter-weight and more accessible for different hardware.
Funny you say GM was less stable. I tried GD from 3.5.1 on and no matter which version I tried, i was able to destroy the project files to a point that they would not load back in or properties of nodes disappeared. By copying scenes, by simply switching quality modes, by copying nodes to a new scene, etc. When I read several times from other users that they needed to dive into the project files with text editor to fix their similar problems, I knew that GD wasn’t for me. I want to create games, not fight editor bugs.
Im new to game engine, ive tried unreal and i was so lost in it. Godot IS AMAZING and i already made really small game less than a week that Brackeys made in tutorial. I feel like i can actually learn it so easily and make huge game.
This might sound insane, but have you considered even *trying* going even lower level and trying something like C and raylib? You're going to have to do a lot of learning of Godot and its language anyway, so not much different and C would be a lot more useful. Even if you just throw it away and go back to Godot, it might be fun seeing under the hood at least.
I have had quite a few people suggest C & raylib. Most of my next tasks are likely to be design-based, so I may do some digging while I do some of my non-technical tasks. One of the contributing factors to Godot was GDScripts similarity to python. I thought it might work as a good first stepping stone to python later, especially as it seems to be what's most used for data work and a lot of basic automation stuff. Also for a non-technical person like myself, the GUI & feedback from it is incredibly helpful - it helps breakdown some of the barriers I had (probably wrongly) expected from game dev.
GDevelop is great and constantly evolving, but I wouldn’t use it for anything with complex systems like 4X or CRPG. It’s perfect for my current metroidvania-type game project.
When it comes to 2D games, I think GameMaker Studio 2 is a better option. The ability to access any object from any other object gives it a strong advantage later in the development. Additionally, managing the project, finishing, and publishing becomes harder in Godot as your game gains in complexity. This is why we still haven't seen Godot titles achieve the same success as GMS2 games like Hyper Light Drifter, Katana Zero, Undertale, Nuclear Throne, Heartbound, Risk of Rain, etc... That said, for practice or simpler games, you can use any of the two. Especially if you are busy doing other things as well. Both GML and GDScript are fast codding and very forgiving.
Really good choice, I love Godot, but in the end I went with Unreal due to all the fancy tech lol. Also, I only want to do 2.5D and 3D games, so I figured it's a better choice for for me in the long run. Looking forward to what you can create in Godot.
Yeah, I'm happy with my choice. I think it'll be the right one moving forward, especially as it keeps getting better. Ha ha, Fancy tech is always exciting. It's so cool that you're doing 2.5D games in addition to 3D. I really like the style of 2.5D games, and I'd love to do one in the future. I'd be keen to see what you make. Thanks for coming on the journey-I'm genuinely excited now I've got my engine sorted.
@@TheInfiniteInkwell Thanks, going stick around for sure. As a side-note, I wonder if you meant 3D environments with 2D sprites as a 2.5D game. My game is full 3D but played on a 2D plane hence why I wrote 2.5D (It's called that in the industry afaik). Square Enix calls 3D environments with 2D sprites 2D HD. (But maybe that's exactly what you meant and you can disregard all that I wrote lol.)
@@adventurousdrake4071 Thank you! That sounds pretty cool from a design perspective, what are you working on? Actually I kinda meant both with 2.5D. I see them as different interpretations of the same thing - if that makes sense. Metroid Dread I'd probably call a 2.5D game, same with Paper Mario. This may be down to my interpretation though. I think Square Enix is confused on a good many things, I'd defo call that 2.5D.
I tried game maker about 6 years ago and it was great until the game got too large. I don't know about now but back then building a small game was okay but as the game got bigger it was impossible for me to manage.
Don't believe the hype when it comes to visual scripting, you have to learn how to use those just like any other language. I'm a fan of both UE and Godot but Blueprint is no easier than GD script. Personally I think GD script might be a little easier, because you just write stuff instead of having to figure out which node to use and where and how to connect it. As for price though, Godot is only free if you stay with PC and Mobile. If you go to console , Game maker seems to be considerably cheaper. But really, all that matters is that you make games, the more you learn the easier it will be to transfer your knowledge from one engine to the next.
