I'm coming back to GDevelop 5 🌟

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Hi, Khaled here the one behind Coriander Games and the indie game dev behind “Miko Adventures Puffball” one of the winners in GDWC 2021
Check it out here, I’d be very happy if you did: Miko Adventures Puffball on Steam

So yeah… you read that right… I’m coming back to GDevelop 5

Here is the story:
Back in July 2022 I announced that I’m leaving GD5 to learn Unity and move onto the next big step with my Upcoming big project “Melted Fate” That decision was made on Mars 2022 (4 months before the official announcement)
The Announcement: I guess it's time to learn Unity (The road to Melted Fate) 🧠

Um… It was a wrong move but at the same time a great one… let me explain…

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1- Unity is a great engine I won’t lie about that…

  • but the complexity the engine have, to sort things out, to remember how to work with this or this, it’s just a headache honestly.
  • The UI is not the cleanest to work with, the amount of things to tweak in every single move you do inside the engine is annoying
  • The amount of work you need to do to keep things tidy and clean is really tiring most of the time and there was many many more issues I faced during learning the engine, issues beyond my capabilities to fix.
  • Unity is great but good luck getting into it, you really need at least 1 - 2 years just to get into the engine which is a lot I felt …
  • it got to a point where it wasn’t very fun but it felt like doing work… and that’s just wrong… Making games should be fun and I wasn’t feeling that the more I get into Unity.

2- Learning how to actually write C# code…

  • It’s honestly horrible, messy, difficult, tough, needs a ton of practice and very scary.
  • you always think about … what if this thing broke? what will I do? how will I fix this and I don’t even know how to code? yeah I can google it and search for similar stuff but it’s just super messy…
  • what I learned from this is that coding (Like writing actual lines of code) is not for me…
  • I remembered why I loved using GDevelop5 and all the time I was just missing these days where I open the engine and everything thing was clean and tidy whether it be some events, animations, pictures or anything basically… GDevelop is super clean compared to Unity.

3- Being overwhelmed with information and at the same time you want to reach a massive goal…

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  • Learning is something … But using that learning to reach a big goal (like creating a big project like Melted Fate) is a totally different thing…
  • I have to say that… I lost around 6 months of my life just feeling aimless and lost all the time in Unity… Trying to understand this concept of coding or trying to fix something I can’t understand.
  • Coding is really hard for me… and to the people who are doing it … honestly you’re doing something incredible, great job.

4- Losing interest in game development while using Unity…

  • I felt that I’m working rather than creating something I love, from the amount of things I didn’t know a thing about it was just very overwhelming for me to continue and I just felt like it was not worth doing it this way…

5- Always looking for similarities for what used to be perfection (Which is GDevelop5)…

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  • I tried looking or tools or things to use to create games using Unity in a more humanly manner and in a more friendly environment.
  • I learned about “Play Maker” >> I used it >> it was great but again somehow it was a bit difficult for me and the scary thing was … the community for it was very scarce and almost dead and it was hard to get an answer to something you’re lost at…
  • I saw “Corgi Engine” and it’s incredible but again … it’s scary to rely on something that is totally pre-made, if you face a bug or an issue, it would be a disaster because well… I can’t code… I don’t fully understand how C# works…
  • so yeah while learning … I just stepped out and left it all behind.

6- Stopping completely for 2 months after 6 months being lost…

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  • Lost … I was exhausted and I started thinking about the past and how comfortable I was using the amazing engine that is GDevelop5 and how I got to know some amazing people and very talented friends that were helping me in every step I fall…
  • It’s something I never found again after I left…

7- Was I wrong?

  • Look… there is nothing wrong exploring other territories and knowing your limits.
  • at least I took that huge step and learned that I can’t do it properly especially when I’m aiming for a quality similar to games like Hollow Knight or Ori …
  • I needed an environment I’m comfortable working with and that environment is GDevelop 100%

8- Is this me surrendering to Unity and C#?

