Why did you choose Godot over the many other engines?

Ace_Dragon

This type of thread will eventually come up in software forums in general (why this solution for what they want to do), so I thought it would be good to collect everyone's reasons why they made Godot their solution for making games.

For me, I started making 2D games in GameMaker when I was 14 years old, but in reality I wanted to make games that were 3D (but the 3D solutions back were either just a programming language or very expensive). Over 20 games later, i found that Blender had a game engine and moved over to it.

It turned out that the BGE back in version 2.3x was not that great, it had (mediocre) physics and very limited graphics. I took a break from making games until that engine got an active developer who fixed the bugs and made it into an engine where many things started to just work. I then made full 3D games with it as it ascended to its peak in version 2.49.

Starting in version 2.59, the BGE started to see a decline in functionality that actually worked, but I at least was able to make games that work until version 2.69. After that, functionality started breaking at a fair clip and it got to where a lot of time was being spent fighting bugs, it really sapped the idea of continuing those projects as I didn't know if it will just crash when starting the engine (in a new version) when it worked fine before (this was when its development came almost to a complete stop and was accumulating far more bugs than were being fixed).

It got to the point where the most popular discussions among BGE users was the engine's future, it was to the point where I could no longer defend it because of how broken it became and how many people who wanted to get into the code ultimately ran away from it.

Now for one thing, I didn't want to go to Unity because of how it needed a separate IDE and how you needed to deal with limitations if you got the free version. Another factor was that I didn't want to be dependent on whether Autodesk wanted to make the .fbx format play nice with Blender. That was also a reason against Unreal 4, though the other one then is that it seemed to be a very heavy engine that required a very high-end PC.

Then I remembered a thread about the Godot engine being Open Sourced and went to its website, the first official version in the FOSS era was at RC1 so I decided to give it a shot. After some initial struggle, I liked how easy it was to create game logic with GDscript and how much of the functionality just worked out of the box. I also liked how it had visual tools for things like path creation and how easy it was to make things like material data unique for each instance. Then there was the innovative approach that is removing the line between prefabs and scenes, the insane setup possibilities you can do with them, and the lack of dealing with bugs and how many end up getting fixed (especially when hearing Unity and Unreal becoming known for bugs and users spending a lot of time on workarounds). There were some limitations alright (such as in physics and 3D), but now I'm using a 3.1 development build and the engine is in its best form yet.

A couple years later, I do not regret choosing Godot it when considering how even UPBGE, the last ditch effort to save the engine, has now been abandoned and sealing that solution's fate (replaced by a less game-centric interactive animation/prototyping tool in 2.8).

Phew, what was your reason for choosing Godot, what encouraged you to use it amid the other options that are out there?

Megalomaniak

I like that its got an editor/GUI client that can be extended via plugins/addons. But really I had waited for a usable liberally licensed open source engine for well over a decade, and no Cube2: Sauerbraten¹ and it's derivatives were not it. Who knew all along I had been waiting for godot!

¹ It has some really cool features, and especially the terrain system was kinda revolutionary, certainly more so than minecraft, however the editor was complete and utter garbage. Easy to get started with for a complete novice however leaving way too much to be desired for an advanced user. This is just my opinion however.

TwistedTwigleg

I finally landed on Godot after wandering through several game engines/frameworks. (I don't remember how long any of these events lasted for. I've been making games for around 11 years, give or take a couple years. So... Yeah, all of this somehow fits in roughly 11 years)

Originally I wanted to make my own game with a 2D framework, rather than an engine. I tried making an "epic RPG" in Pygame. With my limited game development skills I soon found the project was way over my head.

Then I decided I should make web games, and started using ImpactJS. After several extremely basic prototypes, I gave up on making an epic RPG. Fast forward a few years or so, and I decided my pixel art skills were too lackluster for 2D games. Since both ImpactJS and Pygame only let you do 2D games, I needed a new game engine.

Then I decided to use Unity. After a unknown amount of years of developing small games/prototype, I got somewhat decent at making games. During this time I also tried Unreal engine, but I couldn't wrap my head around how to actually use C++ in Unreal engine and I had (and still have) no desire to use blueprints.

