So we went to GodotCon 2020 and it was awesome

Yes, it was that magical time of the year when everyone’s happy and gathered around to share merry thoughts and fun stories. We are of course talking about GodotCon 2020!

Gamechuck was there, too, in the form of the two of our awesome employees; Piet Bronders and Karlo Koscal, and both are programmers.

We have sat down with Karlo when he got back home to ask him about their trip fantastic (get it, get it) to GodotCon and the experience he remembers.

So Karlo, tell us, why in the world did we attend GodotCon?

Well, glad you asked! We have attended GodotCon Brussels 2020 to meet with other users of Godot, exchange contacts, showcase projects, and get people to know about Gamechuck. Also to hang out with coworker Piet and see a bit of the city since this was my first plane trip outside Croatia ever!

Meet Karlo, our celebrity Gamechuck programmer.

What was happening on the GodotCon?

GodotCon lasted for two days (Monday and Tuesday), from 9:00 to 18:00. I’d say there were roughly 100 total attendants, including the organizers. More details of the event can be found here and here.

Some attendants did several talks, with various topics about Godot (shader magic, Vulkan implementation, educational talks, …). After the talks, everyone could showcase their projects. Most of the Godot core developers were there as well, including Juan Linietsky, the lead developer, who did a talk about progress on his Vulkan renderer implementation in Godot.

Watch Gamechuck’s part of the presentation in the video below:

Attendants also got some free Godot merchandise like Godot-shaped stickers, sew-in patches, and pins. They were also selling Godot t-shirts for a fair price.

At the end of each day, core devs didn’t hesitate to continue hanging out with attendants and grab a few drinks or go to a restaurant.

It’s worth mentioning that 2 days before the event (Saturday and Sunday) there was FOSDEM conference held in Brussels as well, and Godot had its stand there, mostly answering people’s questions and handing out merchandise.

What kind of projects were showcased during the GodotCon?

Mostly projects that people do in their spare time, as a hobby. There was a wide variety of things people do in Godot: Katamari Damacy clone, casual games like block breakers, and there was also a mobile app made in Godot which can communicate with homemade thermostat and control heating in a room.

Piet showcased Subsonic, our game for Global Game Jam 2020 (that was held 2 days right before GodotCon (we were both very sleepy!)). The next day I showcased 12 Traps of Christmas, my game for Godot Wild Jam #4.

Did some of the showcased projects there catch your attention?

Crafty County, a casual 3D game made by Tim Krief. I love the aesthetics, smoothness, and overall gameplay.

I was also surprised by Zylann’s voxel module. He showed a large world with complex terrain, and also a Minecraft-like world, and the framerate was quite good. It shows that Godot really is a capable engine and can parry with current engine giants like Unity and Unreal.

Did we get some shout-outs from someone during the GodotCon? (I mean, of course, we did)

Yes! Matejs Balodis from Rocknight Studios did a talk on Vertical Slice. He said they were inspired by how Gamechuck uses the concept in their game Trip the Ark Fantastic. Vertical Slice is similar to the prototype, but every component of the game has to behave like it would in the final game. More on vertical slice can be found here.

He was also interested in other Gamechuck projects, especially interactive comics. We introduced him to our Discord server.

Was Piet super handsome during his presentation?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Were there some new technologies and features announced for Godot?

Oh definitely! Here are some highlights for you:

Vulkan renderer implementation (coming to Godot 4.0).
Escoria, a Point & Click adventure game framework, made by Julian Murgia.
voxel module by Zylann.

Was there anything particularly cool that caught your attention?

GodotCon was held at Ludus Academie, a school for game development in Brussels. In the hallways, there are large display cases with a lot of figures from video games like Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, Metroid, Pokemon, etc. Each room is marked with some video game character protagonist. It was fun to navigate and admire the school, and a good location choice to host a game development conference.

Side note, it made me wish that Croatia invested more in game development education.

Gamechuck gang attending Global Game Jam in Novska, Croatia

There are gamedev education courses by PISMO in Novska and Machina in Zagreb, and there’s a gamedev school opening up in Zagreb soon so hopefully it will continue to grow.

Got some nice pics from GodotCon and Bruxelles? 🙂

You even ask!

Anything else you’d like to mention?

Attending the conference was a great experience. Meeting other Godot users and sharing and discussing our projects was interesting and fun. Seeing people make all these cool games motivates you to work even harder.

Ah yes, this random pic, too. Context: after a few glasses of that awesome Belgian beer, Laurent, Piet, and I decided to joke around on Godot Wild Jam Discord server (nothing harsh, we promise). At some point, we announced that we “killed” Piet, and Laurent drew a coffin so we can all *pay respects* to him, including the now-dead Piet himself. There was an “F” on the coffin, so we pressed F to pay respects.

Most of the talks were on point and very educational (I learned a bit more shader magic!). Hopefully, Piet and I will prepare a kickass talk for next GodotCon later this year in Poznan, Polska. And hopefully, the attendance then will be the same or higher.

Godot is a fast-rising FOSS game engine and very soon it will become a great competitor to current industry standards. I’m glad to be part of the community that helps shape the engine for the future.

Here’s to a soon-to-be best game engine: Godot. 🙂

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