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  • YES I surrender… But there is nothing wrong to know your limits and to know what you can and can not do.
  • I’m good at making games, I love it and I’m aiming for something massive with it but I’m not a coder, I’m not the best at coding, I need all the help I can get, I need guidance in this journey.
  • I got very lost with Unity … so I just had to step back and stop this mess >> it was draining me and it was killing my passion and most importantly … Unity is NOT FUN for me at least…

9- Left because of being afraid of publishers not accepting “project Melted Fate”…

  • I was right to feel scared as I got confirmation from big companies saying word by word “Better to stick with Unity or Unreal Engines”
  • But lets be honest … If I created something cool … I think publishers would actually like to publish it.
  • I learned that it’s not on the engine 100% >>> It’s the quality of the product and yes sometimes quality doesn’t matter to them… it’s all risky to continue with GDevelop but I have no other choice at the moment.
  • I saw games getting big publishing deals and the game was made with engines like Construct 3 for example … I think there is still hope for publishers to accept a great game made with GDevelop.
    It’s a risk but I don’t have any other choice to be honest but to use GDevelop.

10- Coming back to my roots, to what I love and to my family here >>> The GDevelop Community…

  • I’ve been here since 2016 and I loved every second of it…
  • It was an experience to leave it all behind to try new things but never again…
  • I’m coming back to GDevelop 5 everyone and this time hopefully … I’m staying for a long time :dizzy:

At the end I want to thank everyone who gave me the power to go and explore Unity, it was a mess, I learned things here and there, I learned how Unity works and how difficult it is to tame it and keep it clean all the time. it’s a tough engine only made for some people and I’m not among those people.

I belong here, in the GDevelop Community :star2:

I learned my limits, learned where I belong, and learned where I will continue this journey…
I learned the best route to reach my dream.

Soon I’ll start exploring the engine after all the incredible updates, read and learn about everything new and just make myself home again, I’m so excited and happy to get back to GDevelop, Unity was scary honestly…

Project Melted Fate will be made using GDevelop engine and it will incredible when you see it.

Expect me coming back soon posting about stuff I’m stuck with in the engine or things I can’t do, you’ll see me asking all the time :smile:

Love you all and thank you :heart:

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Welcome back, Khaled! Thanks for sharing your journey, I’m sure there are others who are in similar situations.

I’m glad you are back and I look forward to seeing your progress. I’ll do my best to help you along the way (as will the rest of our friendly community).

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Welcome back :smiley:

What’s stopping you from teaming up with someone else and getting them to code in Unity, while you do the rest (artwork, sound, level design etc), which seem to be your strengths?

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Hi, thanks for your story.

This doesn’t sound good. I hope that you keep your options open - if another opportunity to try something new comes along, then why not consider it.

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Forum Lurker here, I tried a couple of engines before GDevelop and even left GDevelop for a little while but came back. It seems to be the engine that stuck with me. I am well in my 30’s and I often felt my time to learn how to make games was long gone. Bwhahaha. I used to think GDevelop was for very young gamers back in the day…

Anyways, GDevelop has taught me some things when I picked it up in 2019, stocked for a bit then came back. Since then its been allowing me to be creative here and there and all these nee awesome/quick extensions are a creator’s dream…as least for me.

I’m not the best at coding either really but I do feel a huge sense of accomplishment because often I’ve done something today I didn’t know a month ago.

GDevelop has some really good potential for sure. It will definitely take some good determination and full-blast confidence to keep going. Sometimes GDevelop makes me want to throw my laptop against the wall (mainly cause of my error with condition and actions…lol) then when something gets done I am all happy with the Earth again…hahaa

I feel like even better things are coming though soon with GDevelop.

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All I can say is that I think you make the right decision but for the wrong reason and with the wrong mindset.

Switching to Unity was the right decision considering the scope of your game and your ambitions.
But your were doing it because “experts” and “statistics” told you to and not because you were prepared to make this move.
If you don’t have natural talent for programming, it can take a very long time to wrap your head around fundamental programming concepts, but most “Unity Programming” courses do not take the time to teach you this. Instead they jump straight in to gameplay programming and Unity specific workflows that often also out of date and generate warnings and errors that hard to debug with no experience. It is works for some people with experience and talent, but for those without it, need to take a much longer journey than 6 months where you learn programming outside the scope of game development to grasp the fundamentals and understand official C# and Unity documentations so you can debug warnings and error messages on your own.

