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).<p>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...
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.<p>We walked me through the whole process and it is amazing the whole system is free.
Here is my personal opinion about Godot vs Unity.<p>Background Unity:<p>- I've used Unity for small to medium sized commercial industry projects (3D, VR Tours etc.).<p>- I've used Unity for a 2D Gamejam.<p>- Various Unity research projects.<p>Background Godot:<p>- I've started using Godot v2.1 with little preparation successfully on two Game jams (2D) [1]<p>- 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.<p>- I am currently working on a bigger 2D game in Godot 3.0.<p>This is my <i>personal</i> 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).<p>However it has drawbacks compared to Godot, especially for 2D which is my main focus:<p>- 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.<p>- 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.<p>- (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.<p>- 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.<p>- 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.<p>- 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.<p>- 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.<p>- 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.<p>I was quite surprised myself that Godot boosted my productivity so much as compared to former workflows.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>[1] Small Godot based Game jam projects: <a href="https://itch.io/profile/stateoff" rel="nofollow">https://itch.io/profile/stateoff</a><p>[2] Personal benchmark of GDNativeScript: <a href="https://twitter.com/StateOffGames/status/944878511801753601" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/StateOffGames/status/944878511801753601</a>
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.
SimulaVR (Linux VR Desktop written in Haskell) is currently in the process of integrating Godot into its rendering loop.<p>In order to do that we've been making Haskell FFI bindings for the Godot API. If anyone's interested check out: <a href="https://GitHub.com/SimulaVR/Simula" rel="nofollow">https://GitHub.com/SimulaVR/Simula</a>
I'm keen to try Godot.<p>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.
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!
Looks great! I've heard of Godot quite a bit and have been meaning to check it out.<p>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!<p>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.
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.
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.<p>Godot is also the first project I've ever given Patreon funding for.
I read most of that press release with no idea if Godot was a real thing or if it was an eloborate riff on <i>Waiting for Godot</i><p>It took clicking around their site a bit to realize it's actually a real thing. I think.
re: "The Gambling Industry is Largely Moving to Godot."<p>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?