Make Defold great again!

d_bl1n · October 4, 2025, 11:41am

I’m writing this because I love Defold and am accustomed to contributing to the development of things I like, use, and want to use.

Let me say right away that I have no complaints about the Defold developers, the Defold team, or anyone who contributes to Defold’s development in any way.

Defolder is a game developer using the Defold game engine.

The original history of game engines was linked to the ease of game creation. And while this trend continues, it has led to the emergence of a multitude of game engines, both open source and closed-source, both popular and unpopular. Currently, the leading positions are held by Unity (indie projects) and Unreal Engine 4 (AAA projects).

Here are some sources:

Speaking of Defold, even in its niche - web development and mobile games (I could be wrong, correct me if I’m wrong) - Defold is not the most widely used or popular engine.

I’m Russian, and Reddit isn’t very popular here, but I recently went there and was surprised by how small the Defold community is compared to other engines:

I adhere to the following philosophy:

The more people learn about Defold, the more likely they are to try it.
The more people try it, the higher the barriers and the more diverse the audience.
The more people love the engine, the more likely they are to use it long-term.
The more users benefit from it, the larger and stronger the community becomes.
The more people in the community, the more active and proactive the participants will be in creating educational materials, promoting the movement, and developing projects.
The more educational materials, the higher the quality and diversity of the content.
The more diverse and high-quality the resource, the easier it is for beginners to overcome motivational difficulties and become professionals.
The more professionals on Defold, the higher the quality of the games created and released.
The more great games on Defold, the more studios and companies will consider it a reliable tool. “The more studios consider Defold, the wider the job market for specialists becomes.” “The more vacancies there are, the more popular the engine becomes, and the easier it is for those who have been working with it for a long time to find work and implement their ideas.”

I encourage Defold participants to create and develop local communities focused on educating newcomers and promoting the game engine.

What are local communities?
Your region, your country. For example, if you’re Spanish and learning Defold or have been developing games with it for a long time, create a group forum or a forum for Defold developers that reflects your interests. Continue to grow this community. (Note: I haven’t found any information online about any unofficial Defold forums, except for the Russian Telegram chat: Telegram: View @DefoldEngine), but there are official Russian developers there, so I don’t know…

Why are forums necessary?

As far as I understand, the official forum only allows posts in English; they don’t want to add sections for other nationalities. This forces people to create their own hubs with information that can be shared in their native language.
Comfortable language proficiency as a starting point. Many beginners give up immediately when faced with English lessons or forums. Local groups allow concepts to be explained simply, with examples from local culture, which is motivating.
Gradual skill growth: beginners learn locally (lessons, questions, and answers in their native language), solve simple problems, and, when ready, integrate into the global system.
A source of information for neural networks for your languages. Developing local forums will provide more sources of information for neural networks as people, especially beginners, encounter various problems and questions in the future. 5. Examples from other engines: Godot’s growth was partly due to this approach—from local communities (forums in Spanish and French) to a global hub. A comparison with Defold highlights that Godot is easier for beginners due to its abundance of resources, including translated ones.

I’m reaching out to those who have their own unofficial Defold community or are interested in creating one.
I’m looking for collaboration. Share lessons created on your forums, and publish and translate lessons created through unofficial efforts.

I recently created an unofficial forum, defolder.com. Although there’s little material there yet, as I’m a newbie. I’m open to collaborating with communities interested in providing free educational materials, sharing lessons for beginners, and creating a forum or similar information platform.

I also have a request for the developers. When developing the project on Github, it would be nice if you added documentation in your native language. English is an international language; is that a reason to not forget about people from your country (newcomers)?
This small detail can impact the development of your local community and the overall popularity of Defold.

I’d like to add a few more suggestions:

I’d like every developer using Defold to share their annual report on learning the game engine or writing games on social media with Defold-related hashtags. This report could be a video or a blog post. Let this become a habit aimed at growing the community and uniting it around common goals! It’s great that you share this on the forum, but I’m talking about publishing outside of it.
I’d like every hobbyist and professional to write at least one guide or tutorial for beginners per year, with the next generation of Defold developers in mind. If you’re not a “teacher,” please contact me, and I’ll try to include your materials for beginners.
I’d like professionals to share best practices for using Defold so that beginners don’t waste time learning something they don’t actually use. Perhaps we could create a roadmap for newcomers to the Defold world.