Don’t let all the success stories and “experts” blind you. Without experience and talent, it can take years to pickup the skills you need to debug an ambitious game in Unity and I emphasise debugging. Making a game is easy. Debugging, finding what is breaking the game is what you do most of the time and it is not easy task when you use programming languages like C# and robust engines like Unity. Even if you use visual programming tools like Bolt, it is still uses C# under the hood that you need to be able to debug when breaks and it can take much-much longer than 6 months to learn how to do it.

In this regard GDevelop is exceptional because code generation is bug free most of the time and even if there is an error, GDevelop games do not crash just carry on with the default value of 0 or nothing “”. This is why it is so friendly for beginners. But most other visual game makers out there are full of bugs that often crash the game and you need to deal with it and debug it. It is the norm for most engines. GDevelop is the exception.

Again, you are prepared to return to GDevelop 5 and it is the right decision considering you have the experience and GDevelop is a capable engine with the most friendly and diverse community, but you are doing it for the wrong reasons. You are here not because you want to be here but because you feel like you are trapped, you have no other choice and because you lack patience. You are desperate to make a playable demo of your game in just a couple months to show to publishers so you get investors on board.

You can definitely do that but whatever engine you use, you should go in to this with the mindset of working on a prototype and don’t get depressed over losing time, features or even losing money. Be ready to pause and do your research, experiment before continue even if takes weeks and months. After you have done your research be ready to make sacrifices and drop features from the game. Switch to an other engine only if really necessary and you are certain it is the right decision and the only way. Never do it because others tell you this is what you need to do. Always take time to do research and experiment of your own.

If you start hunting for the holy grail that has all the features you need and the simplicity you are comfortable with and get depressed if you don’t find it, you feel trapped and worry about time, money and perfection, then you never going to finish your game. Don’t make the mistake of listening only to the “successful genius experts” who made a game in Unity in just 12 months using PlayMaker with 0 experience and made $500k and now selling Unity tutorials for $200.

I know this because I did fall in to this trap and very difficult to get out of it.
Always do your research and experiments and always be ready to make sacrifices, either time, features, scope, money almost always you need to sacrifice something.

Good luck and welcome back. :+1:

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@tristanrhodes Thank you so much Tristan, I’m sure with your amazing talent in GDevelop … we’ll create great things together in the future, I’ll get in touch with you whenever I get stuck with something for sure : )

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Hey @MrMen, How are you doing :smile:
Thanks a lot for the welcoming :star2:

I did consider this yes, but it’s hard to find someone with a passion that can stay with me for years without change … I’ve seen this a lot with other teams where things starts perfect but then the passion with someone gets slowly drained because he can’t see results in like 1 or 2 years and then leaves the team, it’s easy to find talent, but it’s very hard to find passion … and the issue is that when I do actually find someone with passion … it’s all paid and currently I don’t have this ability so I can’t force anyone to participate with me in such a big project so I’m just doing it all alone until I’m able to create a team around my brand that has the fire and passion for projects like that.

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Hey @Bubble Thank you

It’s not no, I’m actually very happy that I’m back to GDevelop … other opportunities can wait for now because right now I want stability … and for me GD has that, I tried several other opportunities but I never felt comfortable using them…

GDevelop is very capable to create when I need … yes it will be a bit more difficult but it can do it just fine.

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@JJAngelus Thank you for sharing your story, happy to see other stories around this for sure.

That feeling is amazing I know, I love it

GDevelop will make it … it’s just a matter of time and determination like you said, the engine is mind blowing honestly … like I’ve not seen anything like it … the idea to just start it and create a quick game with some events and so on… it’s the cleanest fastest engine I’ve worked with.
It just needs more visibility and more support from big companies and it needs to prove that it can make great projects and it will reach the skies in no time.
I really believe in GDevelop … and after trying other engines … I can totally say that GDevelop is the best honestly.

