Hi all,
I’ve recently after years casually as a hobbyist learning and practicing C# and unity, I’ve decided after the shenanigans attempted by unity to look at other game engines which is something I’ve never done before.
I didn’t realize there were so many different game engines that had such great features that make making games more convenient even if they don’t have the same overall capabilities as unity.
Anyway to get to the point of my post, I have recently looked at Defold, game maker and very briefly at construct 3 to see which game engine would be best for me for making F2P casual mobile games that can be monetized including in app purchases etc.
I was about to commit to one of these mentioned engines but then someone mentioned Gdevelop which I had never heard of despite researching other engines.
It has definitely intrigued me and looks quite impressive so I would like to know if Gdevelop suits my needs and would appreciate it if someone could share their experiences with using gdevelop over other engines especially if someone has previously come from using unity.
I’ve seen Gdevelop is a none code engine and curious to know how much can it be expanded using javascript.
If Gdevelop can be used for making monetizable mobile games with in app purchases etc.
Thanks
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Hello and welcome!
Glad you found the engine, although your other choices aren’t bad (I absolutely love Defold as an engine too)
GDevelop’s first class language is the Event based system (no-code language), but if you want you could build out your logic using Javascript. As far as extending the engine itself, yes definitely JS can allow you to do that.
https://wiki.gdevelop.io/gdevelop5/events/js-code/#javascript-code-events
Yes, although note that there’s no native (maintained by the GDevelop company) in-app purchases support.
There is a community contributor-created extension in the extension list, but I don’t think it is currently maintained so there may be limits to it.
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Thank you for the information, if you don’t mind could you please share what is it about defold that you love in comparison to the other engines I’ve mentioned including GDevelop.
Is there a page or something somewhere that breaks down GDevelops greatest strengths in comparison to other engines or what its recommended use is?
Defold:
Overall, while I prefer GDevelop for my own use so I can deal with typed code less and less, if I was looking at a typed code based engine Defold would be my pick.
- While Defold is not fully open source (you can use and modify the engine however you want, but you cannot take the source code to make your own engine), it is still fully free and source available.
- It also is very battle tested. It was originally made by/for Candy Crush developer King, before being broken out into a separate foundation.
- I personally find its content path (adding assets) simpler than just about any other engine out there besides GDevelop.
- It is supports exporting to PlayStation and Nintendo consoles (so long as you are a licensed dev with those companies).
- It is WAY more performant at 2D than Godot, Game Maker, Unity, and others without having to do any manual optimization.
For GDevelop comparisons: Nothing that I know off the top of my head, but I know Gamefromscratch has a video named best game engines 2023 that talks through a lot of the benefits. If there’s something specific you are wondering about I’m sure you could ask here and folks would answer.
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By type code engine I take it you mean an engine that doesn’t focus on using a visual scripting language?
Defold sounds very impressive, someone told there’s a lot that you need to create/program yourself from scratch and that its quite bare bound that has made me cautious in using it because I want something that can make games fast.
It’s from gamefromscratch’s video that actually made me start looking at all of these other platforms, it’s a great video but for my liking its to much of an overview and isn’t in-depth enough for my liking for each specific engine for me to make a final informed decision for which to commit to at least.
Thank you for your comment.
Yes, any engine that’s primary focus is a full typed programming or scripting language for game logic. Defold uses Lua (in a pretty unique, but relatively simple, way).
GDevelop uses the event based logic visual scripting as it’s primary language, although you can use Javascript if you want (there’s no real optimization or efficiency benefits though).
GameMaker Studio has gone a bit weird, as they haven’t really developed Drag n Drop (their visual scripting language) for a few years now, so most of their focus is GMScript.
Godot outright removed their visual scripting entirely in Godot 4, so their focus is GDscript, although there are a few different add-ins you can get for other languages like C# and such. As far as I’m aware they’re not necessarily 1:1 feature parity with GDscript currently, but very close.
Thank you I appreciate alternative views like you have, I thought about looking into Godot but I get the impression is a weaker version of unity(I could be wrong as I don’t know what I’m talking about so Im open to being told I’m incorrect) and people only like it because its open source and isn’t run by greedy morons like at unity.
I’m currently trying Game maker but struggling to get used to going from C# to a functional programming language GML and finding it frustrating and my main appeal for Game Maker is the speed of use which programming wise I’m finding slow, although I’m not used to it yet.
This is making me think I should give GDevelop a try or look into Godot because of its c# support.
It’s way harder than I expected to find the right game engine.
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