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. But one thing you unfortunately can't do
with Godot is create a website, and for that, you're going to want to use
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of a website or domain. 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.