Yeah, I think the visual editor was a little bit of a nice to have to a complete newbie mindset. I think now I've tried some of the basics, I can see how simple it can be to use GDScript but I'm expecting that to fade pretty quickly 😂 Yeah I think console was a bit of a pipe dream, but nice to know I could. Especially as I think the SteamDeck is such a booming device for a lot of gamers now, which will be fine with Godot. But I just wanna tell some stories and have some fun. Thanks so much for your words of wisdom. Lets go make games!
It's clear that you are in the starting phase of your journey. You really really really don't want to over think this.The true strengths and weaknesses of a tool and workflow will be most meaningful when you are deep into your project. And I could be wrong but it seems like you are setting out to work on a project you have had in mind for a really long time. IF that's the case, I would strongly advice that you do other many mini projects to quickly get familiar with the game engines. I had initially thought gamemaker was a quick and simple tool to use and had no complications compared to unity about a decade back. But the larger my project got, the more frustrating it was to update and maintain it. You are going to run across these things only after you have had experience. So again. I would not over think this and I would just jump straight into making games. Comparing engines makes no sense when you have not put milage into both.
Unreal Engine indeed requires a monster computer a la ASUS ROG or similar gaming rig to run while Godot in contrast can run on even my mobile phone no problem.
I would challenge the assumption that 3D is a lot more work, id say that entirely depends on what style of 3D you are going with. You get a lot of stuff "for free" when it comes to aesthetics with 3D like more accurate lighting. For me making 3D games is a lot less hard than it would be making a 2D game, also because I can't draw much at all, but I can model. Also, don't want to sound like a gatekeeper or elitist, but it is merit to the whole "learn computer science first", at least a little bit. Because no matter what tooling they slap on top of things and things they try to make non coder friendly, you are making a computer game. So it would be good to learn a bit about what is actually going on and the tech and logic behind certain things, It would be a bit like learning to paint fantastic portraits with oil painting having never learned about art 101, composition, color, light or even brush techniques and how to use your brushes to get the desired result.
I think that's fair. I think 3D modelling felt a lot more alien to me over creating something flat (likely pixel based), which felt more accessible, as I think I could get away with a bit more. I think it was more that Godot led with it, where no other engine I approached did. I kinda agree with you about the understanding of how things work, but I think it's something I can pick up as I go if I think I need it, but I don't think it's necessarily needed before I start, which I found as I built out my test levels for Godot & GameMaker. But I do agree it will be helpful to get some of the basics at some point.
Gdevelope is a 100$ 2d-only game engine. You could of course use pre-rendered 3d graphics, but your games themselves will exist only in the x and y axes. It doesn't compile the games - it just adds wrappers so each OS can run the HTML5 game it creates. That means it runs much, much slower than other engines that do compile games. The Windows and Linux versions of GDevelop can each compile a native application; but the Windows version cannot compile for Linux, nor vice versa.
Unfortunately I don't think it had the features to allow me to deliver against what's in my Game Design Document, I did take a brief look at it after all the recommendations though.
@@TheInfiniteInkwell I found it very interesting because as a godot newbie myself, I was surprised on how fast I could learn it and make my own 3D game in not even a week! Big thanks to Brackeys first 2d game tutorial. So if I were to give a piece of advice, try learning the engine's basics and after that find what feature you want to learn by googling or searching for tutorials (for me it was for making 3D environments, ai and the lightings). GDscript is also very easy and this is coming from a guy who was used to visual programming, I started off from making visual scripting and after switching to godot, I've fell in love with GDscript and how simple it is although some parts did irritate me like the code won't showing me the autocorrect thingy but it's so far so good. If i were to give an advice for GDscript as well is to learn the basics of coding such as if and else (or match case if you're fancy), while loops, variables and for loops. From there you can learn all the nitty-gritty things such as arrays, exports and all the fun stuff I'm still trying to learn In my opinion, Licensed software are pretty overrated considering the many free and open-source options. That's why i love when there are software like godot and blender because of how intuitive it is yet still being free and open-source. I wouldn't call myself a blender professional but I'm really good at it now. Sorry for my accidental essay, just wanted to give my proper thoughts on the video 😅😅
I have an RTX 4090 and i9 CPU, 128GB Ram, still ditched UNREAL 5. I can make my games 2-3 times faster with Godot, graphics are not everything. People want fun which comes from their imagination, like reading a book always beats the movie. Btw: A failed godot game wastes u months, a failed Unreal game can waste you years to a decade, just saying. Good luck with super realistic graphics, just make sure to be super fast developing anything in time, before you turn 30 and reality sucks ur joy of game design out and u r left tackling other parts of life. Truth can hurt, but its good to point it out.
