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Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

rawrlab.com

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Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#201

Post by vunderba »

mardifoufs wrote: post #168
gs17 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and Cinemachine Phantom Camera does most of that in Godot. >Unity exports to WebGL Godot also does that, albeit without C# support until the next major version.

The web export is very very bad currently. I know there is a PR where that is getting worked on, but currently it's basically recommended to use Godot 3.6 if you want to web export. It outright does not work for safari (and Im not sure if safari is the issue in this case, or at least not anymore. Webgl2 has been fully supported since v15 ?)

This is the reason that I still haven't switched over to Godot and I continue to develop games using phaser JS.

Forcing users to physically install a game onto their computer is simply too much friction for 99.9% of your prospective audience. Lack of robust HTML5 support is a dealbreaker.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#202

Post by vunderba »

lionkor wrote: post #102
magic_hamster wrote: post #28

This is great news! Too bad there's no C# support as of yet. But it's definitely a step in the right direction. Plus, not all projects need the performance boost of C#. Seems like Godot is about to grab a bit more market share from Unity.

C# is fully supported, you just install godot mono

Even outside of the Nintendo switch, C# is only partially supported. If you want to develop web games in Godot 4 you can't use C#.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#203

Post by Capricorn2481 »

beardedmoose wrote: post #87
tombert wrote: post #78

I know "asymptotically close to zero" about game development and the like, so if someone who works in this space could answer this I'd be appreciative: what, if anything, would make you use Unity or Unreal instead of Godot for making a game today? This isn't meant as a passive aggressive question to push some kind of open source narrative, but a genuine curiosity. Since I know basically nothing about the industry, I'…

A few years ago I started messing with Unity and for the most part it was a decent engine with many platforms you can target which is a huge plus. Their whole licensing issue of late made me think though, do I really want to put years of my life into building a game when the owner of the engine can make changes which negatively impact my project? Now, this could happen with any engine that you don't own but Epic uses…

But does it target switch? Or does a company offer porting to switch with potential issues?

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#204

Post by DeltaWhy »

weinzierl wrote: post #10

My 12 year old and I made a little game in Godot and it turned out pretty playable. I think in her peer group the second most popular device after the iPhone is the Switch. It would be incredibly cool if we could get our game to run there. I already found two GitHub repos with Godot ports, and this RAWRLAB announcement confirms that it will be doable on a technical level. However, I reckon that we do not qualify for…

Others have commented on homebrew, but there are a couple "game engines" available for the Switch that don't require modding. Nintendo released their own, Game Maker Garage, which uses a block-based coding environment. There are also two I know of that use a more traditional programming language: SmileBASIC and Fuze.

Both are similar to PICO-8 or other "fantasy consoles" where you get a full environment that runs on-device, with a code editor, tools for editing sprites, tile maps, music, and sounds, and a library of stock assets. Fuze also has a cheap "player" app so your kid's friends wouldn't need to buy the full app to play anything she makes. I've only poked around them a bit, but they seem like pretty capable environments that might be a good option for a kid that's interested in programming. The obvious limitation is that you're locked in to that platform - as far as I can tell there's no way to run your games on PC.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#205

Post by Nullabillity »

999900000999 wrote: post #73
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"only" If it's to dev a game with your kid, that pricey. Pricier than the console itself. Pricier than to dev for android or iphone, or any laptop. Or the steam deck for that matter. Expensive dev kits made sense for devs 20 years ago, but today they are just a way to lock the ecosystem.

Nintendo doesn't owe you a cheap way to deploy your custom binaries to devices. Buy a Steam Deck if you want that. Build it for Web GL or Android. Plenty of options exist. I'm not sure what OP actually wants here. Even if you can get your game running on your own Switch, it's not easy to get it up on the store.

