Godot reaches 2.1 stable | Hacker News Reader

Godot reaches 2.1 stable

godotengine.org

68 pointsqznc20 comments

This is quickly becoming my favorite open source project. This is like an open source Unity Game engine.

Highlights-

- Custom font support, plus editor translations. So now hopefully more people around the world can contribute.

- Sort of an asset library to make sharing assets between game developers easier.

Coming soon: Visual programming language and C#/Mono support. While VPLs are problematic for large projects, for some smaller bits of functionality they are pretty cool and I think can add a lot to game development.

I don't yet know if my next project will be able to use Godot or if it will be based on Unity... but at the rate Godot is advancing, before too long we will be able to switch.

> Coming soon: Visual programming language and C#/Mono support.

I've followed this project for years. The developers have always stated they have no plans for C# (or Lua or whatever), and that they prefer GDScript and C++, not to mention in the early days they moved away from 3rd party scripting languages. Did something change?

They have some history about their scripting languages in the docs: http://docs.godotengine.org/en/latest/reference/gdscript.htm...

> ... The result of these considerations is GDScript. The language and interpreter for GDScript ended up being smaller than the binding code itself for Lua and Squirrel, while having equal functionality. With time, having a built-in language has proven to be a huge advantage.

For one it's explicitly stated in the update notes that C#/Mono support is going to be included in the next minor release. The reason for that seems to be (mainly) that there's one dev who likes the idea and just started hacking away at it (see: https://github.com/neikeq/GodotSharp).

This is great news; I had been waiting.

Expecting a comment like this. I got more than a few points for "bons mots" so giving back to you.

I was about to write that, then I thought, "Wait, I'll bet they've heard that joke a thousand times, and not only that, I'll bet they made that joke when they decided to use the name." So I decided against it.

I first saw Godot at 1.0. At the time, I didn't try it, because I dislike learning a special-purpose language for things like this. But, it seems like it may now be solid enough for me to use it despite that. And if you're on Linux, it's really the only solid game engine provides much out of the box. Not that Löve doesn't have its place, but it's pretty barebones.

The Unity Linux beta has been working quite well for me. It is lacking certain things like asset store support, but otherwise it's been solid in my small hobby projects.

That said, I'll be taking a good look at Godot. Most of my projects are in 2D, and I end up filling in a lot of what Unity doesn't provide. Godot seems to be a better fit for 2D provided the rest of the engine/editor holds up.

Anyone who has used godot and libgdx care to give their opinion how it is better (or not) compared to libgdx?

For those with experience on Godot:

How feasible is to build a canvas-heavy/webgl application that is also exportable to the desktop? I'm looking at unity at this moment but godot could be a viable alternative.

Seems phaser.js is going to fit your needs better, but the desktop is not gonna be a "real" app

I have used phaser.js before and its fantastic. But I'm not sure how much life the project will have over the long term. Godot and Unity appear to have more long term stability. Its OK to have a non-native desktop app inside a wrapper like electron. People won't notice a difference in this product.

I'm looking at unity too, but if you want both desktop/native and webgl deployments, it seems that Godot or Unity are the only choices (or of course Unreal Engine).

I can't say yet which is the better choice, though.

AFAICT, Godot is pretty weak on 3D. But I haven't used it, so YMMV.

I'm doing 2D, but thanks for the tip. Why do you consider it to be weak on 3D?

I don't. I haven't used it enough to say. However, the Godot devs do.

https://godotengine.org/article/godot-engine-reaches-2-0-sta... - look under "Future"

Ok, thanks.

It's not bad. OpenGL 3 level graphics.

But not on Unreal or Unity's level.

Then its fine. I don't need anything fancy. :) Thx!

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