On using the Godot game engine

[chucklehuck]

Hi I'm new on this forum,

I've been a silent lurker on this site for a few weeks, I found this site when looking for ways to program a fan mario game. I'm taking a programming course at college and am thinking if making a mario fan game would make a good final project.

I want to start small and just make a single level clone of the first game.

I've been looking into the tools that I could use and I kept seeing people here mentioning Game Maker Studio, I have a bit of an issue with that. I use a Linux computer and GMS won't run on that.

I looked up various game engines and among the best Linux compatible ones is Godot.

Does anyone here have experience with it?
Why is it that Game Maker Studio is popular here to use?

I think one of the reasons that I like Godot is because it's free and open source.

[VinnyVideo]

First of all, welcome to MFGG!

For MFGGers, Game Maker has been the most popular game-making tool for the past decade or so. It's certainly not the only tool available, and while it's not the best tool for every possible scenario, it's well-rounded. It's inexpensive and relatively easy to learn, and there are a lot of resources and tutorials available for it. They also sell export modules that let you make games for quite a few different platforms.

However, GM has a number of weaknesses, including that it's closed-source. You're dependent on YoYoGames to provide updates and support on it, and you hope that their next update won't break anything essential. Their prices have tended to go up over time, too.

I haven't used Godot before, but I've heard good things about it. If you try it, please let me know how it goes!

Course clear! You got a card.

[Mariotroid]

My brother and I have decided to go with Godot for our game development. It's great really, I like it. I' still learning the rope but i have played around with it and I like the setup. I'e been using Gamemaker for 10 years but I've moved on for my real "professional" indie game development.

[Mario]

I think Game Maker got its claim to fame on MFGG due to being either free or really inexpensive back in the day. ClickTeam products were pretty big before then (and cost more money iirc) but I think for the most part not many are using them any more.

Godot looks like at the very least they know how to make an appealing website, which you can't really say for a lot of open source projects LOL. If it has a strong community willing to support it I imagine it could easily take over Game Maker. Wonder if anyone's up to the task of making a Hello engine in it LOL

Proud member of the Shadow █████████████

Interested in web development? Check out Super Mario Web Development. Wahoo!

 

""We choose to go to the [Suggestions board] not because it's easy, but because it's hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."
- John F. Kennedy"
- gothgirlgangblastermaster

[Zero Kirby]

I think Game Maker got its claim to fame on MFGG due to being either free or really inexpensive back in the day.

As someone who started with 6.1, this is pretty true. Once upon a time, the registered version of Game Maker was a mere $20. Nowadays it's quite a bit more and I'm rather unhappy both about that, and that changing commerce laws have made it so I cant use a prepaid debit card to make overseas purchases anymore, and YoYo Games is headquartered in Europe.

Aside from that, hi new person! I'm quite excited to hear about someone planning on using Godot to make their fanfare project, since I've been rather intrigued by Godot as an alternative to Game Maker. I wish you the best of luck, and cant wait to see what you make.

Falcon Punch is the result of the Sun heating fists. It drives the Blue Falcon. Heating causes destruction of water into the pain, where it then hurts, creating rain. Rain creates flowing water in tears, which can then be converted into other forms through more pain.



This fight has only just begun...

[Pedigree]

I would like to learn more about your experiences with Godot, this is the first I've heard of it. As for Game Maker, I think it become prevalent because it and Clickteam products were the two mainstream options. Nowadays, people tend to pick it up on cheap Steam sales and you see a lot more products made with Game Maker go commercial.

Oh, by the way, welcome out of the shadows of the lurkers! Looking forward to seeing what you are working on!

 

[chucklehuck]

If it has a strong community willing to support it I imagine it could easily take over Game Maker.

There are about 100 devs working on it as far as I'm aware.

Wonder if anyone's up to the task of making a Hello engine in it LOL

When I googled "mario engines" I found this site, that's how I found you guys.
I'm actually wondering if I should start making an equivalent of that, if I get around to making it I'll release it with an open source license.

I probably won't be able to make it as fully featured as the original hello engine by myself since I'm just one person and I'm still a beginner programmer.

I would like to learn more about your experiences with Godot, this is the first I've heard of it.

There's actually a fair number of free and open source game engines, I can't think of any of the others at the moment aside from one called jMonkeyEngine.

