> What I noticed is that it's actually much harder to use Godot than expected. Yes it does significantly reduce the amount of code you have to write for your game but it opens up questions of how to structure your project because the scene editor doesn't actually match how I would make my own games if all I had was SDL2.

I agree. But what I've learned in my short time using Godot is embracing Godot's scene system and not fighting it seems to help.

This area in the documentation is helpful: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/getting_started/workf...

You can also bypass the scene system. The scene system is a optional abstraction on top of a seemingly more data-oriented core where everything is just a RID (Resource ID).

More here: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/optimizatio...

> For example if you just straight up write code to add nodes to the scene graph it will create a disconnect between what is displayed in the editor and the actual game

You can solve this to some degree by putting "tool" at the top of your scripts. See https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/misc/runnin...