Roblox is a closed environment, though. You can only sell or play Roblox -games- mods inside Roblox. And, iirc, you can't change the player character models, which is a deal-breaker too for serious game development.
Doesn't Roblox take like 50% of the profits, too? I've watched a video on them a few years back and the conclusion was basically "roblox is profiting off of child labor" (yeah, a bit reactive statement but it was basically that it exploits its developers, who are coincidentally mostly kids).
I hadn't considered using a game engine within a game like Roblox. Given the target audience of Roblox being mostly under 18, I'd be a little concerned by the audience being a little young for my game as the story has more adult themes. I'd probably consider it if I had an idea which felt suitable for the platform, though. Thanks for the suggestion.
@@skaruts oh ok. But he's still wrong. It's a monthly subscription. I pay for the Indie subscription myself. I just don't want people seeing this and being misinformed. But it will probably happen anyways.
@@KungFuChowder GameMaker Pro is a once off payment ($99.99), and GameMaker Enterprise (if you want console support) is a either a monthly or (slightly cheaper) yearly subscription.
Blind leading the blind. Make a game already and figure out where your real concerns should be, because everything you ever talk about is surface level. lol
If you're going to use Godot's animation player, be sure to not mess with the position of the root Node, as this affects it's global position. I did this to make a key door open, but then the reset set it to 0 and I was confused as every manual movement of the key door kept putting it back to the top left of the scene, I was going insane. Only change positions of child nodes, as this position is relative to the root node.
yeah when i first started using Godot and was trying to make my character shoot lasers i felt like tearing my hair out as the lasers kept spawning at the wrong side of the character. when i found out the solution, i was beyond pissed cause i took weeks off from the project cause of that.
please report to godot github so we all dont get that issue in future.
Thanks so much for this. I will keep this in mind.
As mentioned in the "Learning and Community" chapter of your video, the abundance of tutorials created by content creators is certainly a compelling reason to learn it.
Yeah it's almost overwhelming how much exists out there and the quality is also so incredibly good too.
Oh wow, thanks so much for the shout out!
Congrats on landing on Godot, Let's go make some games! 🎉
We got this buddy! 💪💪💪
Picked up godot a couple months ago after years using unity and I have to say, I'm have a blast with it. Great Tool.
That's awesome! What made you switch from Unity? Good luck with your game!
@@TheInfiniteInkwell Same reason as others, the way they do business.
I recommend taking the game you want to make, and breaking it down into different small projects. Learn how to solve the specific problems, and then you can save that as a system to use in all of your future work or to improve on as you learn more. Cheers and GLHF!
I've found that most people learn the most efficiently by completing several small projects in different genres; as you said, it forces you to solve specific problems you wouldn't otherwise encounter.
I like the game jam method where you give yourself maybe 3-5 days to make a small game (the short deadline will keep the scope under control).
Thanks for the advice. I think you may find my next update interesting because I'm talking more about how I plan to break it down and combine things. I've already started some of the work around it already and hearing this, I'm realising there's a fair bit of overlap in the thinking. I'd be really interested in your thoughts on the approach I'm taking to planning it all.
I've done this kind of research for years for many engines. At this point I'm pretty convinced the only reason anyone should use GameMaker is because they've already used it for years and don't feel like learning a different engine. Godot isn't perfect but I think it is more or less making all other 2D engines irrelevant. I'd even say the same thing about Unity but they have such a huge user base it'll take a lot longer. Unless Godot makes a ridiculous amount of progress in 3D, Unreal is probably safe for a long long time. Probably the only reason to not choose Godot at this point is if you are really really going for some kind of low level, highly optimized, code first experience. Then there are things like Orx, SDL, etc... that make a little more sense than trying to hack on Godot's engine IMO. But most people will just be making standard games and it is hard to beat Godot's feature set in the first place but when you add on the open source and completely free aspect... kind of makes it a no brainer for most projects IMO. There is also the caveat of no official or free console support, but IF you make it that far there are options so doesn't seem like it should be a deal breaker. And even though that probably made me sound like a big Godot fanboy, I've actually done everything I can to convince myself not to use Godot for some reason I can't even explain. I tried my best to get into Defold especially. I 'committed' to using Orx but have been fighting myself about that lately. So it is just getting harder and harder for me to deny the Godot allure.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience in game engine research. This was a really interesting read, also pretty validating that I've likely made the best decision I could have.