I wrote all of this without any negativity. I simply see a problem and am trying to offer a solution. Don’t listen to those who say it won’t work. I’ll tell you this: it’s better to try to develop and popularize the engine together.

Counterarguments for Local Communities and Translation

Concentration vs. Availability in Native Languages
While a single resource is convenient for centralized search, local platforms significantly lower the entry barrier. A newcomer encountering an English-language forum for the first time often loses motivation: data from the University of Virginia shows that 67% of novice programmers abandon a project without understanding the material in a foreign language. Local forums allow content to be adapted to the cultural and linguistic context, which increases user retention and the quality of engine development.
Fragmentation vs. Organic Growth
Fragmentation only becomes a problem when there are no connecting links. Connecting regional communities to the official forum through anchor tags or an RSS feed of local content will strengthen the overall knowledge ecosystem. With this approach, local forums complement rather than disrupt the central hub: they serve as a “funnel” for new users who then migrate to the global platform.
Limited resources of the Defold Foundation compared to volunteer translators**
Defold may not have full-time translators, but its active community is ready to take on localization without the need to create a separate team. Godot and Vue.js have proven that 80% of official documentation translations** are done by volunteers. By providing tools (pull request instructions, quality checklists), the community will independently ensure timely translation and updates.
Risk of outdated information compared to modular documentation**
Informal training materials can indeed become outdated, but the modular format of articles and videos (with a clear date and link to the SDK version) makes them easier to update. Connecting local authors to the “Release News” channel and specifying the engine version minimizes the risk of providing incorrect recommendations.
The effectiveness of global case studies versus local success stories
Case studies from large studios motivate professionals, but stories from real indie developers from your city or region are much more relatable to beginners. When a fellow developer posts a video about how I created my first game on Defold in my native language, it’s much more inspiring than abstract examples from other continents.
Teachers versus practicing developers. Recommendations shouldn’t be developed solely by the core team: often, an external expert, creating a tutorial or open-source project, finds unexpected, simpler approaches. A peer-review system in local communities will help identify and promote unique ideas that will later be included in official guidelines.
English-language policy versus a multilingual core
An English-only forum creates a barrier. A hybrid model—official documentation in English plus “official translations” into several key languages—will allow Defold to reach not only English-speaking users but also users from Russia, Spain, Brazil, and other countries. By investing in translations into the five most widely spoken languages, Defold can grow its user base by 40% within three years.

Spelltato · October 4, 2025, 12:58pm

I actually agree with this post, at least when it comes to attracting beginners. My first engine wasn’t Defold, and looking back, my English hasn’t really improved much since then. However, having a community and documentation in my native language gave me the push to start diving into it as my first game engine.

For those living in English-speaking countries or already having significant programming experience - when English feels almost like a native language - this post might not resonate as much. But for many beginners, it’s hard to dive into a completely new language and informational environment at the same time.

I want to support the author and offer a small analogy.
Imagine two identical construction kits: one comes with instructions in your language, and the other only has instructions in Swahili (I just picked the first language that came to mind). Even with AI tools, I think most people would prefer the kit with understandable instructions.

Considering the analogy with Defold, some might argue that although Defold doesn’t have translations, it’s a high-quality engine. But let’s be honest—beginners are unlikely to prioritize its power or advanced features over personal comfort. At the same time, Defold already has a big advantage: simple builds and very low system requirements, which can attract enthusiasts who, despite having weaker computers, are eager to dive into game development.

Vampiloup · October 9, 2025, 4:30am

The biggest disadvantage of Defold is this one : I use 9/10 of my time (at least…) to understand how to make scale and zoom work together, scale and zoom and move, scale and zoom and move in the same way in parent and children, components reacting in the same way to the same thing (why exactly can’t I make the size of a collision box scale in the same way than its sprite ? Is there even a reason ?).

Basically, Defold is very simple, but there is some nonsense barriers like that which, separately, can’ be not a lot, but together make the coder use all its time trying to solve it, while the rest of the game is simply stuck.