I’ve developed a schedule for the remaining time until submission. My idea for the game is a bit more developed but I need to know more about how Godot works before I can plan how to construct the game.
Although YouTube tutorials have been useful, they have not allowed me to do much deep learning and I realised that my learning works better with written material.
I searched the library and have found several up-to-date textbooks on learning Godot and I plan to start with one of the most practical looking: Godot 4 Game Development Projects by Chris Bradfield.
I will aim to complete a chapter over 2 sessions of 2-3hrs over the next few weeks while also working on the narrative design for my game.
They advise making the game using the book and then making it again only using the book as a reference. This makes sense and I will try and do this.
Chapter 2 : Coin Dash Game
I worked through the chapter and it was mostly problem-free. Occasionally I misread the text and had to use the supporting GitHub code to compare what I had done with what I was supposed to do. All of the assets were provided so I did not need to think about designing the environment or sounds.
Sometimes the mistakes were typos and deducing the corrections was useful as it forced me to pay attention to the syntax and function of the code.
The final game:
Achievements
- I feel more confident in setting up a 2D project and creating multiple scenes
- I am able to work with sprites, including sprite animations
- I better understand the ‘signal’ functions and how to use them to communicate between the nodes
- I also know about creating a UI
Things to develop
- Understanding how the spawn function is called and modulated
- Working with sound – it seemed simple but I don’t quite understand why some of the sounds didn’t work and then did
- Designing and making my own visual assets using pixel art
Next steps
- To work through the next chapter: Space Rocks: Build A 2D Arcade Classic with Physics
- To spend some time trying to make a similar game to Coin Dash with different assets
References
Bradfield, C. (2023) Godot 4 Game Development Projects. Packt Publishing.