I did enjoy that you revealed at the end that you convinced yourself not to use it, but are you being slowly turned to the dark side that is Godot? Do you think that'll be your next project?
@@TheInfiniteInkwell I do think you made a good decision. :)
I am almost definitely going to use Godot for my next project. Also considering porting my current project over. :D
In regards to Godot documentation, something you might find helpful is that you can open in-engine documentation for every node in the engine.(Right click a node in the node tree to see what I mean, make sure to keep a eye on what nodes inherent from others as they can share methods and signals.) you can also hold ctrl and left click a method to open the documentation entry for it.
This won't always tell you explicitly how to do something specific, but it should help you have the tools to develop your own way of doing things.
- RAM Usage: While Godot's default builds can be larger, especially for smaller games. GameMaker's efficiency is commendable in this regard.
- Software Resource Usage: GameMaker's game-like interface can indeed utilize GPU resources, Godot is light in this space.
- Building experience: GameMaker clear winner, Good luck compiling your game for Switch on Godot.
- 2D Sprites: Hands down GameMaker is a best for creating or using any sprites whether its animated or not.
- Learning Resources:
Both Godot and GameMaker have a growing community and resources. While Godot might have a slight advantage in terms of TH-cam tutorials due to its popularity, both have sufficient documentation and online support.
- Coding: Godot is like using a Tool to make games, GameMaker's event-based approach can be more accessible to beginners.
- Particles: Godot and GameMaker have robust particle systems.
However, Godot's particle editor and scripting capabilities might provide more granular control for advanced particle effects.
The best way to not develop a game is to flit between engines 😂
Strange, I dont remember commenting this 😂
Or to keep getting into feature-creep. Both of which was the curse of Duke Nukem Forever with it's 12-year development hell for George Broussard and his team.
100%, this was just my evaluation stage. Now I've picked one, I'm doubling down and moving ahead 🤓
Couldn't agree more. This is why my next step around planning, is so important. My game design document helped me with that a bit initially, but I think this will help me properly define some elements.
Nice choice! I'm moving to Godot after years of Unity and I'm loving it
That's great! Good luck with your game - what made you leave Unity?
@@TheInfiniteInkwell as for many others, I decided to switch after the fees debacle. With Godot, I've found an environment that IMHO is much more consistent and that I personally like more in every aspect
I’m a GDevelop user and that’s good open source alternative to Game Maker.
Going to start learning Godot this fall, because we’re starting to make a big RPG project with another dev. GDevelop is very good, but it feels like complex systems are easier to handle in Godot.
I would suggest working on a smaller project first before diving into making your main game. Maybe try competing in a game jam or working on a small game over the course of a week. Its helpful to work through a small project to give you an idea of how tackle combining multiple systems. Tutorials usually only go over one system at a time so many people get confused when they try to put it all together.
I actually spent 4 years working on a game I thought I would finish in a few months because as the project got more complex, it became difficult to troubleshoot simple issues and then I ended up rewriting thousands of lines of code to implement a new feature because I didn't write my code to be modular. I would also suggest setting up your steam page as soon as possible. Believe me, Its not something you want to wait until the end to do.
I agree. This is great advice.
Thanks for sharing your experience - I really appreciate it. That's a killer having to redo all that. It's so upsetting when that happens.
I had considered a smaller title, but I think my concept should work quite well - especially when it comes to modularity and reusability. I have to modularise a lot of the work I do for my job, so it was a bit of a given in my approach when I started thinking about this. I'm going to share a little bit more on how I'm going to chunk up the game's development in and the planning in my next video. I've already started to do it on paper, but need to flesh it out a bit more before I share it.
