For a couple of years now, I’ve been talking about the amazing Godot Engine. Recently, I’ve been writing so much that I haven’t had time to get back into coding, but the announcement of Godot Engine version 3.0 got my attention. Now, I’ve had some time to play with it, and here’s my verdict.
First off, Godot is free. It’s open source. It’s cross-platform, for both development and deployment. All three of those are important to me. I’m poor, so an engine that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars just to get started is, well, a non-starter. Second, my desktop runs Linux, so a Windows-only tool is probably going to be useless, and something proprietary really isn’t good when you have the very real possibility of having to delve into the bowels of the engine for customization purposes.
Yes, something like Unity is probably better for someone who’s just starting out. It’s got a bigger community, it’s more mature, and it does have a much more professional air. On the other hand, Godot’s new version really ups the bar, putting it on the same general level as other “indie-friendly” game engines.
New and improved
The biggest new feature in Godot 3.0 has to be the improved 3D renderer. 3D was always Godot’s weak point, especially on certain hardware. Namely, mine. Last year, I was running on integrated graphics (A10 Trinity, if you care), and I got maybe 5 FPS on Godot’s platformer demo. Fast-forward to January 1st, 2018, after I installed a new (to me) RX 460 running the fancy amdgpu drivers and everything. Curious, I fired up Godot 2.1 and the demo. Results? 5 FPS max. No difference.
With 3.0, though, that’s no longer a problem. From what I’ve read, that’s because the developers have completely overhauled the 3D portion of the engine. It’s faster on low-end (and medium-level) hardware, and some of the sample images are stunning. I’d have to do more tests to see just how well it works in practice, but it could hardly be worse than before.
In a way, that perfectly describes all the new features. The renderer’s been rewritten to be better. Physics now uses the Bullet engine instead of a homebrew system. Audio? Rewrite. Shaders? Rewrite. It’s not so much revolution as evolution, except that doesn’t work. No, think of it more as evolution by revolution. Now, that’s not to say there are no new features in this version. It’s just that those are overshadowed by the massive improvements in the existing parts.
I’ll gladly admit that I don’t care much about VR gaming. I’m not one of those who see it as a gimmick, but it’s not ready for primetime yet. But if you’re of a different persuasion, then you might be interested in the VR support that’s been added. I’ll leave that to you to discover, as I honestly have no idea how it all works.
More to my taste is the additional programming support. Godot uses a custom scripting language by default, a Python clone designed to interface with the engine. I’m not really a fan of that approach, as I’ve written before. Clearly, I’m not alone in that thinking, as version 3.0 now offers more options. First up is GDNative, way to extend the engine using external libraries (written in native code, hence the name) without going through the trouble of recompiling the whole thing every time you make a change. That one looks good on its face, as it opens up the possibility of integrating popular and well-tested libraries much more easily.
But that doesn’t really replace GDScript, although it does add the ability to make bindings for other scripting languages. The new Mono support, on the other hand, actually does change the way you write code. It’s not perfect (as of this writing, it’s not even complete!), but it definitely shows promise.
As you know, Unity uses C# as its language of choice; they’ve deprecated JavaScript, and they try to pretend Boo never existed. Well, now (or once it’s done) Godot will let you write your game in C#, too. Even better, it surpasses Unity by using a much newer version of Mono, so you get full C# 7.0 support, assuming you trust Microsoft enough to use it.
If that wasn’t enough, there’s also a “visual” scripting system, much like Unreal’s Blueprints. That one’s in its early stages, so it’s not much more than a flowchart where you don’t have to write the function names, but I can’t see it not getting improved in future versions.
So there you have it. I haven’t even scratched the surface here, but I hope it whets your appetite, because I still think Godot is one of the best indie game engines out there. If you don’t have the money to spend on Unity, you’d rather use a platform without a port of the Unreal editor, or you don’t want to risk getting sued by Crytek, then there’s almost no reason not to give Godot a shot. It’s only getting better, and this new version proves it.