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Ah @ddabrahim Miss your long detailed replies, hope you’re doing great my friend :smile:

I actually like that, it’s very true … I did it because I heard someone say “DO IT” … but inside of me I was always scared and terrified of the idea … but at least I fought some of that fear and actually started a bit in Unity which for me was a huge step to do … yes I didn’t reach results but I learned a ton of new things about Unity.

I don’t and from what I have seen, I needed years to actually get started in such a huge step, programming is really tough for new people, even after knowing a ton of things from GDevelop … yes it’s easier to understand but it’s still hard.

I can’t express how correct you are in this, “Unity Programming” courses are horrible to be honest.
The issue is that they get into things … they teach you how to do this or this but they don’t explain the how and why? they don’t show you the errors or how to deal with annoying errors in the code.
Videos on the internet will teach you how to reach a goal … but won’t explain how bumpy the road is to reach that goal.

Yeah I’m with you that 6 months is a very small period … even 12 months is still considered mediocre.
I’d say 1.5 to 2 years is the sweet spot for learning something like C#
The issue is that I had a goal stuck in my head which is “Project Melted Fate” so I was always waiting to reach that point where I’ll be able to create something decent but I was actually far far away from it.
Like I said in the post, Learning is something … using that learning is a totally different thing.

Very true man, well said … Bolt is really tough to use actually … it’s basically C# BUT LOOKING COOL
which doesn’t really help new talents in any way.

It’s not “Trapped” I’m actually very happy to get back to GDevelop… I feel free to actually get back to GDevelop … I was “Trapped” in Unity to be honest …
It’s not the lack of patience … it’s just the fire inside of me … the passion you can say is what makes me move forward.

You get a heart from me for this, very true man… because in reality that’s like 1% of the stories out there.

Will do for sure, I always plan and write everything down, sometimes we make mistakes, or we make wrong decisions, sometimes we get lost, sometimes we get depressed, sometimes we lose hope but it’s alright … I always learn from mistakes like that and what matters is that we get back on our feet again : )

Thank you man, happy to be back to this wonderful community :heart:

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Your path: Learn Unity.
The right way: take 2-3-4 C# courses, then learn Unity.

P.s. There is no “natural talent for programming”. Everybody can…

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I share a lot of your thoughts too, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out where to go after I made my first project in RPG Maker (a ARPG game that dried me out), and while moving from one engine to another, I was almost sure I could work on Godot, which still was a struggle to think about since I was torn between learning C# or its native language, so at the end I tried GDevelop “again” since I had downloaded it some years ago but just lost interest.

And now I´m back too, anyway, thanks for your post.

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I do not agree. There totally IS natural talent for programming and similar stuff. You have to be able to remember a lot of commands and stuff and learn the logic of the programming language. That is not for everybody. I myself tried it may times - it just doesn’t stick for me. Yes, I always get help from google and forums, but this can go just so far. My brain works more in the way of “what you see is what it is” and I can’t fully comprehend what command should I use and what it does do and how it works and I just can’t save to memory every command and trick of some programming language. This is where engine like GDevelop comes to aid people like myself - what you see is what you get. The logic is pretty straightforward and linear. Yes, if I put myself to it, I can learn basic C# for instance, but I would never be able to fully understand how every piece of line and code is intertwined and what is wrong if something is not working.

I guess Coriander is experiencing something like that. Really, programming is not for everyone. Also, to learn something like that for real, it requires really a lot of time and dedication, and most of us are just a solo amateur “game developers” that have very busy life, families and stuff that take up our time anyway. Yes, may be if you take up programming at young age, you would really build a solid base for this stuff in future years, but that’s not the case with me at least.