@@TheInfiniteInkwell Neat ! Still , that's a nice advice, it will give you more exp, plus, you mightend up meeting problem you never thought of, and earn info from that you could use in your game ;) Plus it'sa great way to keep motivated since in jams you get your result fast
Congratulations on choosing Godot Engine. It's interesting that not so long ago there was criticism that Godot was lacking in tutorials and community help. One of the problems with the FB group that I see is that some beginners over use it (multiple posts in short succession about their specific problems) to ask basic questions that are exposed to the entire community diluting the enjoyment of seeing interesting posts showcasing game progress etc. This is different to the forum where we can scan topics to read what peaks our interest. The Discourse server is probably worse where all messages are stacked up and scrolled (so I never go there). There was a Godot Q&A site where I got most of my answers to difficult problems that I was misunderstanding, and now those topics have been migrated to the forums.
Thanks! That's a bit of a shame the FB group has gone that way. I'm on the Discord server but I haven't done much digging yet. What I have found really helpful has been people's comments here on TH-cam when I've had issues in videos and also Reddit - so surprising good. I've found other people with similar issues and people have assisted pretty regularly. I wasn't a big Reddit fan until the last year and I've found some parts of it are great (I do realise there are dark places on there though).
I worked through Clear Codes entire video, also warning theres 2 videos. I think the 2nd one is a bit shorter but it's still some hours. Anyway at the end of it all the 1 and only issue I had that I couldn't figure out how to fix was with the skeleton animations throwing a boat load of errors. Everything still seemed to function but the errors were defiantly there. Anyway overall in my opinion it's a great course to work through.
Thanks so much! That's really useful to know. Also really good to know about that issue - thank you.
really love your videos :D i don't know why, but i do :D your narration style is quite unique i like it.
Thank you so much! That's so nice of you.
the fact you are working on a mac mostly, going with a open source tool like godot makes sense. very informative. keep at it.
Thanks so much! Mac development isn't the most straightforward, but it's not been bad so far.
You will do great, Will look forward to future updates on your game and your experience.
I also use Godot, love the engine, love the community and love that it's open source.
Thanks so much for the support! Glad to meet another member of the Godot community. Lets make great games!
I've been using Game Maker for 20 years and I love it so I can't switch but long term viability sure had me worried. There's just this couple features of Godot that makes me jalous.
Do you resources you can recommend? Maybe courses and books
@@jobiej7416 Heartbeast's book is good but it is a bit outdated on old versions of game maker... As Inkwell said there is not as many youtubers but the documentation has at least an example for every functions.
Interesting feauturewise I wouldn't like to have a pixel/art editing in the engine itself
GameMaker's pricing structure was a non-starter for me. I used GM way back in the days of versions 4, 5, and 6, but not this time around.
Used gamemaker a ton versions 5.1 - 6. There was actually some incredible stuff people were doing back in the day with dll extensions.
@@codebunnies, it's only free for limited use.
Im brand new to game development (minus creating some projects in rpg maker mv which doesnt count cause ya know theres no coding required whatsoever) and ive been having the same struggle of bouncing around trying to find the perfect engine thats a mix of not too overly complicated but powerful enough to expand with and I went from Godot to gamemaker but gamemaker seems more complicated than it needs to be when it comes to creating simple things like ui you have to have code draw the ui ect it was just too much and the system is overly complicated when it comes to setting basic things like collisions. So im back with Godot. I just finished the GD Quest Zero to Beginner Learn Gd script Web app. Its an interactive way to learn the basics of Gd script, I now have a basic understanding of Functions, variables, data types ect. Still struggling on the more advanced things like dictionaries and arrays but ill get there! I recommend doing the interactive app its amazing for getting a grasp on the basics!
Plus with Gamemaker since it's so old 98% of the tutorials you find are outdated and no longer are useful as you can't follow along because the code no longer works which makes it incredibly difficult to learn anything. For example every single Shaun spalding tutorial is outdated and can't be used as learning material because the code doesn't work anymore.
Thanks for the recommendation. I'll take a look at that course. I learnt a lot from my test level and I'm excited to learn more. The thing for me was knowing roughly what I wanted to build and finding an engine that would let me build it. The game design document helped me a lot in learning ion what I wanted to make and the things I'd need to consider.
I am excited to see what you come up with in Godot. Thanks for sharing. I run Unreal Engine, and my computer is strong. Lately, I've been experimenting with Godot and Unity to see which one will work best for 2D games. You can make 2D games in Unreal, so there is a chance I might just stick with it. We will see.
