Well ahoy there

Ahoy! I stumbled across gdevelop a few days ago, and am looking forward to getting right into it. I’ve tried game-maker, unity, twine, construct, godot, and phaser over the past year or so, but each time I end up getting frustrated with the engines lacking too many features, taking so much time to learn (full time job with 3 kids :smiley:), or too full of bloat for what I had in mind.

I’m interested in making platformers, and possibly rpg type games down the track (in the vein of early snes RPG’s).

My main questions about Gdevelop would be; What are the kind of limitations of the engine and is the program still being updated with new features planned for the future?

Also, one more thing, just spotted the gdevapp. Is that a web port of the program or a seperate entity?

convictedweirdo

Welcome!

GDevelop will be no different but worst as this engine is less popular you will find less tutorials and examples online…

What I can think of right now but probably there is more:
-no dynamic lights and shadows in HTML5 but even on native platform is limited
-no special effects and shaders supported so you can not even make fake lights by blending layers and sprites
-no multiplayer in HTML5 but even on native platform it is obsolete
-no native mobile support which leads straight to the fact, no sensors are supported, no store integration, no IAP

No new feature is planned to my knowledge :frowning:
The only thing is in development right now is a new HTML5 based IDE for both GDevelop and GDevApp…
GDevelop is developed only in spare time by a single developer so don’t expect it to be updated as frequently as Game Maker or Construct…

It is started as a web port and technically it is a web port, you can even import your GDevApp projects in to GDevelop and visa-versa but not as easy as with Construct 2 to Construct 3 and it got number of limitations compared to GDevelop so at the moment can’t be considered as a full port but a separated version imo.

To create a platformer game, Gdevelop is really productive if you compare other softwares you talked about. Maybe there are not many tutorials, but it’s really easy to handle Gdevelop concept. Follow the tutorials on the wiki, and ask question on discord or the forum.
Ok it’s limited facing big commercials IDE, but with few imagination you can create really amazing effects on native platform. Html5 game will require much more work on sprites and animations.

What are the features you need ?

The softwares is not often updated lately, but the dev is working on a total “rebuild” of the softwares (with react native), wich will make it easier to update, port and collaborate form what i know.
There are also few things planned, you can take a look at the roadmap (on trello) on the home page.
You also have to know that the Dev (4ian) is working on a commercial game this year, so logically we can hope about several optimization and enhancements coming with it.

It’s a bit frustrating that the software isn’t that much popular (more contributor would be appreciated), but Gdevelop is really productive if you have few time left. Personnaly, i couldn’t work with any other softwares to make a game with a fulltime work on meanwhile. Like you, i tried Unity, godot, scirra, gamemakerstudio in the pasts two years, none of it was as productive as Gdevelop. Gdevelop could be learned really fast.

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