Tutorial Final Scene will not work

kleptolia_pennyfeath · February 23, 2026, 5:50pm

Godot Version

4.6

Question

I am stuck on the last part of the tutorial. Keep getting an error: Invalid call. Nonexistent function ‘start’ in base ‘Area2D’.

This is where the error indicator is pointing:

func _new_game():score = 0$Player.start($StartPosition.position)$StartTimer.start()

I have looked at the player (Area2D) node and everything seems good. I have the start code in there from the tutorial:

func _start(pos):
position = pos
show()
$CollisionShape2D.disabled = false

I don’t know what else I might be missing.

Also, the engine keeps telling me that (delta) is never used without an underscore in front of it, but the tutorial didn’t mention that. Is there something there that I’m doing wrong?

Yes, I am a clueless noob. Thank you for any help.

jtw789 · February 23, 2026, 6:21pm

Can you link the tutorial?

conz3d · February 23, 2026, 6:47pm

if the function is called _start than you have to use the name with the underscore when you want to call it.

func _new_game():
    score = 0
    $Player._start($StartPosition.position)
    $StartTimer.start()

The underscore is used in functions to mark them as private (not used outside the class). There are no real private functions in gdscript, it’s more a rule. As you call it from another class (script) you use it public, so the underscore is not correct in the name of the function. Remove the underscore in the name of the function or add it to your function call.

But for parameter like “delta” you get a warning, that it’s declared but never used in code. To ignore this warning you can add the _ to the parameter name. It tells Godot “yes I know that it’s not used, will need it later”.

kleptolia_pennyfeath · February 23, 2026, 6:56pm

Here it is, thank you.

conz3d · February 23, 2026, 7:01pm

If I look at the original code:

github.com/godotengine/godot-demo-projects

2d/dodge_the_creeps/player.gd

master

extends Area2D

signal hit

@export var speed = 400 # How fast the player will move (pixels/sec).
var screen_size # Size of the game window.

func _ready():
	screen_size = get_viewport_rect().size
	hide()


func _process(delta):
	var velocity = Vector2.ZERO # The player's movement vector.
	if Input.is_action_pressed(&"move_right"):
		velocity.x += 1
	if Input.is_action_pressed(&"move_left"):
		velocity.x -= 1
	if Input.is_action_pressed(&"move_down"):
		velocity.y += 1

This file has been truncated. show original

There the start function has no underscore.

func start(pos):
position = pos
rotation = 0
show()
$CollisionShape2D.disabled = false

kleptolia_pennyfeath · February 23, 2026, 7:02pm

I fixed that. It was a leftover from last night when I was trying different things to get it to work. Game still doesn’t want to start.

conz3d · February 23, 2026, 7:04pm

Than check the new error message. And compare the faulty line with the source code:

jtw789 · February 23, 2026, 7:28pm

Does the rest of the code work? Is the script attached to the player node? Could we maybe see the scene tree?

kleptolia_pennyfeath · February 24, 2026, 3:43am

Here are screenshots of all trees

jtw789 · February 24, 2026, 5:18pm

What’s this warning?

kleptolia_pennyfeath · February 24, 2026, 7:12pm

I set the Player node position to 240,450 when I was trying to figure out what was wrong and that caused the warning because you can’t transform a linked node.

What’s weird is I can get the game to start when I am in the project menu and go directly to run. The player won’t move around the board. But the game is open and the main sprite is there. I have never been able to get the mob to spawn, but I’ve gotten the main player sprite to work as it should with movement and sprite flipping while moving.

kleptolia_pennyfeath · February 24, 2026, 9:36pm

Hey, thank you all for your help and replies!

I got it to work. I must have put some code in the wrong node or something. I’m still not sure, exactly. I started over and got it all finished and working, though.

conz3d · February 24, 2026, 10:49pm

Cool. Please mark this thread as solved, if all your problems are fixed now.