I’ve had a chance to help people kick-start with Defold for game jams and similar kind of events, when you’re expected to deliver something quickly. One doesn’t really have time to learn specifics of the game engine, as all the focus shifts towards the game project. And Defold is probably a tool best enjoyed with a slow thoughtful start.
However, there’s Ludum Dare 36 soon, we’re also partners of IG Jam at Gamescom. It is a great chance to actually try out the much hyped game engine by King. Here’s my step-by-step guide of how to start fast with Defold for a game jam.
Expectations
Defold is a very powerful tool in skilled hands. However the set of built-in tools delivers a polished developer experience if
- you’re working on a 2D game (mobiles and web are fine)
- you think Spine is a great tool for animation
- you can script or program
From zero to "I did something"
I assume you’ve heard a lot about Defold, you’ve seen some games, like the HTML5 version of the Saga family title that loads in seconds in your browser. But you never actually touched the engine. This is how you start to be efficient with Defold on the game jam:
- Click the Get Defold button, login with your Gmail account, download the pack, uninstall it and launch the editor. All your team members do the same.
- Navigate to http://dashboard.defold.com and click on Add Project on the left, check the “Yes, show me your tutorials”, select “Side scroller”, save. Now you see Add Member button in the middle of the Dashboard. Invite your team members using their Gmail addresses.
- Launch the editor app, File/Open Project, select the project you’ve just created. Name the new branch “LovingDefold”, click Finish. Double-click main/main.collection to open the main scene. Hit Project/Build and Launch from the top menu.
- Done. You did something. You have a project that runs, and everyone you care can work on this project together with you.
Making basic sense on Defold
Okay, we have something running. Now lets see what is where, why the editor UI is a kiss from the 90s and how to start making a game you actually care about on the jam.
- The current editor is indeed a kiss from the 90s, here’s the sneak peak thread about the proper editor in the works. But for this particular jam you’re back to the past. Enjoy while you still can =]
- Now while you have the Side Scroller project open, lets poke around the editor according to this guide, just to learn where is your project, where is your current scene, where is a game object and how do the prefabs work. Your team did the same, right?
- Okay, Now you know that the .collection is a scene. You open it from the Project Explorer to see its contents in the Outline. Blue lego-bricks in the Outline are game objects that contain components. Blue lego-bricks in the Project Explorer are reusable game objects and behave pretty much like prefabs. Also you’ve learned the hard way, if something does not work, you forgot to save the changes.
- Now I suggest you scroll through the scene editing manual and learn some shortcuts. You probably will want to figure out how to move stuff around, add things to the scene and save assets as reusable game objects (prototypes or prefabs if you will). The project you have is a decent testing ground to poke around and test what you read in the manual.
- Okay, you have some gut feelings how things work. Now you’re ready to check out the building blocks manual and see how right or wrong you are =]
- You should be a bit overwhelmed with text information by now, and also you should be starving for some real action. So… I suggest artists take a look at a Sprites and Animation tutorial by GamesFromScratch and people of code watch @Ragnar_Svensson explaining Lua in the Defold game engine.
- Still here? Okay, makes sense. You want someone to explain you how do you do input and arrange project structure. Take a look at the tutorial by GameFromScratch.
to be continued…
It is post Gamescom time now, so I’ll improve this guide after later on. Suggested further reading though is here:
- Big list of Defold Pro tips by @Pkeod
- Official Defold manual
- Defold scripting reference
- Official Defold slack for fast interactions with community and a good place for your game jam team chatter.
Feel free to post your tips on how to best get productive fast with Defold, during game jams. Also all the possible feedback and critics are very welcome. Cheers!