Review: Godot Engine Game Development in 24 Hours, Sams Teach Yourself: The Official Guide to Godot 3.0 by Ariel Manzur and George Marques

Godot Engine Game Development in 24 Hours is a fine introduction to the Godot game engine, and quite an extensive look at the software. The book is 432 pages, and there is a wealth of information contained here. I’ve just started working with Godot myself, so much of the material was new, but it was explained clearly so anyone can understand. If you are interested in exploring Godot, this would be a excellent buy on your journey.

If you are familiar with the Sams 24 hour books, they basically have 24 chapters each focused on a different aspect of the topic. The chapters are not long, and certainly would not take a hour to read each, but it’s good marketing I guess. In any case, I did enjoy that a range of areas were covered.

So what’s in the book? We get a look at the scene system, 2D graphics, scripting, a few game demos like a space shooter (2D) and Bloxorz clone (3D), and a networked Bomberman clone (2D). Scripting, input, physics, user interface, project management, materials and shaders, light and shadow, environments, sound, particles, networking, and a bonus 25th chapters about using native code. Yeah, quite a survey for 400 pages.

I felt like the authors expect some basic understanding of programming, but otherwise you do not have to be an experienced game developer to get value out of the book. Everything is explained simply and I did not notice any glaring errors. I really enjoyed that there were some simple game demos included, so readers could get a better idea of what a more complex project would look like. It also didn’t hurt that one of the authors co-created the engine, so I bet he knows what he’s talking about.

All in all, a great book. As I said, I am just starting with Godot and this is the first book I have read on it. Seems like an awesome introduction and much more palatable than reading the documentation (though I will note that the Godot docs are high quality, it just can be daunting). So I can fully recommend this book to anyone interested.