GDevelop: The Internet’s Best Kept Secret
By: Pantelis Kassotis
Tags: Game Development, No Code, Free, Games, Open Source

GDevelop

Every programmer knows that nervous feeling when jumping into new technologies. That’s the same feeling I had a couple of months ago when I decided to research a new game engine that caught my eye. As game developers across the industry keep saying, coding skills alone aren’t enough to build successful games (a lesson tech giants like Google and Amazon had to learn the hard way recently). One has to take game-logic and art into account when venturing into game development and the learning curve for newcomers can be very steep and overwhelming.

That’s where GDevelop comes into play. A completely free and open source game engine created by Google engineer Florian Rival (4ian), GDevelop allows gaming enthusiasts to create fully-fledged 2D games from scratch by employing event chains and drag & drop methods instead of traditional coding. It is the perfect way to start building complete projects while learning how video games work. A much faster process I’d say than jumping into Unity or Unreal straight away because this engine acquaints you with the basic principles of game development without the headache of figuring out how C# works at the same time. The best part is that GDevelop is released under the MIT License, allowing creators to fully own their games after completion, while offering a wide variety of export methods for developers interested equally in mobile, console and PC gaming.

GDevelop

Getting started is also incredibly easy. There are three main ways you can use it. You can download the GUI app on your computer, open the browser version or download the mobile app and build everything from your phone (neat!). Once you access the dashboard you can either start fresh with a blank project or open one of the pre-made games GDevelop offers so you can go through their scene events, modify them and gain a better understanding of how everything works. This is how I was able to build my first two games in just one week (an insane timeframe considering the average time games take from day one to release). These two projects have helped boost my confidence and kept me motivated as I made the eventual jump to Unreal Engine without worrying it would take me a whole year (or maybe even more) before I had something interesting to show for it. Not a bad deal.

I won’t go into great detail about the limitations of GDevelop because they’re not the point of this article (the point being the confidence and understanding of game development one obtains by using this tool) but I’ll list them anyway in an effort to keep things fair for fans of other game engines out there (I’m looking at you Godot fans). GDevelop only supports 2D games and doesn’t leave a lot of room for coding even if you’re a skilled programmer who can handle the challenge. Your only limit is your imagination as long as you’re using the engine’s methods (upload images and make them do stuff by using the event menu). This can be off-putting for more advanced developers but it still serves as a great introduction for complete beginners.

GDevelop is still evolving thanks to its vibrant community (of which you can be a part of) so no one can tell how far it will go but what I do know for certain are two things. The first is that Florian Rival deserves the GitHub Star badge for building such a great open-source product, and the second is that anyone who tries GDevelop for the first time without prior experience is bound to be hooked on game development for life. What more could you ask for?