Ask HN: What are the best Godot 4 production-grade learning resources?

[aecorredor]

I've been getting into game dev lately and chose to start with Godot 4, given all the recent events. I've spent quite a lot of time looking for quality learning resources, and most of them are on YouTube. The problem with that is that you don't really get a well structured path, and most of the times you don't really find stuff that's meant to be production ready.

[amitmathew]

At Quiver, we’re building comprehensive, polished courses for Godot. We aim to take you from the basics to more advanced concepts. Our content isn’t free though, but we’re doing our best to make it worth the cost. You can check it out here: https://quiver.dev. (Disclosure: I’m the founder).

[CobaltFire]

Quick note:

At https://quiver.dev/upgrade/ the section "Why should I purchase a Quiver+ subscription?" the following text needs copy editing:

You shouldn't -- well not right away at least. Start by trying out our free tutorials and game templates to see what game development with Godot is like. If you want to hacking a small project for a few weeks is enough for you, our free offering might be all that you need.

As this is likely a critical path for many conversions to paying customers having language that can be parsed easily is probably critical.

[aecorredor]

I actually did find you guys last week. I didn’t buy anything because I’m waiting for the Godot 4 3D shooter game, since that’s exactly what I want to make. Having focus on code organization + best practices would also be awesome.

[amitmathew]

Awesome! The 3D shooter course is in production now, and is looking great so far. We try to inject best practices in all of our courses as well as weighing tradeoffs when discussing different approaches to a problem.

[opyate]

GDQuest has some good free tutorials [0], and great bundles on their website [1] which is very project-based, i.e. you end up making small games. Keep an eye out for special offers, e.g. I bought an "ultimate" bundle (which includes everything) back in Feb 2021 which includes future updates.

However, I would also recommend making as many small (tiny) games as you can. There's nothing as motivating as releasing something often. You have to be diligent, though, and not succumb to scope/feature creep. There's nothing like learning by doing.

PS check GDQuest's "recommended" channels at the bottom of their YT channel for more good stuff.

0. https://www.youtube.com/@Gdquest

1. https://www.gdquest.com/product/

[birophilo]

I'm on the same road as you, a couple of months ahead.

After watching lots of tutorial videos and scouring the web for resources, here is what I'd recommend, or at least how I would do it over again myself:

First, a note on versions. The Godot ecosystem is in the middle of a big transition from version 3.x to 4.x, which introduces a lot of improvements but also some breaking changes. If you want to make a browser game in the immediate future, stick with Godot 3, as web exports for 4.0 aren't yet functional. For most other things, 4.0 seems to be the place to start.

- Start by going through the official (4.x) docs including the walkthrough games. As with many open source projects, the official docs are underrated. https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/index.html

- Then, the course I found most useful after trying lots of other things is the book "Godot 4 Game Development Projects" by Chris Bradfield. It teaches basic concepts as you build different games such as: 2D platformer, Asteroids, 3D Minigolf etc. The quality of the code examples and the design patterns feel a lot better than some of the video tutorials on YouTube. Not taking anything away from video tutorials - sometimes a visual demo is just the ticket, of course. But a book can introduce concepts comprehensively and benefits from professional editing. This is where it started to click for me.

- Then I would recommend the website GDQuest (gdquest.com). It has free courses and game pattern tutorials in Godot, e.g. state machines, but the best stuff is the premium content, which is not cheap but worth it. It has games courses like RPG's and tower defence. I'm working through their "2D Secrets" course - currently on a Factorio-style (builder simulation) game tutorial and it's the most detailed game walkthrough I've seen in Godot. I'm working on a sim project myself, so it's just right for me. Plus it introduces you to the Entity-Component System design pattern in Godot. Unfortunately it's all in Godot 3.0, but once you're comfortable enough with 4.0 you can start to translate the differences and there are comments on the forums plugging the gaps.

Hadn't heard about Quiver.dev until now but it also looks great!

[aecorredor]

Thanks! Hadn’t heard about the book. Do you feel it’s worth diving into the GDQuest courses even though they are v3? Given the price, I feel like I should wait until they release the v4 versions.

[birophilo]

I would get to the point where you can create simple games in Godot 4.0 first before looking at the GDQuest 3.0 courses. At beginner level, the 3 vs. 4 differences will be too confusing. But once you're at the stage where you're looking for intermediate courses, you can try and tackle the GDQuest 3.0 courses in 4.0 if you're brave. Some API changes are superficial enough, others less so - the forum comments have been very helpful to me. The GDQuest team are working on 4.0 material right now, although I think these will be new courses rather than makeovers for the existing ones.

EDIT: I sound like I'm taking sales commission here, but one more recommendation: the Bradfield book is available as a Kindle ebook, but Kindle's code formatting can be pretty tortuous, and incredibly you can't even copy-paste from the Kindle app without some hack or other. But Packt offer the full book as nicely formatted HTML.

[malermeister]

On a related note: Does anyone know any Godot resources for folks with previous programming experience that focus mostly on the game-specific path?

I have ten years of professional programming experience, I've just never made a game. All the Godot tutorials I can find have extensive explanations of loops, functions and similar basic concepts.

[birophilo]

Most of these resources (e.g. the Chris Bradfield book) are targeted at experienced programmers new to game dev. GDQuest has a coding beginner's track and a developer's track, although the usual v3 vs. v4 caveats apply.

[malermeister]

Thank you, I ended up ordering the Chris Bradfield book!

[aecorredor]

Same here!

[d13]

1. Book: Godot 4 Game Development Projects by Chris Bradfield. It’s superb and a great permanent reference.

2. GameDevTv’s Godot 4 course

3. The 4 videos currently on Godotneers Youtube channel.

Those will get you there :)

[aecorredor]

The godotneers video on Godot Components was clutch. Thanks!

[Shawnecy]

Nanotech Gamedev has had a pretty decent series of videos for developing an RTS in Godot 4[1]. Plenty of videos go beyond the usual intro stuff.

[1] = https://www.youtube.com/@nanotechgamedev/videos

[amerkhalid]

Along the same lines, does anyone know what's the state of VR/AR in Godot?

I have been interested in exploring this space, not sure if first-party libraries like ARKit would be easier to start with or a game engine. (Not planning on touching Unity).