Godot
I want to marry Godot-chan!
Godot is a 2D and 3D capable game engine, featuring a scene editor, its own Python-based scripting language, and a unique node-tree structure for composing scenes. And before you make any clever jokes about the name, that's why it's named Godot in the first place.
Pros and Cons
Godot is a great engine for beginners but is also actually usable for making polished games that look and function like they weren't made in GM or RPG Maker.
Pros
- FOSS - Licensed under the MIT
- 2D and 3D capable - Godot has pixel-precise 2D tools as well as a seperate set of 3D specific tools, all in the same engine. The two can even easily be used together, such as using 2D for a 3D game's HUD.
- Multi-platform - Runs on Win, Lin, and Mac. Also builds to Android and iOS and even support for BSD and Haiku.
- Easy to learn - Features like the scene editor and integrated GDScript make it a good engine for beginner gamedevs or devs who can't into lower-level programming. Gamesfromscratch features excellent tutorials on learning the interface
- Robust 2D Toolset - Godot has a well developed set of base classes for 2D games.
- Easy Networking - Godot has a built in high-level networking API specifically made for multiplayer games, and addons that extend this even further.
- Well designed - Godot is built from the ground up with sensible design choices.
- Multi-language - It is possible to code any resource-heavy classes in Godot in C++ or C# (version 3), and there are multiple language bindings for the base engine if you dislike GDScript
- Excellent Renderer - Godot v3 features an industry standard renderer using physics based shading with realtime global illumination, making it capable of rendering graphics that don't look more than a decade old. Looks sexy as hell though.
Cons
- Sub-par Documentation - While Godot's docs have improved over the years from what it was, you are likely to encounter gaps or sparse descriptions about what a function does or how it does it.
- Underdeveloped 3D Toolset - Godot's 3D toolset is functional, though still unfinished in some places.
- Slow development - Haw haw "Waiting for Godot" amirite? Godot is programmed by something like three Argentinian game devs in their spare time, so updates are infrequent, though surprisingly steady.
- GDScript is slow - Like Python from which is was closely derived, GDScript is a very high level language which makes it typically slow. Performance improvements over the years have improved it's speed and in most cases this isn't a problem, but for any resource intensive code you will need to write the classes in C++ and use GDNative. This is less of a problem when you build your project and all your GDScript is compiled, but you'll still feel it during prototyping.
Important Notes
- Godot comes in two usable versions right now- v3 and v4. v3.4 is the latest stable release that is intended for use in actual game production. v4 remains in active unstable development, and when stable, will have much improved 3d tools and rendering. Much of 4.0's features are getting backported into v3.5 regularly. v3.5 is still unstable, but when it is released all of the 3.4 devs will be able to upgrade without breaking their projects, something that's not available with v4.0.
External links
Resources
page revision: 23, last edited: 08 May 2022 05:10