FINAL ROUND: Godot vs GameMaker & Why I Chose...

In this video, I recap my decision to avoid Unreal (both v4 and v5) before going into more detail on the final two realistic game engine options, looking at the pros and cons of GameMaker and Godot. I also come to a conclusion and pick my engine so I can move forward with my very first game.

Hi, and welcome to The Infinite Inkwell. I’m Lewis, and I’m on a storytelling adventure, exploring and experimenting with new ways to tell stories. My first storytelling escapade will be in the form of a video game.

You can watch me play games and, in the future, hopefully, some development and game art on stream over on Twitch (I will be doing it on YT too, but there are challenges from a Mac)

I'll also be posting updates on Instagram:

Chapters
00:00 Tease
00:05 Intro
00:27 Recap - engines I’ve looked at and ruling out Unreal
02:04 This Video
02:47 Evaluation Areas
05:13 Can they build my features?
05:38 Performance
08:27 Features
010:40 Ease of Use/Accessibility
12:14 Long Term Viability
15:30 Learning & Community
19:03 And The Engine Is…
20:51 What’s Next
22:22 Outro

#gamedev #godot #gamemaker #firsttime #noob #games #gameengine #learning

[TheBendixSA]

Picked up godot a couple months ago after years using unity and I have to say, I'm have a blast with it. Great Tool.

[choitv]

Oh wow, thanks so much for the shout out!
Congrats on landing on Godot, Let's go make some games! 🎉

[nathnolt]

If you're going to use Godot's animation player, be sure to not mess with the position of the root Node, as this affects it's global position. I did this to make a key door open, but then the reset set it to 0 and I was confused as every manual movement of the key door kept putting it back to the top left of the scene, I was going insane. Only change positions of child nodes, as this position is relative to the root node.

[neppallv]

As mentioned in the "Learning and Community" chapter of your video, the abundance of tutorials created by content creators is certainly a compelling reason to learn it.

[LunaBirbosa]

I recommend taking the game you want to make, and breaking it down into different small projects. Learn how to solve the specific problems, and then you can save that as a system to use in all of your future work or to improve on as you learn more. Cheers and GLHF!

[foxmulder]

When it comes to 2D games, I think GameMaker Studio 2 is a better option. The ability to access any object from any other object gives it a strong advantage later in the development. Additionally, managing the project, finishing, and publishing becomes harder in Godot as your game gains in complexity. This is why we still haven't seen Godot titles achieve the same success as GMS2 games like Hyper Light Drifter, Katana Zero, Undertale, Nuclear Throne, Heartbound, Risk of Rain, etc...

That said, for practice or simpler games, you can use any of the two. Especially if you are busy doing other things as well. Both GML and GDScript are fast codding and very forgiving.

[Pewsplosions]

I've done this kind of research for years for many engines. At this point I'm pretty convinced the only reason anyone should use GameMaker is because they've already used it for years and don't feel like learning a different engine. Godot isn't perfect but I think it is more or less making all other 2D engines irrelevant. I'd even say the same thing about Unity but they have such a huge user base it'll take a lot longer. Unless Godot makes a ridiculous amount of progress in 3D, Unreal is probably safe for a long long time. Probably the only reason to not choose Godot at this point is if you are really really going for some kind of low level, highly optimized, code first experience. Then there are things like Orx, SDL, etc... that make a little more sense than trying to hack on Godot's engine IMO. But most people will just be making standard games and it is hard to beat Godot's feature set in the first place but when you add on the open source and completely free aspect... kind of makes it a no brainer for most projects IMO. There is also the caveat of no official or free console support, but IF you make it that far there are options so doesn't seem like it should be a deal breaker. And even though that probably made me sound like a big Godot fanboy, I've actually done everything I can to convince myself not to use Godot for some reason I can't even explain. I tried my best to get into Defold especially. I 'committed' to using Orx but have been fighting myself about that lately. So it is just getting harder and harder for me to deny the Godot allure.

