Hi, I’d like to make games, but coding is a bit hard for me. I’m taking some courses right now, and I’m starting to understand a little more about what this engine can do. From what I’ve learned so far, it seems like almost everything in my game could be handled with a state machine.
I know there are some free assets that help with the workflow by letting you create state machine nodes easily. The problem is that every new version of 4.x tends to make those assets obsolete. I was wondering if there’s any possibility of bringing back Visual Script or block-based coding as a permanent alternative way of coding. that would help me a lot.
Why? Typing code is the easiest part of programming. The hard part is designing and building systems. And that part will require exactly the same mental effort whether you’re inputting code by typing or by arranging boxes. In fact arranging boxes can just get in the way. If you’ve learned to read and write english - you’re perfectly capable of learning to write code.
That said, there are some block coding plugins for Godot 4, not sure how much of GDScript functionality they actually expose. Search the asset lib.
You could also just use Godot 3. It’s a full featured engine and games are still made with it.
Look, I understand your point. However, GDScript is a language that has changed with new updates, and I’ve seen tutorials that are no longer useful because of that. Besides, the engine already has some visual scripting tools, like the AnimationTree, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
My main issue with the AnimationTree, however, is that it’s not modular. I haven’t figured out how to export an AnimationTree from one character to use with another. The engine does provide shortcuts for some linear code, and there are free assets available to create state machines more properly. But sometimes, again, the updates make these assets obsolete.
I am not a software developer; I am an artist. I believe video games are a great form of art, and I’m trying to learn code just to become a developer. However, some minds just work differently than others—some are good at coding, while others are good at moving boxes.
It’s much harder for such a feature to be officially supported, there isn’t much interest in using visual scripting and even less in making it. You may have to stay on a version until your preferred programming-helper plugin updates to match if needed.
Orchestrator is regularly updated and I believe you can install it from the asset lib directly.
Block Coding targets education by including more ‘blocks’ delegating complex code, especially focused on 2D.
I know a dude who released several commercial games using blueprints. He was even featured in an interview, sponsored by unreal I think. But it is a good idea to learn some code along the way, it is not as difficult as it seems.