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Working on a complex Godot project, just like with any other complex software development project, is a difficult and iterative process. 😓

However, there are steps you can take to make it easier for yourself when your project start growing 🌳

Export EVERYTHING 💽

Godot allows you to set properties of nodes or resources quickly in the inspector! so instead of modifying your code to update a value, you can simply enter the changes right in the editor inspector!

To export a property, you add the @export keyword! It has many variations, here are some of them

# 10 will be the default value
@export var some_number : int = 10

# Shows a longer text field to enter multi-line text
@export_multiline var some_long_text : String

# Shows a slider which goes from 0 to 10 with a step of 0.5
@export_range(0, 10, 0.5) var stepped_value : float = 1.5

Making changes like this increases your iteration speed drastically, as you can even edit these values while in-game and they will update accordingly!

Custom Resources 📰

Custom Resources are a true blessing in Godot! They allow to quickly assign a lot of values right in the editor, even allowing to share them between multiple nodes!

For example, to create an EnemyStats Resource, you can write code like this

extends Resource # Makes sure the resource can be saved and shows up in inspector correctly

class_name EnemyStats # Giving our new resource type a name

@export var health : int = 10

@export_range(0, 100, "allow_greater") var damage : int = 2

@export_multiline var description : String = "This enemy is incredibly fierce! watch out!"

@export var drops : Array[ Item ]

# You can add more properties!

Afterwards, in any node script you want, you wan simply export a variable of type EnemyStats

@export var stats : EnemyStats

and now you can edit all the stats in the inspector!

You can access the stats in code like this

var enemy_health : String = stats.health
print("This enemy has ", enemy_health, " health!")

and it will print this enemies health.

Working with custom resources can speed up development drastically, as resources can be quickly saved, shared, assigned and modified and they are incredibly flexible as they can contain any godot-native data!

File Structure 📂

Often under-appreciated are clean, easy-to-use project file structures.

Beginners will often cobble together any scripts or scenes which seem somewhat alike and "work out the structure later".

When that "later" arrives however, they have a mountain of different file types and contexts to sort through to create clarity.

Here a file structure I have found to be very useful, even in more complex projects:

• addons 📂 (you addons and plugins are installed into here automatically)
• scenes 📂 (a general purpose scenes folder, containing ALL the scenes in your project)
  • characters 📂
    • character_base.tscn 🎬
    • player.tscn 🎬
    • test_enemy.tscn 🎬
  • interfaces 📂
    • windows 📂
    • debug 📂
    • screens 📂
      • start_screen.tscn 🎬
      • settings_screen.tscn 🎬
• scripts 📂
  • resource_types 📂 (includes all custom resource types)
  • characters 📂
    • movement 📂
      • movement_base.gd 📜
      • player_character_controller.gd 📜 (extends movement_base.gd)
      • enemy_character_controller.gd 📜 (extends movenent_base.gd)
  • interfaces 📂
    • screens 📂
      • start_screen.gd 📜
      • settings_screen.gd 📜

Write your own Tools! (advanced) 🧰

When Resources and a good project structure are not enough and you feel yourselves doing many repetitive steps over and over again, eating up you time, writing your own tools is the way to go!

Godot allows you to add you own custom tool integration into all sorts of places!

• Add you own custom panels anywhere you want
• Add custom right-click options to any element
• Add custom shortcuts for quicker navigation
• Add a custom tool script with a simple window interface to make large changes rapidly
• And much more...

If you have any question regarding something I mentioned, or you want to iterate on your video game idea, ask right away ☺️