Should You Switch To Godot? (GODOT vs. UNITY vs. UNREAL)

So, you're dreaming of making a career from indie games, but you're kind of at an impass. Should you use Unreal, GDAU, or Unity? Well, I asked Mark, aka Goodus, a wildly successful indie game YouTuber and creator of the GDAU game Doynasty. I asked him this exact question. Why exactly did he choose GDAU over Unity or Unreal? As a Unity developer myself, I was fascinated by Mark's reasons. and honestly kind of disagreed with a few. But perhaps you won't disagree or maybe you will. I don't know. You may also be wondering how to turn that $100,000 or million dollar game idea into actual money. And some of you might want to do it before you even finish your game. For that, I have a gift below for you. It's totally free. It's a workshop that shows you how to turn small game ideas into actual money. Unity is a, in my opinion, a chaotic mess of an engine. And GDAU is wildly lightweight and clean and beautiful. And I love and hate GDAU because I I love it in the sense that

it's amazing. I hate it because I don't want to learn it. And I envy people who know GDAU. So can you give me really quick um why you use GDAU and then we'll open up your project in GDAU?
Yeah. So I was looking for an engine. I I've tried Unity several times and I just I could not understand it. It just felt so bloated and confusing and I'm like I don't know. I just it just felt like a dumpster fire when I used it. I just exactly what it is and I've been using it for 15 years.
Things would just break and I'm like why is this broken? And um so a friend of mine who was a developer he told me he's like hey you should check out this thing called GDAU and I tried it out and I hated it. I was like I don't understand this. I I came from Game Maker and so I just stopped using it. And then what I did is I I learned a little bit more computer science because turns out you actually need to code properly like GameMaker. I know GML uses like a form of C or C or or what whatnot or C++. But

it's it's really weird like the way it all works. I had never used something like a Unity or a GDO where you just have a page and you just script you know.
Yep.
So eventually I tried it out again and it was really confusing especially nodes like the way linking nodes works is just so odd. It's so bizarre. Uh like starting out, but I just kept forcing myself to use it because I I was like, I'm not paying money for software. Like I refused to. And then I kind of became a GDO evangelist. Like a lot of my early videos I was just like preaching GDAU. I was I feel like there weren't a whole lot of people at that time just preaching it as much and and dunking on Unity. I've gotten away from that now because I feel like my work is done. I feel like so many people talk about GDAU and like Unity and I I still think the reason I even started preaching it in the first place because I would get comments from these kids. They're like, "Well, if I want to make a game, I got to use Unity." I'm like, "No, you don't." That that that was what I was trying to break. Um or like you don't

have to spend money to do this if you don't want to. So any So yeah, I I switched over. It it took a while and I think I've been using it for five years now and now it's like I don't like the first couple years it was like oh good versus uni now I don't even I just click it and I forget what it is just it's just like software it's like invisible to me now.
Yeah.
Um
well it's funny that you mentioned that you were preaching it because I I have been saying for the last two years the one thing Oh man we're going to get some comments what I'm about to say. The one thing that bugs me about GDAU, people treat it like it's a religion, it's a c, okay, it's not a cult. Sometimes it feels like it's a cult. And I think this is just open source in general, you know. Um, and look, you know, GDO folks, they have the right to be proud of it and and to preach it, but it sometimes feels like it's got this cultlike thing. It's like I'll make a I'll I'll make a devlog and I'll say, "I struggled in making this game or

something." Yeah.
And the comments are like, "That's cuz you used Unity. That's cuz you use Unity. You should have used GDAU." And I'm like, "Everybody calm down. This is just it's just software, okay? We're all going to die one day and this isn't going to matter." Yes.
So anyway, I just find it funny that that engines and this is true for Unreal as well. Unity people, by the way, Unity people do not preach, at least I haven't found that they do, because they're ashamed of their faith. Uh, it's kind of like certain religions, they just kind of keep quiet, you know? They're like, "Yeah, I'm a Scientologist, but don't tell anybody." Um, that's kind of how it is with Unity, you know. I'm not proud of Unity either, but I like it. I mean, I use the engine. So,
it's funny though. I I feel partially responsible for those responses like that cuz I
I used to dunk on it so hard because I think what happened was part of it was I was I really was trying to help uh the GDAU team. I've talked to them. Wonderful people. I love what they're doing.
Um, so for me, that was my way to I

think Yeah. I mean, you know, it's being provocative always does well.
Oh, yeah.
And so to be provocative and be counterculture is really interesting. It makes you stand out. Um, but also because I stood behind like it's just it's great software and it's it's gotten so much better. I still think if you're doing 3D like I don't think Twisted Tower would work very well in GDAU right now. Like
no, it wouldn't. It it it it barely runs in Unity. Um
like I still like obviously Unity is still a great engine. The amount of money that has been poured into that engine, it's just objectively better at this point, but I love the trajectory of GDAU. And so yeah, I think I think I think the thing about open source people, it's kind of like it's kind of like someone going to the grocery store and there's like free bread and they're like and it's it's homemade. It's delicious. the most amazing bread, but people don't want to touch it and they're paying $5 for processed bread. Like, no, no, no, but dude, there's there's some wonderful artisan bread