Honestly, if you already use unreal. Stick with unreal, as you said it can do 2d games as well.
@@ian_the_demon4713 True make sense, currently wanted to learn programming which is why I was playing around with Godot and Unity but love the work flow of Unreal Engine 5 better. Another reason to mess with it is because the tile drawing is better atm from Godot and Unity versus UE5 which is limited.
Thanks so much! I think because my machine couldn't run even UE 4, I had to opt out of it. If you're comfortable with it definitely keep building with it. The only thing that might be worth considering is how heavy it can be, if you're looking at your 2D game being a little lighter-weight and more accessible for different hardware.
True. I figure I will experiment with 3D next under UE5 see how that works out for me.
Funny you say GM was less stable. I tried GD from 3.5.1 on and no matter which version I tried, i was able to destroy the project files to a point that they would not load back in or properties of nodes disappeared. By copying scenes, by simply switching quality modes, by copying nodes to a new scene, etc. When I read several times from other users that they needed to dive into the project files with text editor to fix their similar problems, I knew that GD wasn’t for me. I want to create games, not fight editor bugs.
Im new to game engine, ive tried unreal and i was so lost in it. Godot IS AMAZING and i already made really small game less than a week that Brackeys made in tutorial. I feel like i can actually learn it so easily and make huge game.
That's awesome! Good luck with your huge game!
This might sound insane, but have you considered even *trying* going even lower level and trying something like C and raylib? You're going to have to do a lot of learning of Godot and its language anyway, so not much different and C would be a lot more useful. Even if you just throw it away and go back to Godot, it might be fun seeing under the hood at least.
I have had quite a few people suggest C & raylib. Most of my next tasks are likely to be design-based, so I may do some digging while I do some of my non-technical tasks.
One of the contributing factors to Godot was GDScripts similarity to python. I thought it might work as a good first stepping stone to python later, especially as it seems to be what's most used for data work and a lot of basic automation stuff. Also for a non-technical person like myself, the GUI & feedback from it is incredibly helpful - it helps breakdown some of the barriers I had (probably wrongly) expected from game dev.
Todd Howard: "Just upgrade your PC". :D
I'm surprised you didn't give Gdevelop a try.
Unfortunately, I didn't feel it let me do what was in my game design document sadly.
GDevelop is great and constantly evolving, but I wouldn’t use it for anything with complex systems like 4X or CRPG. It’s perfect for my current metroidvania-type game project.
When it comes to 2D games, I think GameMaker Studio 2 is a better option. The ability to access any object from any other object gives it a strong advantage later in the development. Additionally, managing the project, finishing, and publishing becomes harder in Godot as your game gains in complexity. This is why we still haven't seen Godot titles achieve the same success as GMS2 games like Hyper Light Drifter, Katana Zero, Undertale, Nuclear Throne, Heartbound, Risk of Rain, etc...
That said, for practice or simpler games, you can use any of the two. Especially if you are busy doing other things as well. Both GML and GDScript are fast codding and very forgiving.
Really good choice, I love Godot, but in the end I went with Unreal due to all the fancy tech lol. Also, I only want to do 2.5D and 3D games, so I figured it's a better choice for for me in the long run. Looking forward to what you can create in Godot.
Yeah, I'm happy with my choice. I think it'll be the right one moving forward, especially as it keeps getting better. Ha ha, Fancy tech is always exciting. It's so cool that you're doing 2.5D games in addition to 3D. I really like the style of 2.5D games, and I'd love to do one in the future. I'd be keen to see what you make. Thanks for coming on the journey-I'm genuinely excited now I've got my engine sorted.
@@TheInfiniteInkwell Thanks, going stick around for sure. As a side-note, I wonder if you meant 3D environments with 2D sprites as a 2.5D game. My game is full 3D but played on a 2D plane hence why I wrote 2.5D (It's called that in the industry afaik). Square Enix calls 3D environments with 2D sprites 2D HD. (But maybe that's exactly what you meant and you can disregard all that I wrote lol.)
@@adventurousdrake4071 Thank you! That sounds pretty cool from a design perspective, what are you working on?
Actually I kinda meant both with 2.5D. I see them as different interpretations of the same thing - if that makes sense. Metroid Dread I'd probably call a 2.5D game, same with Paper Mario. This may be down to my interpretation though.