Nowadays, people tend to pick it up on cheap Steam sales and you see a lot more products made with Game Maker go commercial.

One thing I don't get is, why use a paid professional product for hobby projects if you don't intend to become a pro? You don't buy an entire copy of photoshop (even if it's an old version at a discount) if all you need is to put a black and white filter on a photo you took during a holiday or something.
Free and open source stuff seems like a great alternative.

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By the way, thanks for the welcome messages.

[VinnyVideo]

I didn't have much going on last night, so I gave Godot a go! All I did was download it and make a "Hello World" message, but it seems promising. It is quite a bit different from both GM and Clickteam, though, so if you've used those environments, Godot will require a different mindset.

One thing I don't get is, why use a paid professional product for hobby projects if you don't intend to become a pro?

I can relate to this. I'd rather not spend money on stuff full of features designed for professionals (for example, tools for monetizing your games and managing large dev teams) when I have no intention of selling my work.

I think Game Maker got its claim to fame on MFGG due to being either free or really inexpensive back in the day.

As someone who started with 6.1, this is pretty true. Once upon a time, the registered version of Game Maker was a mere $20. Nowadays it's quite a bit more...

Currently, the cheapest paid version of GM Studio 2 costs $39 USD... per year. In the past, if you bought GM, you had it forever, but now they've moved to a subscription model (yuck). There is a free trial version, but it's severely limited in the number of resources you can use, and it can't even export executables. It definitely seems like YoYoGames is trying to move away from making products that are friendly to hobbyists and students. However, if you're a serious professional, GM is probably not your best option either. These days, GM is trying to occupy an awkward middle ground, and I'm not sure how well this will work.

Course clear! You got a card.

[Mario]

yeah basically I believe Game Maker is the de-facto tool around here merely because there was good reason to use it back in the day and thus the resources and support around here tend to shift towards that. There's a lot more options out there these days and I think it'd be great if we got some game makers (lol) around here using those newer tools. It could really shift the culture!

Proud member of the Shadow █████████████

Interested in web development? Check out Super Mario Web Development. Wahoo!

 

""We choose to go to the [Suggestions board] not because it's easy, but because it's hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."
- John F. Kennedy"
- gothgirlgangblastermaster

[WreckingPrograms]

Currently, the cheapest paid version of GM Studio 2 costs $39 USD... per year. In the past, if you bought GM, you had it forever, but now they've moved to a subscription model (yuck).

Actually, it's still possible to get a permanent license at the original launch price of $99. For whatever reason though, they decided to call this the Developer license, and tend to promote the Creator license; which is, as you said, $39 a year. If you're serious about game development, the permanent one is a much better deal.

On the topic of Godot, I haven't used it but it looks interesting, and the language seems simple enough for beginners to learn, yet allows for more than GML can provide. I'd say check it out and see if it fits your needs. If not, you could always try running any version of Game Maker (or any engine for Windows) through Wine. I've heard other people do this, and it seems to work just fine. Just make sure you use the trial version at first, so you're not paying for something you may not be able to run.

Check out my game or something.

[VinnyVideo]

@WreckingPrograms Thanks for noting that - I didn't realize that. The Developer license is a better value if you plan to use GM Studio 2 for more than two years.

I've been on the fence about buying GM Studio 2, but I'd be more likely to buy it if I knew it was a one-time purchase.

Course clear! You got a card.

[KoBeWi]

I just randomly searched if anyone is using Godot here and found this topic.

I've been using Godot for a while now, quite intensively in last few months. And I have to say it's amazing. It's more similar to Unity than to GameMaker or Clickteam, but that makes it more powerful if you are advanced user, in a way you can do things the way you want to, not necessarily the way engine forces you. I didn't use GameMaker, so I can't really compare, but Godot is very easy and intuitive to learn. You will probably do more coding than in GM, but the scripting language is simple enough to pick up by beginners. The fact that is free also makes it much easier to create and share open-source Mario engines and stuff, especially since there's no situation when you have version X of software, but the engine is for Y, because you can always get the newest one (it has good backwards-compatibility too).

Also I mentioned it in the topic, but I'm making a remake (or rather "spiritual successor") of Mariovania in Godot. But there's not much to share yet.