that's for free. Yeah.
And I think it makes that's what GDAU is. And people get upset like, "Dude, this is so this is such a no-brainer."
Like, especially for beginners. Like, if you're, like I said, if you're doing 3D, use Unreal, use Unity. Uh, or if it's stylized, use use GDAU. But um I think that's why people get so preachy about it because it's just like
Can I Can I put Mark? Can I push back on your metaphor?
Go for it.
The end result of bread is it goes through your system and and you you empty it out. It it goes away into the toilet. Okay.
The end result of unity versus GDAU is very different. Um so a better metaphor people are going to get mad about this. a better just I'm just thinking about the comments. You know, a better metaphor is a car. It's kind of like it's like Unity is like this heavy bulky Jeep. It's really loud on the highway.

It's terrible gas mileage, but it's going to work and it's going to get you where you need to go. Whereas GDDAU is something like a a car that's engine isn't fully put together and the gas tank isn't connected to the engine and the wheels uh or the tires um Yeah. It's just like it's not fully assembled,
you know. And the reason I say that is it's not that it can't make a game, it's that it has trouble shipping games
to certain platforms.
Yeah.
Um or it's not it's not it's not even that it can't. It can ship to Switch. It's just more difficult. You got to be a technician to make it happen. Would you agree with that?
I would. I also know that like there's services and stuff like that and even the GDO Foundation, I forget what they're called, W4 or something, they're actually creating a system that uh for porting. So, I think that's the it's the beautiful thing is it's like it's a car that that's building itself.
But that's the problem is it's it's future tense building or like well

that's present. I guess it's not built yet.
So, it's still in process. And that that for me as a business owner
of a game studio with investment from 3D Realms, I can't justify using GDAU cuz I'm like, we have to ship on console. We have to ship this game and it has to we we have to optimize it and we got to use this kind of lighting and this three 3D stuff and that stuff isn't fully realized yet with GDAU. Am I wrong?
No, I I I would agree with that. I think it it purely and this is what I say now is it purely comes down to
what you're trying to get out out of it, you know, like if you're trying to make a 2D game, don't use Unreal, you know, it's going to be so unoptimized and it's clunky, you know, and if you're trying to make
um there's been per performance tests and stuff like that. GDAU is faster than Unity when it comes to 2D, but if you need to, you know, ship to PS4, I know some some areas are easier to like uh release for versus others, then that's

an issue. If you're just releasing a Steam game, if you want to have great support on Linux and Mac and all that stuff, uh then GDAU is what you need. So, I think what it is is it's a car that can't go off-road yet. You know what I'm saying? It's like
you got like a little coupe and it'll get you and it's fuel efficient. It's like a Honda Civic or something,
but you're not going to
very fuel efficient.
You're not going to be able to um go off-roading. You're not going to be able to do anything fancy with it. You're not going to be impressing people on the street revving the engine. Um so I still think Unity, like when I see games and people like, "Well, I want to make this." I I'll point them to Unity because I I you got to be realistic. Um but at the same time, um I don't know. It's funny cuz a lot of these like a lot of the issues I had early on with due drop. I was like oh I'm like I don't know how to fix this I'm not going to be able like release the game with this like few bugs.
Mhm.
Obviously it's taking me 5 years to finish this game. But all those bugs have been fixed. Things have been

optimized. The performance actually runs better. Like the performance on the game is way better than it was three years ago. And that's not just my code. That's just because the engine's gotten better.
The engine's gotten better.
Yeah.
Yeah. I think that's good, man. I like I like what you're saying. And it's it's it's it's not like a religion. It shouldn't be because a religion is typically when people are they have a religion, they're like this is the way, right? Whereas with engines, it's like this is the way for certain things.
Yeah.
Um and I wouldn't recommend Unity for everything.
Yeah. you know, um I think that uh Unreal, like for example, if you want to make a walking a freaking horror walking sim where you have a flashlight, by the way, I'm super annoyed with all those games and I I love everybody who's making them, but we got to stop, you know, um these horror walking sim games with you find a key and then you unlock a door and then you go in a house. We got to stop these Unreal games from happening. But if you want to make a game like that, Unreal is Unreal is a great game or a great engine for it. You may also

be wondering how to turn that $100,000 or million-doll game idea into actual money. And some of you might want to do it before you even finish your game. For that, I have a gift below for you. It's totally free. It's a workshop that shows you how to turn small game ideas into actual