[ajinkyax]

- RAM Usage: While Godot's default builds can be larger, especially for smaller games. GameMaker's efficiency is commendable in this regard.
- Software Resource Usage: GameMaker's game-like interface can indeed utilize GPU resources, Godot is light in this space.
- Building experience: GameMaker clear winner, Good luck compiling your game for Switch on Godot.
- 2D Sprites: Hands down GameMaker is a best for creating or using any sprites whether its animated or not.
- Learning Resources:
Both Godot and GameMaker have a growing community and resources. While Godot might have a slight advantage in terms of YouTube tutorials due to its popularity, both have sufficient documentation and online support.
- Coding: Godot is like using a Tool to make games, GameMaker's event-based approach can be more accessible to beginners.
- Particles: Godot and GameMaker have robust particle systems.
However, Godot's particle editor and scripting capabilities might provide more granular control for advanced particle effects.

[sitton]

In regards to Godot documentation, something you might find helpful is that you can open in-engine documentation for every node in the engine.(Right click a node in the node tree to see what I mean, make sure to keep a eye on what nodes inherent from others as they can share methods and signals.) you can also hold ctrl and left click a method to open the documentation entry for it.

This won't always tell you explicitly how to do something specific, but it should help you have the tools to develop your own way of doing things.

[nbcde]

I would suggest working on a smaller project first before diving into making your main game. Maybe try competing in a game jam or working on a small game over the course of a week. Its helpful to work through a small project to give you an idea of how tackle combining multiple systems. Tutorials usually only go over one system at a time so many people get confused when they try to put it all together.

I actually spent 4 years working on a game I thought I would finish in a few months because as the project got more complex, it became difficult to troubleshoot simple issues and then I ended up rewriting thousands of lines of code to implement a new feature because I didn't write my code to be modular. I would also suggest setting up your steam page as soon as possible. Believe me, Its not something you want to wait until the end to do.

[studiomalaka]

Nice choice! I'm moving to Godot after years of Unity and I'm loving it

[GDScriptDude]

Congratulations on choosing Godot Engine. It's interesting that not so long ago there was criticism that Godot was lacking in tutorials and community help. One of the problems with the FB group that I see is that some beginners over use it (multiple posts in short succession about their specific problems) to ask basic questions that are exposed to the entire community diluting the enjoyment of seeing interesting posts showcasing game progress etc. This is different to the forum where we can scan topics to read what peaks our interest. The Discourse server is probably worse where all messages are stacked up and scrolled (so I never go there). There was a Godot Q&A site where I got most of my answers to difficult problems that I was misunderstanding, and now those topics have been migrated to the forums.

[aussiescorner]

I worked through Clear Codes entire video, also warning theres 2 videos. I think the 2nd one is a bit shorter but it's still some hours. Anyway at the end of it all the 1 and only issue I had that I couldn't figure out how to fix was with the skeleton animations throwing a boat load of errors. Everything still seemed to function but the errors were defiantly there. Anyway overall in my opinion it's a great course to work through.

[wilpuriarts]

I’m a GDevelop user and that’s good open source alternative to Game Maker.

Going to start learning Godot this fall, because we’re starting to make a big RPG project with another dev. GDevelop is very good, but it feels like complex systems are easier to handle in Godot.

[jondobgames]

really love your videos :D i don't know why, but i do :D your narration style is quite unique i like it.

[PsychoMantis_]

the fact you are working on a mac mostly, going with a open source tool like godot makes sense. very informative. keep at it.

[vitaly.petkevich]

Todd Howard: "Just upgrade your PC". :D

[sm]

GameMaker's pricing structure was a non-starter for me. I used GM way back in the days of versions 4, 5, and 6, but not this time around.

[maxelized]

I've been using Game Maker for 20 years and I love it so I can't switch but long term viability sure had me worried. There's just this couple features of Godot that makes me jalous.

[mibs]

You will do great, Will look forward to future updates on your game and your experience.

I also use Godot, love the engine, love the community and love that it's open source.