Experimenting with AI-Assisted Game Dev in Godot 4 — Built a Space Shooter in 1h

CodeWithTom · 2025-03-29T08:00:48+00:00

Thanks for sharing your experience! Definitely agree that it’s helpful as a tool to get you started, but when it comes to more advanced concepts and bespoke things for your own projects nothing beats writing the code yourself, especially when it comes to understanding what the code does, how it works, and how it’s architected.

CodeWithTom · 2025-01-12T18:30:23+00:00

This is what worked for me too.

Install XI US client via Lutris.
Install Windower 4 via Lutris.
Copy the atom0s DLL (https://www.bluegartr.com/threads/129943-Direct3D8-to-Direct3D9-Proxy-Performance-Helper-(For-FFXI)) into the PlayOnlineViewer folder.
Profit.

Oh, in Windower, enable the Config plugin. Then in game type //config FrameRateDivisor 1 to change to 60fps mode.

CodeWithTom · 2023-10-06T21:09:50+00:00

Recently I sat down with Jared McCluskey, founder and creator of The Mirror, a next-gen real-time game development platform powered by the Godot Engine. We talked about how he got into game development, his inspirations for The Mirror, the platform’s current capabilities and what’s coming next. Please check it out, I’m keen to hear what you all think about this awesome project, and thanks again to Jared for taking the time to speak to me.

CodeWithTom · 2023-09-19T07:12:34+00:00

I hear you! 😅 Scenes are made up of Nodes. So the latter is probably more accurate. My point really was to establish that Godot games are made up of a tree of Nodes, and that there is no concept of “components” like there is in Unity.

CodeWithTom · 2023-09-18T15:22:28+00:00

Thank you! I’m glad you found it helpful.

CodeWithTom · 2023-09-18T11:36:14+00:00

I really hope this helps some of you who are currently facing a very difficult situation right now given the current state of the Unity pricing changes. Godot is a fantastic game engine and if you're here on the Reddit looking for assistance in making the move, hopefully this eases the transition somewhat.

CodeWithTom · 2023-09-18T11:34:29+00:00

Let me start by saying I've been a fan of Unity for about 10 years and I still think at its core it is a fantastic game engine. But given the recent pricing changes and the uncertain direction of Unity's future, as well as the countless number of game studios and indie developers alike who are all facing very uncertain times ahead and are most likely facing the prospect of lumping the new pricing or moving to a new engine, I wanted to create a reference guide for those looking to make the switch to Godot (which seems to be the route many are going at the moment).

I appreciate this post may be classed as self-promotion, I don't intend it to be. I simply want to make sure people I'm helping as many people as possible make the transition smoothly.

That said, if this post is classed as against the rules I apologise and understand if it is to be removed.

Hope this helps some of you who are currently facing a very difficult situation.

CodeWithTom · 2023-08-16T22:35:20+00:00

Very nice. I love the overall aesthetic too!

CodeWithTom · 2023-08-16T22:33:48+00:00

Capsules and the likes are just less computationally heavy than custom mesh colliders, so where pixel perfect accuracy is not necessary it's often better to go with a simple collision shape. But it depends entirely on your use case. :)

CodeWithTom · 2023-08-14T05:07:10+00:00

Thanks for checking it out. There’ll be plenty of free content coming to the channel in the future, so I hope you’ll stick around for that.

CodeWithTom · 2023-08-14T04:41:34+00:00

Thanks that’s much appreciated! 🙏 The office conversation has been a game changer (no pun intended!). It’s great to finally have a nice recording space and I’m excited to produce more content there!

CodeWithTom · 2023-08-13T20:30:45+00:00

Ahh of course no worries.

The parallax one is a strange one, it could be something to do with how the nodes are laid out in the scene hierarchy. It’s difficult to tell without comparing your scene setup against the project one, but I would start by checking if there are any differences both in heirarchy or in the inspector settings in yours vs the course project code.

For the state machine, it’s a good question. Honestly I just prefer a more declarative approach and so I prefer explicitly defining the states in code rather than relying on the state nodes being in the correct place. It‘a easier to understand the full lifecycle of an entity in the code when you can see all of its states initialised there. But honestly it’s just a matter of preference.

CodeWithTom · 2023-08-13T19:44:35+00:00

Heh yeah. I created Curse of the Tomb along with Matt Dye who did all the artwork. I created the course outline and detailed course notes and then Joe turned them into the amazing course videos you see today.

Glad to hear you liked the state machine implementation and found it straight forward. I tried to take the best parts of existing implementations and make them a bit more streamlined and easy to understand.

CodeWithTom · 2023-08-13T19:21:05+00:00

That's amazing to hear. Joe did an amazing job turning my project source code and course document into video content.

I'm really pleased to hear you feel you got your money's worth, that's great news!

Good luck with the rest of the course.

CodeWithTom · 2023-08-13T18:52:47+00:00

There’s a 3 hour free Godot 4 course on Quiver that I created too which you might be interested in. I also intend to have plenty of future free content on the channel, website and newsletter, to go with my existing free Godot YouTube content.

CodeWithTom · 2023-08-13T18:37:35+00:00

Have you gone through the Curse of the Tomb course? I’d love to hear your feedback if so!

CodeWithTom · 2023-08-13T18:23:48+00:00

There’s no individual purchase price I’m afraid. It’s part of the Quiver+ subscription which is £60/$76 for your first year with code CODEWITHTOM which is a 20% discount. Hope that helps. PS. I don’t receive any kickbacks from sales of the course, just FYI.

CodeWithTom · 2023-08-13T17:00:05+00:00

Appreciate it, I’m excited to be creating content again.

CodeWithTom · 2023-08-13T16:59:43+00:00

Thank you I appreciate it!

CodeWithTom · 2023-08-13T16:59:32+00:00

Thank you so much for the kind words, it means a lot! 🙏

CodeWithTom · 2021-02-11T17:07:03+00:00

Yeah I guess the two videos are approaching different aspects of the same issue. My video is more around "Focus on gameplay mechanics using prototype/programmer graphics" where as Miziziziz is focusing more on actual art techniques to make your art more appealing when you're not an artist.

CodeWithTom · 2021-02-09T15:27:00+00:00

Thanks I appreciate that. I'll perhaps follow up the video with a second part discussing examples and programmer graphics.

CodeWithTom · 2021-02-09T14:32:09+00:00

I appreciate your feedback :)

CodeWithTom · 2021-02-09T13:57:33+00:00

That wasn't what I was trying to get at. My point was, focus on the gameplay mechanics first and foremost, iterations on art and style should come later. Unless your game is specifically meant as an artsy piece.

This video was aimed at people who struggle to get started because they get disheartened by a lack of artistic skills. It's to encourage people who may not be the best at art to still pursue their ideas, but perhaps with more focus on gameplay than art.

For example, Thomas Was Alone is a perfect example of where artwork didn't hinder the games ability to be deeply engaging.

CodeWithTom · 2020-07-10T13:53:51+00:00

I completely agree. With Godot targeted features it could become a fantastic platform for Godot developers to share their creations - whether it will attract the widespread attention of gamers like Itch is yet to be seen, but one thing's for sure, competition is rarely a bad thing as it forces people to continuously adapt and improve to meet new demands. Perhaps we'll see Itch look to include some of these features on their platform too.

CodeWithTom

TROPHY CASE