I think Square Enix is confused on a good many things, I'd defo call that 2.5D.
I tried game maker about 6 years ago and it was great until the game got too large. I don't know about now but back then building a small game was okay but as the game got bigger it was impossible for me to manage.
It is better now. The 2.3 update a while back fixed most of the issues there.
Don't believe the hype when it comes to visual scripting, you have to learn how to use those just like any other language. I'm a fan of both UE and Godot but Blueprint is no easier than GD script. Personally I think GD script might be a little easier, because you just write stuff instead of having to figure out which node to use and where and how to connect it.
As for price though, Godot is only free if you stay with PC and Mobile. If you go to console , Game maker seems to be considerably cheaper.
But really, all that matters is that you make games, the more you learn the easier it will be to transfer your knowledge from one engine to the next.
Yeah, I think the visual editor was a little bit of a nice to have to a complete newbie mindset. I think now I've tried some of the basics, I can see how simple it can be to use GDScript but I'm expecting that to fade pretty quickly 😂
Yeah I think console was a bit of a pipe dream, but nice to know I could. Especially as I think the SteamDeck is such a booming device for a lot of gamers now, which will be fine with Godot. But I just wanna tell some stories and have some fun. Thanks so much for your words of wisdom. Lets go make games!
For what it's worth: I approve of your choice
Why thank you 🤩
i chose Godot the game you make is yours and the money you make is yours
It's clear that you are in the starting phase of your journey. You really really really don't want to over think this.The true strengths and weaknesses of a tool and workflow will be most meaningful when you are deep into your project. And I could be wrong but it seems like you are setting out to work on a project you have had in mind for a really long time. IF that's the case, I would strongly advice that you do other many mini projects to quickly get familiar with the game engines.
I had initially thought gamemaker was a quick and simple tool to use and had no complications compared to unity about a decade back. But the larger my project got, the more frustrating it was to update and maintain it. You are going to run across these things only after you have had experience. So again. I would not over think this and I would just jump straight into making games. Comparing engines makes no sense when you have not put milage into both.
Don't give up!
Me personally I found gadot very hard at coding and making scene scripts.
Congrats! Godot is a great engine!
i always make this question when in a new 2D Project lmao
Unreal Engine indeed requires a monster computer a la ASUS ROG or similar gaming rig to run while Godot in contrast can run on even my mobile phone no problem.
Godot is an awesome choice!
I would challenge the assumption that 3D is a lot more work, id say that entirely depends on what style of 3D you are going with. You get a lot of stuff "for free" when it comes to aesthetics with 3D like more accurate lighting. For me making 3D games is a lot less hard than it would be making a 2D game, also because I can't draw much at all, but I can model.
Also, don't want to sound like a gatekeeper or elitist, but it is merit to the whole "learn computer science first", at least a little bit. Because no matter what tooling they slap on top of things and things they try to make non coder friendly, you are making a computer game. So it would be good to learn a bit about what is actually going on and the tech and logic behind certain things, It would be a bit like learning to paint fantastic portraits with oil painting having never learned about art 101, composition, color, light or even brush techniques and how to use your brushes to get the desired result.
I think that's fair. I think 3D modelling felt a lot more alien to me over creating something flat (likely pixel based), which felt more accessible, as I think I could get away with a bit more.
I think it was more that Godot led with it, where no other engine I approached did. I kinda agree with you about the understanding of how things work, but I think it's something I can pick up as I go if I think I need it, but I don't think it's necessarily needed before I start, which I found as I built out my test levels for Godot & GameMaker. But I do agree it will be helpful to get some of the basics at some point.
Good luck!!! Godot is a good choice.
Thanks so much! I'm excited to move forward with it.
Game maker has a lot of bugs on linux so that's why i chose godot over it
I can't install gamemaker actually
You remind me of edward alderson from mr. robot
Can’t believe you didn’t try GDevelop
Gdevelop is mid
Gdevelope is a 100$ 2d-only game engine. You could of course use pre-rendered 3d graphics, but your games themselves will exist only in the x and y
axes.
It doesn't compile the games - it just adds wrappers so each OS
can run the HTML5 game it creates. That means it runs much, much slower
than other engines that do compile games.
