Comment by SXX | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SXX | Hacker News Reader

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Okay I will share some of my own experience over almost 2 years working with Godot / GDScript. We're building 2D pixel art game for Steam. We're fully funded by publisher and have a team of 10 people with 3 programmers. We have around 100KLOC codebase with a lot of game mechanics.

Primary downside of using Godot for commercial development is lack of official console support. Everything else will vary from project to project since every game is different. Godot have bunch of weird limitations, lack of proper virtual filesystem (e.g boost::filesystem anyone?), really shitty profiler, some weak UI / UX in editor some of which can be easily compansated by using VSCode.

At the same time I can certainly say that you can make proper commercial game using Godot. Engine is stable, performance is not the best, but okay. Will it work for everyone? Probably not, but again it works for us.

PS: I also glad to advertise few Godot projects that are not mine, but I find them really enjoyable (check profile if you curios about project I work on):

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1637320/Dome_Keeper/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1953670/Quetzal/

> some weak UI / UX in editor some of which can be easily compansated by using VSCode

??

What exactly can be compensated for with a code editor? 75% of the value of a "modern engine" is in its tools... with something like Unreal it may be close to 90%. Level editors, object browsers, geometry editing, animation editors, rigging, particle editors, material and UV editors, physics/navigation/ai system and their editors... the list goes on and on. Gameplay code is something you'll either do in visual scripting (UE blueprint) or in an external IDE. Any engine-level coding will be done in an external C++ IDE (Visual Studio). So... I can't imagine what exactly VSCode compensates for?

The limitations of Godot's in-engine text editor can be compensated by a more powerful external editor: VScode, emacs, vim, etc. An example would be the lack of remappable keybindings: this can be overcome by using an external editor.

But the strength of Godit's native scripting is its integration with the rest of the editor. Can the vscode plugin match that?

I find the Godot native editor annoying (and it lacks vi keys!) amd clunky and long for multiple tabs but it increases productivity enough that I wouldn't give it up.

I can't speak to the strengths of the VScode plugin, but if it's anything like the emacs gdscript plugin (which I use with Spacemacs + vi keybindings), then the integration is very tight. I get just as much completion as I do in the in-engine editor, I can run/debug/breakpoint etc. I've been using it for ~2 years.

The fact that this is an argument for anything at all is questionable because it implies you don't use your favorite text editor for any program similar to Unity. When I was using the program I didn't even know it had a text editor because I just alt tabbed to Sublime Text. I would expect many others to do this too because in general I've always just found that the "built in text editor" of any program (whether it be a VPS's control panel or GitHub) is always bad compared to an external one.

I guess you are talking from AAA gamedev perspective while making some huge 3D title. Small team like ours working on 2D pixel-art base-management game dont need any of the following: geometry editing, animation editors, rigging, particle editors, material and UV editors, physics/navigation/ai system.

Mmmokay.... We of course use some basic physics for collisions detection, but everything else is mostly animated sprites and a lot of code. There are a lot of game mechanics and they all implemented without any visual scripting.

And even with Godot scene editor is solid I simply don't have to touch that much since all basic objects were implemented long ago and it's mostly duplicating with some editing for integrating new visual content.

95% of time I spend working on gameplay code and here Godot own code editor UX is very lacking compared to almost everything else. So here VSCode comes.

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