I wanted to become a game developer for some time, and even tried following some tutorials for making video games, but i quit it due to not understanding the coding part, i did not really understand what i was doing.

Now i know a lot more about programming, but mostly just in java, however, i dont think it will be very difficult to learn new language, as now i understand many concepts of programming in general.

I want to learn to make games on godot, which i chose because it is quite popular and has a lot of documentation, tutorials, guides and community, which should be very helpful, especially for newbies.

As for a newbie in game development, what advice would you recommend me follow, to easily get in the gamedev? Maybe its some guides, some example or test projects, or something else, which i dont know about yet, everything will be helpful.

  • Cpt_ManlyPink@programming.dev
    1·
    5 days ago

    Personally, I am an experienced beginner, I in no way have expertise in specifics but I’d like to think I have some learning experiences that can be shared.

    TL; DR

    Make stuff, if stuck change approach, continue learning.

    What to make when starting - make teeny tiny simple games

    Doing one full game from tutorial is great way to learn how to solve regular problems in game projects.

    The simpler the better. Make tiny games. Some random examples

    • 2D Cookie clicker without upgrades ( just click, number go up )
    • 2D Enemies run for mouse cursor, you need to dodge enemies
    • (bonus) 3D FPS where is Waldo, walk around level, click with crosshair when person is found

    For example from official documentation “Dodge the creeps” https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/getting_started/first_2d_game/index.html

    Of course there are many more tutorials like that

    Pitfalls while learning

    At least in my experience, there are some areas that are easy to pick up and start implementing in the game but can get you stuck on details when you’re just beginning. For any of points below, I would recommend to attempt, but also recognize when you’re stuck and better to move on, and return to this topic later in your learning journey:

    • Physics - if you have very specific behavior in mind and default physics don’t behave as you expected, it might create some problems, and solving them will make all of the development get stuck. For example, it’s quite easy to make 3D vehicle using in-built nodes like VehicleBody3D ( https://docs.godotengine.org/en/latest/classes/class_vehiclebody3d.html ). But it’s relatively hard to make car to drift and in some cases can become too complex problem while you’re learning.
    • 3D camera + mouse pointer - while working with mouse clicks in 2D Godot project, you’ll learn it’s very easy to get mouse position, object mouse is clicking on. But when moving to 3D you’ll see that you have to account for more things and 3D Vectors are involved. There are many examples that give you code to solve this, just be ready for relative spike in complexity

    Useful stuff to learn about early

    There are some topics I would recommend learning about early as it can help you to solve basic problems. Give at least cursory glance about these topics, so you know what’s available. None of these are required, but in certain situations can be a game-changer: Signals, groups, Collision layers and masks, Globals/Autoload, Shaders, Tweens

    Learning resources

    • Godot Recipes (https://kidscancode.org/godot_recipes/4.x/) - there you’ll find bite-sized solutions and instructions for popular problems, like “Top-down movement”, “Shooting projectiles” and so on.
    • Official documentation - it have helped me many times. Remember you can also open it within Editor with F1 then search for Node or method you want to read up on

    Assets

    Personally I like to use pre-made assets while I am prototyping and checking out the idea. For me, it helps greatly if you can see your game concept coming together. Much better than using default Godot icon everywhere or plain shapes.

    There are many places to get assets

    Extra

    When your very first game is ready, you can use itch.io to publish it either publicly or only for certain people. Makes easy to provide game for testing and share with friends