During this time I saw other people's projects (both AAA and indie) go from concept to finished game. Seeing these amazing projects I realized how little I knew. I was too intimidated to release any of my games, too worried about being compared to the amazing games I saw from others. I continued working on little games/prototypes for a few more years instead.

(Also during this time I tried to make my own game engine for some reason...)

While I was using Unity I learned how to use Blender, and everything from modeling, to UV wrapping, to animating. It took awhile, but eventually I got enough skill to make my own models. (I was not skilled with Blender by any means, I just could do all of the steps I needed and could make simple models. Even now I'm okay at Blender, but there's still tons I need to learn)

Then I saw Godot 2 had just been released through an article on BlenderNation. I decided to give it a whirl, hoping that maybe I could finally release my projects without having to feel like I need to compete with amazing indie/AAA games (since the Godot community was fairly small at the time).

(I should mention I didn't think Godot was a bad engine, or great games couldn't be made with it, but rather it was small enough that I felt people would judge my stuff less harshly since there was less games made with Godot at the time)

Coming from Unity I found Godot's way of doing things refreshing. I already knew Python, so I picked up GDScript easily and within a week I had a simple little game working.

After a few months of learning Godot, I entered GameBoy Jam and released my first game to the internet.

Shortly after I joined these forums. Everyone was nice, and so I decided to stick with Godot for awhile before returning to Unity. After another game jam, I decided I'd stick with Godot (Godot 2.1.4 at the time).

And now I'm happily still using Godot! :smile:

kryzmak

In my case it was just the fact, that GDScript is very "Pythonlike" and therefore easier to learn for me as a hobbyist. Beside of Blender Game Engine I had no other Game Engine experiences before. And just like TwistedTwigleg I learned about Godot while looking on blendernation.com. Gave it a try with version 2 and sticked with it.

_807_

I choose godot because is portable, light weight, you can compile the engine and make changes in corecode, is not invasive with the system, self contained, plugin system with same languaje that editor, have 32 bit version, animation and all the al the generated files can be opened with notepad++ (if you don't use binaries)... Or in your plugins (is easy to emulate a micro notepad++ with textedit and tree) Perfect for a team of one person. I only need to go out from godot only to do the art. Until the documentation can be acomplished inside. (Textedit- richtextlabel- linedit- file class- String excelent methods, etc....)

emo10001

I also decided to give Godot a run because it's lightweight as well. Unreal, Unity, Lumberyard, Cryengine, the just feel bloated to me. There's SO much in them. I think Unity started out lighter weight, but over time, just became somewhat cumbersome. Unreal is so powerful, and that comes at a price....it's more cumbersome than Unity for sure. Godot feels fresh and light, but still does what I need it to do. Like @"Ace Dragon" said, I also didn't want to deal with the limitations of the "Free/Indie" versions of any of those engines. Godot feels like what the BGE could have (and should have) been. A truly FOSS game engine, that WORKS and is supported. I hope the Blender/Godot (as well as like Gimp, AwesomeBump...etc) pipeline stays smooth and at the forefront. It's really a great match.

newmodels

There are a number of reason's for choosing Godot.

#1: Open Source.

#2: It works

#3: Documented

#4: It has the basics for a 2d & 3d game engine.

#5: The DAE exporting for blender makes godot the better.

#6: Godot takes blender .dae scenes and uses it, including camera's and lights. The whole scene can be done with blender. Just need godot for the game engine and scripting.

SeaFishelle

Hey, Ace! Good to see you again.

I came to Godot because it's a good bridge between BGE and, well, the rest of the entire industry. I'm pretty stupid. BGE was perfect for me at its peak, a simple entry point with an upscale in complexity in its scripting engine. But as you explained above, BGE is dying. Practically dead. I've half-butt tried to move on for years, but the most recent discussions about the "Interactive Mode" are what finally gave me that last little push.

At first, I thought "hey I'll go to Unity", but I soon found that I'm just not smart enough to make that leap yet. So I came back to Godot, and as it turned out, I came back at the right time, as 3.0.1 had just hit the scene and there were already a handful of dedicated documentors that had created some fantastic tutorials for it. So that was really good for me.