Engines like Unity and Unreal are really complex for non professional programmers - there is hundreds of commands, functions and stuff, that are linked together. Especially in Unreal - the blueprints may be a lifesaver for an advanced programmer, but for someone like me it is just pure headache - what should be connected to what? What block should be connected to another 10 blocks? The names of most of the functions and bocks just don’t make sense and don’t sound logical. You can’t just look at them and know right away what something does, unless you already know the language and practiced it for years.
I really hope for GDevelop to keep going and implement some of the more advanced features from the last 4-5 years in the engine in the same way it did until now. Yes, there would be always a limit of what you would be able to do without real programming skills, but most of us don’t really aim for AAA games or ultra complex mechanics in our games.
I used to play around with Unreal for quite a bit. It is super easy to create something stunning visually, but you can’t go much further without programming - the real mechanics of the game, controls, animations, interactions, etc. That’s the hard part.
On the other hand, with GDevelop you can really easy create a playable game in the matter of days, that would have a fairly good mechanics and controls. But the visuals are really hard to achieve or practically impossible at that moment.

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There is an amount natural aptitude for programming that stems from a person’s ability to think logically.

Programming requires a lot of logical thought and does not suit a great number of people. Just like true leaders who have excellent interpersonal skills, or nurses who need dollops of empathy, or the writers who are complete wordsmiths, programmers need a fair bit of a logical, structured flare to develop a game.

Otherwise, everyone would pick up programming, or any skill at that, at the same rate. But we don’t; some struggle while others absorb and can do with ease.

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Any schoolchild can write letters, words and sentences. It doesn’t take talent to learn how to write.

To create a programming language like python or an operating system like linux certainly needs a predisposition. But I’m talking about the usual average level. If someone could not learn how to program in 3-4-5 months, it’s not because he has no talent. It’s a difficult skill and takes a lot of time.

No one will tell an artist who paints for 2-3 months that he has talent. But anyone will tell an artist who has been painting for 15-20 years that he has talent.

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Correct, it doesn’t. But it takes a great skill and talent to craft those words into a masterpiece or a classic…


And why is it easier for some? Because they are better at thinking logically, the talent that’s a huge boost to learning to program. There are many people who will never grasp a higher level of programming ability. It just isn’t their thing, and their brain has developed differently.

I teach GDevelop to a group of 11 & 12 year olds. Most grasp the basics easily enough. Usually one or two struggle. I’ve had a couple of occasions where a student understands a new concept really, really quickly, and can think outside the box when it comes to applying the usage of that concept. That standout student has a flare and talent for programming. No amount of learning will improve the skill of an average student to that high level.

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I think that’s awesome of you.

Well doesn’t it boil down to, is it something enjoyable to the person? I think even an “average student” whose teachers cluck their tongues about their lack of flare and talent, can learn and improve their skill to that high level. If they enjoy doing it, so they keep at it. Brains aren’t concrete and if the one you have isn’t suited to the task you want to learn (like programming) you will literally grow a new one if you like programming enough to keep at it. Especially if you make sure to get plenty of sleep and don’t stress yourself out about learning (“I can’t do it! I’m no good!”). People always trying to act like learning is something they have to “do”, when the brain just does it for you automatically and without effort.

Anyhoo just throwing this in there cuz I don’t like people to limit themselves with strange beliefs. Just because you don’t amaze everyone out of the gate with your super quick grasping of concepts does not mean you’re not grasping them at all or that you never will. Remember bamboo. It does most of its development underground where no one can see or applaud it, and then one day it’s shooting out of the ground at 1.5 inches a damn hour, much to the amazement of all.

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Sure, most will be able to grasp some concepts, but there will be a limit for them and for many that bar will be low, while there are others who appear not to be as restricted, if at all. Programming is an ever changing landscape, and if you can’t grasp concepts quickly enough, you’ll be left behind.

But we’re shifting away from the original comment; that there is no natural talent needed for programming, that everybody can do it. My response was that there is a certain degree of logical thinking and reasoning to be a programmer. If you don’t possess a good dose of logic, then you’ll always be struggling with programming.

If you enjoy something, you’ll pick it up a lot easier than those who don’t enjoy it. And most of the time you enjoy something because you’re reasonable or even good at it to start with - you have a knack, a natural flare or talent for it.

It comes down to being realistic with your abilities. If you’re aware of what your limitations are, then you can enjoy and have fun with what you are doing at the level you do it at, while avoiding the feeling of frustration because you can’t do what you want at an unrealistic level.

So by all means have a go at programming, but be aware you may have limitations that are lower than you’d like or need to succeed.