Today's episode is brought to you by Squarespace.
I want to go on record and say that I love Godot.
And over the last 13 years of Game Dev,
I've used everything from Game Maker to Unity,
and I've even made a game for the Nintendo 3DS using Petit Computer,
not to mention more specialized engines like RPG maker.
But out of all the engines I've used, Godot is the only one that gets me.
And now I know recently
that I'm starting to come across as the unofficial spokesperson for Godot,
and I do want to clear up that I still really enjoy using other game engines.
But with all that said,
today, I want to give you my top ten reasons on why I switched to Godot.
Some of these points
might overlap with other game engines, and that's just perfectly fine.
In the end, this is 100% my opinion anyway.
So if you disagree, then that's your prerogative.
Also, if you like this video, please make sure to subscribe as it really helps
me out a lot. Thanks so much.
So without further ado.
Number one is it's free and open source.
Now I know this term is thrown around all the time for software,
and just because something is free and open
source doesn't make it a good piece of software.
But in this case, the free and open source nature of Godot is partly
what makes it so special.
The fact that you can modify help or be a part of the community
and that they're not some big business
just trying to collect data and get you to use their product.
They're just people
that really care about making an engine, and I just think that's awesome.
Number two is no licensing fees.
Normally, when you use a game engine, say Unity.
After you make a certain amount of money, say $100,000, you have to change
your licensing so that you would pay a monthly or annual subscription.
Now, if you really like a game engine, that's totally fine.
I do think you should support it, but it can be really expensive.
And what if eventually they want to change that?
Now, some of you might say,
well, once you eventually want to give money to you, Godot anyway for using it.
And that's a great point.
But I'd rather give money to Godot
because I love it, but not because I'm being forced to,
because it got an arbitrary amount of money.
Number three is small file size.
I can't tell you how nice it is for me to literally go to the Godot website
to download it and have it run off my desktop, and it's only like 40 megabytes.
So if you want something that's really lightweight
and isn't going to take 20 minutes to download
or force you to sign in every time you use it.
Godot is really nice about that.
Number four is a supportive community.
Now Godot gets a lot of flack for not having a bunch of tutorials.
But I think it's a little unfair to say that the community is bad because of it
all the Godot tutorials that I've watched are actually really great
and they do a fantastic job of explaining it.
So even though there's less people there,
I feel like they're way more supportive and willing to help you.
Number five, it has 2D and 3D functionality.
Now I know that construct recently got 3D and you can also do 3D and GameMaker,
but it's just not intuitive as it is in Godot.
Now I understand that there's concerns about the 3D functionality in Godot,
at least Godot three.
But I'll let you know that I really haven't run in to that
much, especially if you're making more lightweight 3D games.
I know some people complain about it, but they are fixing it.
And Godot 4.0.
And it's honestly not that bad.
I found a lot of workarounds and ways to fix performance,
and you can create some pretty cool games with it.
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Number
six is better workflow in other engines.
It can be really easy to get cluttered fast depending on the engine you're using.
I feel like it's really hard to reuse functions in objects that you create.
But Godot's node system makes it so efficient to reuse objects,
and I will say it has a slight bit of a learning curve,
and it kind of threw me for a loop the first time I used it.
But once you master the nodes, you will see the true power of Godot.
Number seven is that it's a lightweight engine.
So if you want to run Godot on a toaster, the chances are it probably can.
Back in the day when I used to use Unreal Engine,
my laptop would actually almost glow red from the heat
coming off of the fans because of how performance intensive it was.
And that's one common I see from you guys a lot that you use Godot
just because of the performance and actually runs on your computer.
And that's something that's kind of hard to find with modern software nowadays.
Number eight is GDscript.
Now some of you are going to be so upset because you're like, Why is this a plus
GDscript is terrible.
It's slow, it's awful.
It's way better to use a built in language
for an engine than to use C++ or Kotlin,
and if you want to use those, there's actually support for those languages.
But using a language built by the developers means
that it's going to work better directly with the software.
Also, JavaScript is so easy to learn that why not use it?
Number nine is that it is great for collaboration
if you want to use Git and work with people online.
It's fantastic.
I know that that's become the norm for a lot of engine nowadays is to have
collaboration through Git.
But Godot does a really good job with it, and I've never really seemed to run
into issues.
And honestly, I didn't even do collaboration
on projects until using Godot because of that reason.
If you're new to Game Dev and you don't know what Git is,
there are plenty of amazing videos.
And if you're interested, I can definitely do a video in the future.
Just let me know in the comments below.
Now, my 10th and final point is fast.
Importing
if you use an engine like Construct, you have to manually import each image.
It's a lot of work, but what if you want to make an edit?
And that's what Godot is great for when you put a file in your folder,
you can update that Sprite in real time and update it in the game.
Now, that may not sound that groundbreaking for you,
but for a lot of game engines.
They just don't have that feature and you waste so much time replacing art.
Now I can be working on a project and have an artist, upload
a file and I can have it immediately in the game and boom, it's there.
It's a feature I never knew I needed, but I'm extremely grateful for it now.
So those are
my top ten reasons on why I switched to Godot.
I know it's not a perfect engine and it definitely has bugs and issues
like all engines do,
but I'm really excited
about the prospects of where Godot will be going in the future,
and it just keeps getting better every single day.
Now, one thing
I don't want you to take away from this video is that you have to use a Godot
or it's the ultimate game engine for everyone,
because I don't think that's the case at all.
I just feel like there's a lot of companies out there
pushing their game engines,
talking about how they're the best, and you have to use that.
You have to use Unreal. You have to use Unity.
And I just don't think that's true anymore.
I think you can find an engine
that works for you and use it and be extremely successful.
And if you still feel like you haven't found that right game engine for you?
Keep looking.
The great thing is, most of these game engines
nowadays are free, so you can see what you like best.
And if you don't like one move along, it's perfectly OK.
But let me know in the comments
below what your favorite game engine is, why you use it, or
why do you like it, though?
And I want to give a huge shout out to Heath Sergeant, James Albert,
Righbread, and Skides in the rest of the fantastic Patreon supporters
that make these videos possible.
I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day
and I'll see you next time for another game dev adventure.