Blockly Styled VPL

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i Think a Scratch/Blockly Styled Language Built-in Will be Helpful For People Who Never Made Games Let Alone Used Lua

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Welcome @TBNR8473!
I understand the need, but I think it was mentioned many times, that we don’t have any visual programming in plans. We are rather trying to focus on making the editor extensible to maybe allow building something like this in the future. I personally was attempting building something like this for Defold, but all my trials and prototypes weren’t ever satisfying :confused:

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oh… that’s surprising Thankfully Code Library’s Exist

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Hi,

If you have never made a game, nor did programming, I think you should start with another engine like
G-Develop (https://gdevelop.io) or GameMaker.
It would be a good starting point, then once you have more skills on game dev and programming, go back to Defold.
If you want to know why, read next:

Even if I know programming (C++ at university, python, java, javascript, and now lua thanks to Defold), I started with G-Develop. Because it was only point and click and there is already enough things to learn besides coding. Like what’s a sprite, a tilemap, a collision object, how to create animation, what’s the “engine loop”, how to use messaging/event systems between objects etc.

G-Develop has a really good editor for newbies! It has a system of builtins “behaviours” you can attach to objects (like "this thing is a plateformer actor => bam you can controle it, jump etc. Then “this thing is a platefom” => bim, the plateformer actor then dont fall through it), so you can have a working game really quickly with zero coding.

BUT, as a developer, once I learnt all “besides code things”, I started to NEED a real coding language. For me, point and click or visual programing was a needle in my soul.

So I’ve searched for another (free) engine that had at least scripting builtins (G-Develop has some but its more a pain, feature added on top of point and click), but that wasn’t a big thing like Unreal.
I ended up with GameMaker that has its own scripting language (GML= Gamemaker language… obviously) , but also have “box visual programming” version too.

So I learnt new things with it, with some scripting etc.
Then I faced 2 new walls:

  1. GameMaker workflow to bundle your game to something else then Windows Desktop or HTML is a pain in the a$$. They dont have a free building server, so if you dont have a linux/macOS you cant bundle to it. I definitely quit while trying to install the build tools for Android, which was my first target. And I still didnt have iOs or other targets.
  2. The GML language is not a “true” programming language, they add stuffs every versions that break your code, they have "kind of " Classes that are not really Classes, they have “kind of Structs” that are not really “Structs”, “kind of modules” that are not modules etc. As soon as I wanted to build a good architecture with code, I was just fighting with the language and the engine.

Sooooooooo after all these previous experiences, I searched for my dream game engine which should:

  1. use a true programming language, also usable out of the game engine. I discovered lua which I am totally in love with. It feels simple and fluid to write like python (and without tabs!), has this functional programming side that I like from javascript, and still can implement any OOP pattern I can imagine with just lua tables. I am amazed by it. If you add annotations and a good editor, this is my dreamt language.

  2. has a simple workflow to bundle my game for all plateforms, desktop, html and mobile. For this, I think Defold is the best engine around! I dont think any other engine has a free build server that just spit out all your binaries just with one click. And it works awesome, you write once, deploy everywhere!

  3. have simple but powerful API that I can wrap my mind arround, and not put itself between me and my code. Defold is mastering this: the API is clean, messaging system + application lifecycle is simple but let you do whatever you want. Render script is the most free (like in freedom) and powerfull rendering pipeline arround. You need to write it all… but you CAN do whatever you like.

  4. Have an integrated Editor where I can do most of the thing: coding, organize assets, debug, level editing, GUI etc. For this, the Defold Editor has still to be improved, that is its weakest point I think. But since about 9 month I use it, it has improved a lot, like every single release you have good new feature.

  5. be stable through time, so all my work is not broken after each update. Defold do this perfectly!

  6. be lead by a “good enterprise” and has a good community: a place that has some values besides money, that wont sell you an annual subscription just to build your game, that wont totally change its strategy just “because money”. I think we are safe here with a Defold Foundation, located in Sweeden, its important to me. And the forum community is 5 stars!

In the end, Defold is a really good engine, right now and in the long run.
BUT you have to do the effort to learn lua programming to do stuff.
And I think this is a good thing.

I don’t know your background, if you are more on the art side or just trying to create a game for fun, but if you want to create games, programming is mandatory in the end.
And everybody should learn to program in this numeric society, in my opinion (like every body should learn to cook, to draw, to sing, to play music).
If you don’t want to learn, maybe you can find a friend which do and work with him…

P.S.: I dont know why I’ve written all of this :grin:

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