The Windows and Linux versions of GDevelop can each compile a native
application; but the Windows version cannot compile for Linux, nor vice
versa.
@@Ehren1337 you have to finish a game first for that to be the problem
@@stephenmackenzie9016 sure lets make 3d game on it..
Unfortunately I don't think it had the features to allow me to deliver against what's in my Game Design Document, I did take a brief look at it after all the recommendations though.
No offense or anything but when I looked at the thumbnail, I thought you were Vsauce
😂 None taken, I don't think I'd noticed the resemblance before. Hopefully you found the video as useful as their content.
@@TheInfiniteInkwell I found it very interesting because as a godot newbie myself, I was surprised on how fast I could learn it and make my own 3D game in not even a week! Big thanks to Brackeys first 2d game tutorial. So if I were to give a piece of advice, try learning the engine's basics and after that find what feature you want to learn by googling or searching for tutorials (for me it was for making 3D environments, ai and the lightings).
GDscript is also very easy and this is coming from a guy who was used to visual programming, I started off from making visual scripting and after switching to godot, I've fell in love with GDscript and how simple it is although some parts did irritate me like the code won't showing me the autocorrect thingy but it's so far so good. If i were to give an advice for GDscript as well is to learn the basics of coding such as if and else (or match case if you're fancy), while loops, variables and for loops. From there you can learn all the nitty-gritty things such as arrays, exports and all the fun stuff I'm still trying to learn
In my opinion, Licensed software are pretty overrated considering the many free and open-source options. That's why i love when there are software like godot and blender because of how intuitive it is yet still being free and open-source. I wouldn't call myself a blender professional but I'm really good at it now.
Sorry for my accidental essay, just wanted to give my proper thoughts on the video 😅😅
Haha well… i can tell you one thing when it comes to gamedev: you‘ll always spend more time learning than doing.
Ha well that doesn't surprise me at all. I'm expecting to be learning through failing ALOT 😂
Use gamemaker DND finish a game you don’t ever have to use code fuck code 😂
I have an RTX 4090 and i9 CPU, 128GB Ram, still ditched UNREAL 5. I can make my games 2-3 times faster with Godot, graphics are not everything. People want fun which comes from their imagination, like reading a book always beats the movie. Btw: A failed godot game wastes u months, a failed Unreal game can waste you years to a decade, just saying. Good luck with super realistic graphics, just make sure to be super fast developing anything in time, before you turn 30 and reality sucks ur joy of game design out and u r left tackling other parts of life. Truth can hurt, but its good to point it out.
Bonus round roblox studio game engine surprisingly very easy simple and smoth please give it a try
Roblox is a closed environment, though. You can only sell or play Roblox -games- mods inside Roblox. And, iirc, you can't change the player character models, which is a deal-breaker too for serious game development.
Doesn't Roblox take like 50% of the profits, too? I've watched a video on them a few years back and the conclusion was basically "roblox is profiting off of child labor" (yeah, a bit reactive statement but it was basically that it exploits its developers, who are coincidentally mostly kids).
@tymondabrowski12 I don't think he is trying to make prophet just wanna tell a story
@skaruts actually you can change character models but most roblox players like it more if they are able to play the character they made
I hadn't considered using a game engine within a game like Roblox. Given the target audience of Roblox being mostly under 18, I'd be a little concerned by the audience being a little young for my game as the story has more adult themes. I'd probably consider it if I had an idea which felt suitable for the platform, though.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Umm...Gamemaker is free there buddy. And a lot of people build 3D in Gamemaker. It is difficult but you can.
It's not free for commercial use, iirc.
@@skaruts
Right. But I don't think he realizes that. He even stated it's a yearly fee which is wrong.
@@KungFuChowder he didn't state that, though. He stated it's a lifelong license at 13:18.
@@skaruts oh ok. But he's still wrong. It's a monthly subscription. I pay for the Indie subscription myself.
I just don't want people seeing this and being misinformed. But it will probably happen anyways.
@@KungFuChowder GameMaker Pro is a once off payment ($99.99), and GameMaker Enterprise (if you want console support) is a either a monthly or (slightly cheaper) yearly subscription.
So, why have you chosen clickbait?
Godot has gone woke, abandon ship.
Blind leading the blind. Make a game already and figure out where your real concerns should be, because everything you ever talk about is surface level. lol