Godot -- The Indie Future?

Well, What Now?

Unity recently announced a new fee structure that radically altered their business model, introducing huge burdens for their developers. This wasn't just a case of Unity costing more to use, but the sudden, haphazard, and retroactive! handling of these new fees damaged trust. Indie devs are suddenly scrambling to figure out their futures.

Unity and Unreal have occupied so much of the indie space that a replacement isn't immediately obvious. There's great work going on with Armory3d, Luxe, and even old-schoolers like Irrlicht, but Godot is the engine gathering the most buzz right now. So let's check it out!

Now: Godoku

To test out Godot, I'm making a simple Sudoku game to make sure I understand the pain points of the Godot workflow.

Godoku is basic Sudoku, with the addition of a lifebar and hint system.

This first release can get you from start screen to the end of a puzzle, but expect to see a lot of menus not yet implemented and the defeaning lack of sound effects. It's definitely v0.0.1!

One unexpected hurdle was the huge gulf between "technically valid" and "actually worth playing" sudoku. It's very easy to generate sudoku grids that adhere to all the rules, but making each one solvable and interesting to play has been more complex.

Cautiously Optimistic

Godot has strong opinions about how to architect a game, which is great. The workflow is clear, and there are obvious tools to each problem. Even if you have reservations about their chosen patterns -- like Singletons -- you at least know what best practices look like.

Performance in Sudoku isn't a problem, but I am concerned about architectural issues, like the Variant type union overhead on every variable declaration. I can't call this the future of indie development until I better understand how to manage these concerns. 

But! Godot has been such a pleasure to work in that I'm going to push it much further with a fast-paced 3d game and just see where it takes me.