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Catherine Z.'s Senior Project Blog
2024 | BASIS Independent Silicon Valley

Week 2: Choosing Sides

March 9, 2024

Hello and welcome back! In this post I will be discussing the Pros and Cons of Godot and Unity Engine and which one I have decided to continue on for this game. Additionally, I will be giving a review of GRIS and its use of game mechanics.

 

Weighing the Sides

Both Godot and Unity are great game engines with their own strengths and weaknesses. I have tested both engines over the course of the past two weeks, building a simple 2D game in each. In this section, I will discuss the pros and cons of both engines and which engine ended up outweighing the other. In this case, I will be discussing Godot 4.0 and Unity 2022.3.

 

Godot Engine (4.0) Unity Engine (2022.3)
Speed: Time is of the essence for this project, so the faster the engine the better.
pros:

  • – has a much faster compilation time and runtime than Unity
 cons:

  • – significantly slower compilation time and runtime than Godot
Usability: How easy is the game engine to use/learn?
pros:

  • – lot more beginner friendly (simpler user interface)

 

cons:

  • – less features
  • – not ideal for collaboration or team projects
  • – not as many tutorials and many tutorials are outdated (Godot 3.0)
 pros:

  • – much easier for collaboration and team projects
  • – greater amount of tutorials and forums for learning and troubleshooting
  • – more complicated interface, but greater usability

cons:

  • – needs a separate IDE to process code
2D Game
Development:
 Since our goal is to create a 2D side-scroller game with 2.5D features, we need an engine that works well for 2.5D games.
pros:

  • – 2D intuitive

 

cons:

  • – does not allow for 2D and 3D objects to coexist
  • – does not handle 2.5D games well, clear separation between 2D and 3D functions
 pros:

  • – more ideal for 3D games, but works just as well for 2D
  • – allows 2D and 3D objects to coexist in a single space
  • – 2D sprite rig allows for skeleton to be moved in the z-axis, allowing for more possibilities in animation
Compatibility and Assets What other applications is it compatible with and what assets/libraries are available?
pros:

  • – no built in library of assets, but has an asset sharing platform

 

cons:

  • – not compatible with some applications that we plan to use (Live2D)
 pros: 

  • – built in library of assets, along with an online asset platform
  • – compatible with many other applications (live2D)
The Chosen One

So which game engine did I end up choosing?

Although Godot is a great beginner-friendly engine, it just doesn’t have all of the features that I need for creating certain parts of the game. Some of the game puzzles I have planned out (spoiler alert) will be using 2.5D graphics. Additionally, some of the in-game animations that I will be incorporating into the combat/story systems use Live2D which simply is not compatible (yet) with Godot. Finally, as a beginner game developer, I will be relying mostly on tutorials (and my amazing advisors of course) for troubleshooting and learning about different features. The number of tutorials that are up-to-date for Godot pales in comparison to the amount that Unity has. And thus, the final decision was made to choose Unity.

 

Weekly Game Review, File 01: GRIS
First impressions: 

For some context, GRIS revolves around a girl who is navigating through the stages of grief. As you progress through the game, you see Gris grow emotionally and this is reflected in the gameplay. At its core, GRIS is a 2D platform puzzle game, with a side-scrolling mechanism. What really stood out to me about the game mechanics were the way they reflected emotional growth within Gris. As you navigate through each stage, color is slowly added to reflect new emotions, along with challenges that reflect those you would face in each stage of grief and skills to help combat those challenges. For example, in the anger stage, Gris is periodically confronted with red sand storms which blow her back and these can be a metaphor for emotional fluctuations within Gris.

Although, I have only played through the beginning of GRIS, I think it is a beautifully created game that I would definitely recommend.

Looking into the Future

For the next step in the operation, I will begin creating the actual game, starting with characters. Next week’s blog will start with an introduction to the main character and include my process in setting up their movement and animations (and maybe skills if I have time). Additionally, I will be analyzing Omori’s use of game mechanics. I hope you enjoyed reading my analysis on Godot and Unity and my review of Gris. See you next time!

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