We don't owe Nintendo to let them sell their junk.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#206

Post by Nullabillity »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #52
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"only" If it's to dev a game with your kid, that pricey. Pricier than the console itself. Pricier than to dev for android or iphone, or any laptop. Or the steam deck for that matter. Expensive dev kits made sense for devs 20 years ago, but today they are just a way to lock the ecosystem.

You’re kidding right? $450 for a dev kit is a steal compared to older console generations, which were thousands of dollars per device. Also, I think it is completely fair for Nintendo to think: If you won’t spare even $450 for a dev kit, there’s no way we want your game. By the way, consider what a Switch regularly costs: $299. You are paying Nintendo only $150 for the privilege of sending you a custom, low-run, modi…

> You are paying Nintendo only $150 for the privilege of sending you a custom, low-run, modified device that is different in both software and hardware, combined with (likely) an account representative for business and technical questions.

A distinction that _they_ created to begin with.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#207

Post by Nullabillity »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #56
bjtitus wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't anyone think of the giant multinational corporations instead of the kids learning to program for once.

No kid is going to learn how to program in Assembly and C++, when interfacing with a custom microkernel, custom graphics API, and all of the technical requirements Nintendo demands (i.e. you must have a launch screen, loading times cannot be longer than X, read speeds cannot peak higher than Y), while cross-compiling your game and all dependencies to ARM, and precompiling all shaders ahead of time, for the Tegra X1,…

> This is a game console, not a PC.

Game consoles are arbitrarily restricted PCs.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#208

Post by Nullabillity »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #65
amalcon wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A chunk of it is copy protection. Dev devices can necessarily run software not signed by the manufacturer, which means copy protection can be bypassed using PC-like methods and loaded to a dev device. Thus, they want to make sure the dev device is not the device that most consumers purchase. I think it's a poor tradeoff for such a locked down environment, and anti-educational at that. Obviously console manufacturers…

It's a little more complicated than that. Dev devices are typically physically different - containing debug lines and connections that are not present in retail. The Switch itself has 2 different types of dev console: One that looks very much like retail, and another that is about 4x as thick and has every port under the sun. Secondly, these consoles are physically fused differently. Instead of having retail encrypti…

You're starting at the wrong end. There is no need for there to be a separate "dev console".

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#209

Post by Nullabillity »

Retr0id wrote: post #136
weinzierl wrote: post #10

My 12 year old and I made a little game in Godot and it turned out pretty playable. I think in her peer group the second most popular device after the iPhone is the Switch. It would be incredibly cool if we could get our game to run there. I already found two GitHub repos with Godot ports, and this RAWRLAB announcement confirms that it will be doable on a technical level. However, I reckon that we do not qualify for…

I'd recommend canceling your Mig Switch order. First and foremost, it financially supports some very sketchy players in the commercial piracy (under)world. Secondly, it won't let you play homebrew games - only officially signed nintendo software. Thirdly, you'll have to keep your console offline forever, if you plan to use it - you can bet Nintendo will start revoking cart certificates and banning consoles at the fir…

Buying a Switch in the first place supports some very sketchy players.

Re: Free Godot engine port for Nintendo Switch

#210

Post by SXX »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #194
SXX wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indie gamedev company co-founder here: 14 people team, 2 games released + next in progress and signed with publisher. There are few big reasons why you can't just go and use Godot. Publishers. Basically 3 years ago when we made our first game together using Godot it was main reason why we were rejected by some publishers. Now situation can be slightly different, but many publishers still have in-house pipeline that o…

Nice answer. I have to say both the games on your Profile look great, and I am definitely going to try one tonight. Do you recommend I start with Dwarven Skykeep or Vengence of Mr. Peppermint if I'm playing on a Steam Deck?

I tested both on Steam Deck and VOMP certainly works better on the platform since Beat 'Em Up just have easier controls and we supported Xbox gamepad anyway.

For Dwarven Skykeep controls include both keyboard and mouse and while playable from touchpads it's far from perfect. Though it's the one made in Godot and it took us 3+ years to build. :-)

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