Where to Start with Documentation?

Questions
1

Hello everyone!

I am experienced in programming but new to game development. I’m reviewing the learning resources on https://defold.com/learn/ and I am unsure where to begin.

Should I start with the First Steps / Introduction section, or would it be better to go directly to the Tutorials? Which path would you recommend for someone with general programming experience who is just getting started with Defold?

Thank you and congratulations to the team for the work you’re doing with this engine!

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2

You could watch Defold for beginners tutorials playlist from @Pawel They should be sufficient to get started with game dev. Since you have experience with programming, you should get used to it in no time. Try to follow the steps shown by yourself to get familiar with it :slight_smile:

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We were recently revamping the Learn page to include the first steps. The newest manual for Unity users is defintely the most actual, but we are slowly updating other manuals and tutorials too.

If you are experienced with programming, Lua, which is used in Defold should be really simple for you, so you can just start learning by doing - and anything you need, just check out the API Reference. There are usually examples of usage if you need anything.

To understand the philosophy of Defold I recommend especially 2 manuals for you:

  1. The Editor overview, which was recently updated, that will guide you through everything you should now regarding how to use Defold Editor:
  1. Defold Building Blocks, which are crucial to just get started.

Building blocks are very similar conceptually to all other game engines - those are the bricks you use to build your games.

Those 2 manuals are must read, or you can watch some entry level tutorials instead, if you prefer watching:

Or this free tutorial by Zenva is for entry level:

And then, because you are new to game dev itself, but should fairly easy grasp the code, I recommend to start by doing at least one tutorial, to get the grasp on what to use for what (visual representation, scripts, structure, interactions, collisions etc) only.

This tutorial can help you make your first game under an hour:

After you go through this, there is an amazing collection of tutorials by Asatte:

If you get the basics and philosophy of Defold, you should start building something simple, check out the Examples anytime you want to look up how to make something. And then, please, get back to us with a feedback on the learning process. I will be doing a dedicated manual for experienced programmers, but new to gamedev like you, so that might be a very insightful and definitely appreciated feedback! :heart:

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@Asatte @Pawel Wow, that was fast! Thank you so much for all the info. As soon as I can look into everything, I’ll give you feedback to help you out.

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5

Perfect! We really appreciate feedback from newcomers to Defold. It’s a great opportunity for us to adapt and improve our documentation and onboarding.

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6

Hello again! While searching for resources about Defold in Spanish (I’m from Spain), I found this course (Tutorial Completo de Defold Engine | defold), which could perhaps be added to the Courses section ( Defold courses ) of the website, since, according to the course index, it teaches many aspects and possibilities of Defold. All credit goes to its creator, Artiko.

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7

It is sadly incorrect in some steps (simply, well, halucinated…) and judging by this and it being all text-based, it looks more like a generated course, than a real one. :frowning: It’s not all bad, most probably the examples could work, but if you are starting with Defold and stumble upon something halucinated and you don’t know a correct way to do it, you end up wasting time and your learning resources to remember something that will not be useful, and most probably you won’t be able to recognise the problem.

I suggest it’s better to use LLMs to translate the existing real courses and tutorials into Spanish. :slight_smile:

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8

Thanks for looking at it and warning me :slightly_smiling_face:

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9

Hi again! I’ve been watching the videos from the Defold for beginners tutorials playlist from @Pawel and right now I’m watching this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjJ-oDz-GcI.

Based on other documentation I’ve read, I have doubts about moving the ship. In the on_input function of the video’s player.script, here is the code:

function on_input(self, action_id, action)
	if action_id == hash("left") then
		local pos = go.get_position()
		pos.x = pos.x - 5
		go.set_position(pos)
	elseif action_id == hash("right") then
		local pos = go.get_position()
		pos.x = pos.x + 5
		go.set_position(pos)
	end
end

The question is conceptual: is it correct to move the game object here without using dt? Shouldn’t the responsibility of detecting the input be separated in on_input from the responsibility of updating the object’s position in the update function with the dt?

It may be because it’s an introductory video meant to explain the basics, and it’s done this way to make it easier to understand, or it may be explained in subsequent videos, but I’m eager to know it sooner xD

Thank you in advance!

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10

@AlejandroGV yes, it’s very basic, for introduction! :wink:

Movement, as you correctly suspect is good to make it using physics formulas which needs dt, it’s very well explained in the Movement tutorial:

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It can also be seen in our examples, for instance here: 8 ways movement

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