I'm really loving Godot so far. Granted, after spending so much time with BGE, a lot of it feels almost second-nature now. GDScript, the 3D control interface, etc. But man, Godot is an awesome step up. The reliance on vector math got me at first, since again, I'm kinda stupid. But another great thing about Godot is the fact that they give you a fantastic crash-course explanation of vector math "as it applies to game development" in the documentation, and I feel a lot more comfortable with it after reading that doc.

Overall, versus BGE, Godot is just a more sophisticated version. It's a game engine intended to make games, while BGE often seemed like a side-thought to turn Blender into "the ultimate multi-media open-source software". And that's basically why I'm here!

deftware

@SeaFishelle said: ... But as you explained above, BGE is dying. Practically dead. ...

You didn't get the memo, the Blender game engine is officially dead:

https://developer.blender.org/rB159806140fd33e6ddab951c0f6f180cfbf927d38

newmodels

Have you seen the Armory game engine? It's an addon for blender. But it cost money, and is in development stage.

Megalomaniak

Armory is zlib licensed and open-source already. f you want a pre-packaged build though, yes, you need to contribute financially. Technically that doesn't change the fact that it is open-source though.

SeaFishelle

@deftware said:

@SeaFishelle said: ... But as you explained above, BGE is dying. Practically dead. ...

You didn't get the memo, the Blender game engine is officially dead:

https://developer.blender.org/rB159806140fd33e6ddab951c0f6f180cfbf927d38

No I did not, but in my defense that's only like three days old and I've put BGE away nearly a week ago. xD

I mean, BGE has been under "planned removals" for a while now, but I guess this is the official death point.

NeoBerlin

All well sayed! Godot is free blender compatible free android free supported free alive free and has a very nice community!

Neo

EineSohn

Unity work for a lot of use cases it seems(enormous user-base), but without money I feel limited having to do all from zero. Unreal Engine has a lot built-in, but from time to time I would hit a wall and have to try and decipher the inner workings. From how some users speak, re-compiling it is somewhat common, seems too much of a price to make basic things I had trouble with work.

On Godot I also have to make a lot from zero... But that's actually supported, I feel. Hey, I had problems with making a basic jump on Unity, here it actually made sense! In UE, it's built in, so it works... But I learn nothing. And with Godot being ridiculously light, I can pass more time actually building stuff instead of waiting for things to work.

By the way, the point of view is of a CS student, who is rather lost. What I do know is that this feels right. (And yay for native Linux editor)

arthur

Firstly I tried RPG Maker, but that does not take account for my game dev life :D I started considering making games on Unity. It is easy to use and customize and so on. But it's a bit bad (at least to me) to be closed source (actually you can get its source code, but it is expensive). Then I tried HaxeFlixel. It's a great engine. But it has poor support for gamepads when doing a multiplayer game. Then I tried Godot. It has the fully-featured visual editor with a good script support (might be better in some aspects, but can't complain so much) and is also open-source (which lets me tweak some editor parts for my needs when I need to do so).

newmodels

Now that I have gotten my first project started with godot, and started learning how to use it, Godot will be my choice. The license gives me the freedom to use godot for any project I can think of. Godot is not some light weight needs lots of work game engine. It's a complete game engine. Howbeit, I know there is more work being done on it.

penfold

Editor runs on Linux
Free/Libre Open Source Software
Available on Steam
No upfront or ongoing cost
Godot is moving to Vulkan

In other words: Can develop on Linux, build for Linux, and collaborate easily with other Linux users — even if they are financially challenged (e.g. students).

GarromOrcShaman

Well. It all started when i was 12 years old. I decided to create video games using Game Maker. Later, I wanted to create 3D game and GM have very weak 3D support, I learned C# to use Unity 3D. I noticed my sight getting worse because Unity jerks set stupid color behind 150$ paywall. To preserve my health, i start looking for alternative, I couldn't stop, i was in love with coding already. In my searching for engine I came across this page and saw GoDot. I thought "Hey, this looks good, I should try it out".I tried GoDot roughly two weeks ago.I tried GoDot and I like it. What i fear most is day when all patrons leave and GoDot die. I hope day like this never come.