Writing my first OpenBSD game using Godot

Author: Solène

Date: 28 April 2022

Tags: gaming openbsd godot

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Introduction

I'm a huge fan of video games but never really thought about writing one. Well, this crossed my mind a few times, but I don't know anything about writing a GUI software or using OpenGL, but a few days ago I discovered the open source game engine Godot.

This game engine is a full-featured tool allowing to easily write 2D or 3D games that are portables on Android, Mac, Windows, Linux, HTML5 (using WebASM) and operating systems where the Godot engine is available, like OpenBSD.

Godot engine project website

Learning

Godot offers a GUI to write games, the GUI itself being a Godot game, it's full featured and come with a code editor, documentation, 2D/3D views, animation, tile set management, and much more.

The documentation is well written and gives introduction to the concepts, and then will just teach you how to write a simple 2D game! It only took me a couple of hours to be able to start creating my very own first game and getting the grasps.

Godot documentation

I had no experience into writing games but only programming experience. The documentation is excellent and give simple examples that can be easily reused thanks to the way Godot is designed. The forums are also a good way to find a solution for common problems.

Demo

I wrote a simple game, OpenBSD themed, especially themed against its 6.8 version for which the artwork is dedicated to the movie "Hackers". It took me like 8 hours I think to write it, it's long, but I didn't see time passing at all, and I learned a lot. I have a very interesting game in my mind, but I need to learn a lot more to be able to do it, so starting with simple games is a nice training for me.

It's easy to play and fun (I hope so), give it a try!

Play it on the web browser

Play it on Linux

Play it on Windows

If you wish to play on OpenBSD or any other operating system having Godot, download the Linux binary and run "godot --main-pack puffy-bubble.x86_64" and enjoy.

I chose a neon style to fit to the theme, it's certainly not everyone's taste :)

A screenshot of the game, displaying a simple maze in the neon style, a Puffy mascot, the text "Hack the planet" and a bubble on the top of the maze.