Book Image

Godot Engine Game Development Projects

By : Chris Bradfield
4 (1)
Book Image

Godot Engine Game Development Projects

4 (1)
By: Chris Bradfield

Overview of this book

Godot Engine Game Development Projects is an introduction to the Godot game engine and its new 3.0 version. Godot 3.0 brings a large number of new features and capabilities that make it a strong alternative to expensive commercial game engines. For beginners, Godot offers a friendly way to learn game development techniques, while for experienced developers it is a powerful, customizable tool that can bring your visions to life. This book consists of five projects that will help developers achieve a sound understanding of the engine when it comes to building games. Game development is complex and involves a wide spectrum of knowledge and skills. This book can help you build on your foundation level skills by showing you how to create a number of small-scale game projects. Along the way, you will learn how Godot works and discover important game development techniques that you can apply to your projects. Using a straightforward, step-by-step approach and practical examples, the book will take you from the absolute basics through to sophisticated game physics, animations, and other techniques. Upon completing the final project, you will have a strong foundation for future success with Godot 3.0.
Table of Contents (9 chapters)

Downloading Godot

You can download the latest version of Godot by visiting https://godotengine.org/ and clicking Download. This book is written for version 3.0. If the version you download has another number at the end (like 3.0.3), that's fine—this just means that it includes updates to version 3.0 that fix bugs or other issues.

A version 3.1 release is currently in development and may have been released by the time you read this book. This version may or may not include changes that are incompatible with the code in this book. Check the GitHub repository for this book for information and errata: https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Godot-Game-Engine-Projects

On the download page, there are a few options that bear explaining. First, 32-bit versus 64-bit: this option depends on your operating system and your computer's processor. If you're not sure, you should choose the 64-bit version. You will also see a Mono Version. This is a version specially built to be used with the C# programming language. Don't download this one unless you plan to use C# with Godot. At the time of writing, C# support is still experimental, and is not recommended for beginners.

Double-click on the file you downloaded to unzip it, and you'll have the Godot application. Optionally, you can drag it to your Programs or Applications folder, if you have one. Double-click the application to launch it and you'll see Godot's Project Manager window.

Alternate installation methods

There are a few other ways to get Godot on your computer besides downloading it from the Godot website. Note that there is no difference in functionality when installed this way. The following are merely alternatives for downloading the application:

  • Steam: If you have an account on Steam, you can install Godot via the Steam desktop application. Search for Godot in the Steam store and follow the instructions to install it. You can launch Godot from the Steam application and it will even track your playtime.
  • Package Managers: If you're using one of the following operating system package managers, you can install Godot via its normal install process. See the documentation for your package manager for details. Godot is available in these package managers:
  • Homebrew (macOS)
  • Scoop (Windows)
  • Snap (Linux)