Unity or Godot for a 2D platformer pixel art game?

As the title says what are your thoughts?

I assume creating games in 2D is much easier than 3D if you never did either?

 

Choose the engine that best suits your needs. If you're just getting started you're generally best off with the engine that has the largest number of learning resources available to it. Check out the communities, check out the tutorials, check out the docs.

Additionally don't just check out the engines that have zero upfront licensing fees. Game Maker has a solid reputation.

 

From what I gather Unity seems to have the most learning resources

 

Try them both.

 

Unity, because documentation si better.

And yes, GameMaker is a solid option.

 

John Romero often recommends https://coronalabs.com when asked these kind of questions.

 

With Godot your game will look more pro, less amateur as you avoid the newbbies splash screen "made with Unity personal edition"

In the end it's up to you to pick the tool that you prefer to use or that suits your project needs.

 

Or... is this going to cause your game to look less personal?

 

Yes less pro i would say
None indies successfull 2D games have "personal edition" in the splash screen introduction.
Also with Godot you don't need any spash screen, it's open source.
Another good point is Godot has a black theme by default that is more comfortable to work with.

Anyway it's my opinion about those two options and this is a whole other debate we don't need to discuss lol

 

Yeah there is a terrible lack of square circles in our universe.

 

lol

 

There is no one right answer. The reasons behind such a decision are numerous, and quite a few of them will largely depend on the individual or team using the tool in question. Personal experience will count for more than a list of features.

Of course, you are in an enviable position where this is concerned. Both Unity and Godot have options that allow you to try their wares free of charge. And the current version of Unity's personal license is feature-complete, so you won't have to worry about particular goodies being hidden behind a pay wall. It is possible to do some basic prototyping with both engines to get a feel for how they work.

If you wanted a knee-jerk reaction from my own personal experience, I would lean toward Godot. I've played around with the 2D features in Unity with a certain degree of success. But the 2D tools in Godot are more thoroughly baked into the engine. You can tell that Godot was engineered for 2D first and foremost, and added 3D features after the fact, while Unity came at it from the opposite direction. If tight, pixel-perfect control is your aim, Godot will allow you to achieve it more easily than Unity will. If you only need a looser 2D implementation, and don't care quite so much about pixel-tight fine-tuning, either engine will work. Build out some very basic features, and do a little testing to see which engine feels right as a tool, and which will provide the features and performance you need for the design you intend to work on.

 

I mention some of these factors because the original post referred to pixel art. Retro pixel-art is more than just drawing some low-resolution sprites and calling it a day. Anyone who's dappled in the area can tell you that modern display technology doesn't necessarily play nice with pixel art, and getting it to render properly can be challenging. Specifically, insuring integer scaling and rendering without any artifacts or skewed pixels isn't easy with 3D rendering as your core rendering option.

Unity can sometimes struggle with this sort of thing. If you want it, it is possible. I've played around with that approach in Unity and managed to get it working as desired. But there were some hoops that had to be jumped through, and it was not an out-of-the-box solution. Unity is extremely flexible, so even with its 3D-focus, it is quite possible to get some really good 2D pixel art running in it. But you won't just be dropping sprites in and be off to the races. It will take some experimentation and experience before you iron out a few of the wrinkles.

Godot was much more turn-key in this respect. Thanks to its stronger 2D focus, Godot had most of the display options I was looking for built right into the basic project options. In particular, pixel-defined viewport and scaling options came as default, built-in structures. There were menu options for defining and customizing all of that, and it all just worked. Likewise, getting pixel-based sprites and graphics running was a piece of cake, and it played great with low-res pixel art. And of course, Godot has had level-editing features for a while, allowing you to assemble entire stages out of your 2D sprites without any extra plug-ins.

 

Game Maker handles pixel art the best imo. It's native. In Unity and GoDot you have to do some trickery to get it to work correctly and prevent things like shimmering.

 

Godot also has native 2D, no trickery

 

It's also worth pointing out that creating games in 2D is not easier. Creating 2D assets is easier. The structural complexities of dealing with 3D graphics within a game engine aren't actually that much more complex. It's entirely possible to use 3D graphics, but integrate these with a 2D physics engine and structural perspective.

The difference is in the assets that you create. Even the most complex 2D asset is likely still simpler than a 3D asset. Creating 2D assets involves firing up Photoshop or GIMP and doodling for a few seconds. Creating 3D assets requires modeling, rigging, texture-mapping, and animating, all in 3D. And even the simplest of 3D creation programs tends to be complex when compared to other art software. It can take years to learn everything you need to know to make proper 3D art assets that are optimized for games.

In general, you could say that sticking to a 2D perspective for a game is simpler, and likely a better starting point for the uninitiated. But also, keeping your scope limited is a good idea as well. A 2D platformer, with the most basic starting elements, is actually a decent idea. It's going to be much more complex than Pong, but it's still manageable for most beginners.

 

I would have argued with you a few years back, but with the $35 Unity Plus monthly subscription what the Unity splash screen now says is:

"Warning: The developer's bank balance is below $35, so don't expect much investment in the game's quality"

 

Let's say you make a 2D game and you don't know if it will return you money or nothing, why would you spend 35$ per month to remove the splash screen and have a black theme ?
While in Godot you can remove splash screen and got the black theme for free, and the game you'll make will be the same as it was made in Unity

 

To bamboozle "asset flip!" trolls into thinking they aren't buying a unity game.

 

Game Maker would be my recommendation for anyone wanting to do pixel perfect 2D. Its just naturally set up better then unity.

Of course if you want to do anything 3D at any point, you might as well use Unity for both. Unity 2D is pretty good.

There isn't much point using Godot for anything other then being hipster.

 

Because the Unity splash screen looks unprofessional at this point, due to only low quality games ever including it. When your game is launched and players see the Unity splash screen, the first thing that comes to mind is all the other terrible games made by 13 year olds with that same opening.

 

What really is not cool is that the almost 3MB splash-screen texture stays in memory after the splash screen.
https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/issues/unitysplash-cube-stays-in-memory-even-after-splash-screen

 

Unity get every time more and more friendly for 2D game developing, specially based on pixel art games.

Please, check this thread out from rustum that is working on promising pixel art solution to be a standard for Unity games:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/pixel-perfect-preview-package.533433/

Also check this video from Gamefromscratch covering this up:

I'm still afraid to use Godot because this proprietary GDScript language and concerning about performance. I know they are improving the compatibility with C # language however, they are ridding of the natural language stands like C# naming convention and so on. I'll stick with Unity as usual.