godot-lang-support VS upbge

Another potential example would be a better C#, but unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with it to evaluate what can be improved. While I don't think Scala as any chance of replacing C# in Unity, in the indie space Unity has been losing some market share to Godot, which has bindings for multiple languages. A "better C#" could become the next indie gamedev language. Who knows, maybe this could be a interesting use case for Scala (or even Scala Native).

I was thinking as in releasing your game under an open source license and putting code on like github or Codeberg for people to use/contribute to. You could use Godot https://godotengine.org/ Many different languages you can use https://github.com/Vivraan/godot-lang-support

It depends on what you are looking to do. Find what you want to do/make, chose a language that you like and gets you where you want to go and stick with it, learn it, make projects, many small projects to help you grow. Check out this for games https://godotengine.org/ https://github.com/Vivraan/godot-lang-support Some languages are harder to master than others. I went the route of C++ because it is what I wanted to learn, got me where I want to go, and I didn't like the higher-levels ones so I was good with a longer road, but everyone is different, chose what works best for you. Also you should look at the FAQ

You could try Godot. https://github.com/Vivraan/godot-lang-support Godot has it's own language gdscript, which is python like. You can use other languages as well. Really the most important thing is to chose something, stick to it, learn it, play with it, build new things with it, do it all in incremental ways, move by tiles not by miles, and continue to grow. Have fun, keep focus and keep working on it, get plenty of practice, it will help.

No: https://github.com/Vivraan/godot-lang-support

GDScript is the most tightly integrated into the Godot editor, but there are tonnes of language bindings that work just as well and call into the C++ API just the same. C# is officially supported and they just ported it in Godot 4 to use .NET 6 instead of Mono. I've also used the Typescript/Javascript module from a 3rd party in the past and it surprised me how good the dev experience was.

Here is a list of language bindings and their operational status https://github.com/Vivraan/godot-lang-support

The languages listed as "production ready" here[0] are Javascript, Lua, Nim, Rust and Typescript.

Also I would hesitate to call GDScript a weird Python. It shares some of Python's syntax, like significant whitespace, but beyond that it's a completely different beast.

There is an actual Python for Godot project[1] but I don't know how close it is to ready for prime time.

[0]https://github.com/Vivraan/godot-lang-support

[1]https://github.com/touilleMan/godot-python

That's odd specifically w/relation to Godot (especially as it's listed among production-ready bindings for 3.X), I know I feel like I've mentioned it too often whenever it seems actually relevant.

For Godot and languages another potential point to help is with 4.0a and GDextension bindings, GDextension is the replacement for GDnative. Particularly 3.X allows using community-made bindings to use desired languages, but being 4.0 has the new system that means all of the existing bindings need to be updated/replaced.

Starting with 2d games is very good advice however if the child is mostly interested in 3d, well not the most helpful advice.

Some people here forget that children are way more tolerant of not understanding things than adults are. They just want to get a quick taste not necessary dedicate their life to the study of game development.

I think something like RPG in a Box https://rpginabox.com/ is nice if the child likes Minecraft-style graphics. Also it is worth checking out if modding an existing games is something that might be of interest. Also blender is perfect, as it allows to focus on certain aspects on modeling first and in has an amazing game engine that can be solely driven by logic bricks: https://upbge.org/#/

Still, I think even something like Unreal should not be ruled out if the child is dead set on making a "real" game (9 years is a bit pushing it admittedly with help it might work out). For a visually-motivated child that has access to beefy computer, Unreal is the perfect tool to get things done early and fast. Load the starter template and they have a character they can walk around with in the first minute. Grab some free-for-the-month asset packs and they can make decent looking levels in a day or two that they can show friends and be proud of. And if they get to the point of needing logic, the visual scripting language is more than enough to make complete games in it.

Unreal is a monster of complexity but but perfect for just hacking together a quick asset-flip demo one can feel good about. They will learn about the realities of game dev soon enough, let them have some fun.

Also, if the child is the kind to need a more focused approach, blender is a nice choice

It's not as monolithic as you'd think. There are lots of engines out there but their communities aren't very vocal compared to Unity, Unreal, and especially Godot's community.

Take a look at: https://itch.io/game-development/engines/most-projects

And

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/blogs/the-generous-space-of-al...

If you look at both of these you'll see just how many engines there are and neither of these cover everything. There are plenty of engines popular in the Python community that no one outside of it are aware of. Such as Arcade [0], Python-Tcod [1], Ursina [2], UPBGE [3], and Panda3D [4]. But based on your description you'd really like https://gdevelop.io/. It embraces exactly what you're describing where you can build a game but just installing entire features others have made and put online into your game.

[0] Beginner friendly 2D library:

[1] Rougelike: https://python-tcod.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

[2] Beginner friendly 3D engine (built on Panda3D): https://www.ursinaengine.org/

[3] Blender Game Engine Fork: https://upbge.org/

[4] Highly flexible code first 3D engine: https://panda3d.org/

UPBGE which was formerly part of Blender is the only modern 3D engine I know of that supports Python for game development.

Otherwise, if it doesn't work, I'd suggest creating an issue at the UPBGE repository: https://github.com/upbge/upbge/issues

Yeah, they some people came back and revived it, they're adding some hella cool features like being able to render with eeve https://github.com/UPBGE/upbge

Link to issue:https://github.com/UPBGE/upbge/issues/1760

Another would be https://upbge.org/ 3D game engine forked from the old Blender Game Engine and deployed with Blender itself.