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What are the most simple free engines and tools for a beginner? (lemmy.zip)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/gamedev@programming.dev
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I belive i would like to try making games but my laptop isint that powerful. Its a thinkpad from like 10 years ago, i upgraded it to a 250gb ssd, and 16gb of low voltage ddr3, i also put linux on it to screeze out as much as possible. So i need something that will run but im struggling on choosing expecially sense i want to start for free. I want to start with something dead simple and work my way up.

What would you suggest and why so?

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[–] 4 points 10 months ago (7 children)

"Lightweight" and "small" isn't the same as simple. People seriously gotta stop recommending godot to beginners. It's good as a general engine, but a lot to take in for a beginner.

Pygame is a great choice. I would add Love2D as a similar alternative if you don't jive with Python.

Off topic but Godot has a serious cult problem. Say anything that could possibly be interpreted as negative about it, and you're going to get someone writing a very emotional response. It's pretty much at the Apple fan boy level, which is bad but mostly weird.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    I did call Godot lighter than Unity or Unreal, which I believe to be factually accurate. I have run Godot on a 2014 era laptop, it runs well on a system of that vintage.

    It is a full featured 2D/3D game engine and development environment, which can be a lot to take in. A lot of what I learned about game development I learned from a Youtube channel called Clear Code, who made the same snake game in both Pygame and Godot.

    Python and Pygame does away with the cluttered IDE, and you can build a functioning game in one file, then you translate those concepts to a more full-on game engine which is going to be a bit more practicable for making larger games with things like tilesets and more complicated physics and collisions and whatnot. I'd hate to try making a Zelda-like game in something like Pygame. Fear the men who made A Link to the Past in 6502 assembly.

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  • [–] -1 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    I did call Godot lighter than Unity or Unreal, which I believe to be factually accurate. I have run Godot on a 2014 era laptop, it runs well on a system of that vintage.

    None of that is relevant. By that metric, Pygame/Love2D are objectively the better choice over Godot, as they're smaller and lighter.

    I have been working on games (and many engines) for over 15 years. I know what Godot is, and what it isn't. It's the best choice for certain team compositions and certain game types, but it isn't good at everything. In fact, it's quite bad for very large and complex productions because of architectural issues (but that's irrelevant for 99% of its users)

    It's also not good for beginners for many reasons. The first is that it's complex, as it aims to be a full featured professional tool. The second is that it's weird, and does things differently from the rest of the industry. Its inheritance-based node structure was considered obsolete in the 2000s by the rest of the industry, yet Godot still uses it. They've hybridized it to introduce composition, which salvages it somewhat, but it still is a bad design with well-known pitfalls.

    GDScript is a shitty attempt to copy Python, and it lacks a lot of what a modern programming language has. It also is integrated into the editor in odd ways, like the Qt-esque "signals and slots" system (which is controversial even in Qt). It's designed around OOP, yet it blurs the lines between whar an object is and what a module is, which is extremely odd.

    I'm not trying to shit on Godot. Like I said, it has its strengths, and for certain types of games and team compositions it is the perfect choice. But it should NOT be recommended to beginners.

    ...IMO

    I'd hate to try making a Zelda-like game in something like Pygame.

    I gather that you're struggling to understand how Python modules work, based on how you explained Pygame. You are not supposed to write your whole game in a single python file.

    Also, you can make use of tools like Tiled, Ogmo, etc to create levels and load them in Pygame or Love2D. You can even embed scripts or data onto entities within those level editors. You could even use Blender if you wanted to, either by writing a custom exporter (in Python), or hijacking one of the existing ones.

    You can go very far without a full IDE like Godot has, especially if you're creative.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    OP asked for software that runs well on a 10 year old laptop with 16GB of DDR3 and Linux. Saying that I found that Godot runs well on my laptop of similar configuration and vintage absolutely is relevant, you disingenuous troll.

    I understand how Python modules work just fine, you install a module with Pip, and it'll run on your computer and only your computer until your computer gets some update in the future because Python's module versioning and dependency management are the worst in the business. Python also has a well-deserved reputation as a fast and performant language even running on old and limited systems...oh wait no it's a sow in treacle. The more you implement in Python the slower it's going to run. Can you name a commercial game that is implemented in Python, using modules like Pygame? I can't.

    If you've got the talent to open up a general purpose programming language and create a video game, use something like C# or Java, something designed for creating performant cross-platform graphical applications. Or, if you're going to start gluing applications like Tiled and such together, you might as well go with something like Godot because that's basically what you're janking together.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Found the Godot cultist. Take a deep breath. Having a parasocial relationship with a game engine isn't healthy.

    absolutely is relevant, you disingenuous troll.

    I meant irrelevant to the choice of an engine for a beginner. Why do you say I'm disingenuous?

    I understand how Python modules work just fine, you install a module with Pip, and

    You don't understand what Python modules are. There's no need to get so defensive about that. Nobody is born knowing everything, and there's no shame in learning.

    A pip package is not a Python module. Pip is just one tool for managing module dependencies (there are others). A module in Python is anything you can import, such as another python script, a folder with python scripts, or a native library. There's no need to use pip to make and ship a game in pygame. You probably used it to install pygame, because that's the common way tutorials tell you to get it, but it's not the only way, and it's certainly not the way you'd ship the game to end users.

    Python also has a well-deserved reputation as a fast and performant language even running on old and limited systems…oh wait no it’s a sow in treacle. The more you implement in Python the slower it’s going to run.

    This is nonsense. You don't know anything about software optimization. I can guarantee you that I've written pure Python that's more performant than anything you've written in C# or whatever you think is a "fast language".

    And in case you were unaware, GDScript is slower than Python. It's not a fair comparison because Python has a ton of interpreters to choose from, even ahead-of-time compilers that rival C/C++ performance. By comparison, GDScript has just the one interpreter built into Godot, which is never going to compete with even the CPython interpreter (the one you're probably using) in terms of performance, simply due to the amount of people and orgs investing in it.

    Can you name a commercial game that is implemented in Python, using modules like Pygame? I can’t.

    Idk pygame in particular, but there are a ton of commercial games made with Ren'Py. Search "visual novel" on Steam, and like 90% are probably made in Ren'Py.

    I don't do game dev in Python so I'm not familiar with what's popular nowadays, but there definitely are people making games with Python.

    if you’re going to start gluing applications like Tiled and such together, you might as well go with something like Godot because that’s basically what you’re janking together.

    "Gluing" applications together is called game development. Do you create your 3D models in Godot? Your materials and textures? Your story and design docs? Your music and sound effects?

    There are entire departments at game studios whose job is to build and maintain data pipelines between content creation tools and the engine, even for studios using Unity or Unreal. There are a ton of free/commercial tools out there serving the game industry (from AAA to indie), and the way to make the best game is to use the best tools.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    objectively the one with the cult is a good recommendation for a beginner since there's a strong community making content, arguably the most important factor in choosing something

    godot also has a lot of stuff baked in, so the community tends to use the built in solution for everything. you won't end up with one tutorial recommending a collision engine that makes assumptions that don't work with the other tutorial for different pathfinding or whatever. they all start with basically the same assumptions.

    pygame is a little intimidating since you start with an empty file and a pygame import. there's no real enforced or even commonly followed structure beyond that. beginners can figure it out but it leaves a lot of architecture questions open for you so your tutorials probably won't line up well.

    and I say all of that as someone who doesn't particularly enjoy godot, especially gdscript.

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