This is a 20-episode video tutorial available for free on YouTube, taking roughly 10 hours to complete. In it, the author guides you through the process of creating a beat'em up game, similar to classics like Streets of Rage or Double Dragon. As I understand, the game was originally developed for a Game Jam and turned out so polished that it was an ideal candidate for a course.
The content starts from the basics, making it perfectly suitable for those looking to get started with Godot. However, it also dives into more advanced concepts after the initial learning curve, so it will also appeal to intermediate learners or those simply looking for a Godot refresher.
It begins with fundamental concepts like shaping characters, their animations, and movements. Then it covers the damage system, based on hitboxes, which I found quite interesting as it’s a much simpler and more elegant system than the one I had used before. It also implements state machines for characters, built from scratch through code. While this was interesting, I felt it was a bit like reinventing the wheel. I would have preferred if the author had used Godot’s built-in state machine system via its Animation Tree. After that, the course moves on to implementing weapons, both melee and throwable, as well as other collectible items like food and health kits. I also found the way the author sets up the levels and the various enemy spawn points to be very interesting and original. Everything is highly modular and reusable. As for the GUI, music, and sound, it covers the basics, but a retro-style game like this doesn’t really demand much more.
Having taken several courses, read books, and worked on some projects, I can now clearly distinguish good practices and clean, organized development—and this course delivers. I did feel that using C# might have made the code even more modular, but the author makes good use of GDScript within its limitations. Godot’s node system inherently enforces high modularity and reusability, and combined with the lightweight editor, it makes game development quite straightforward, with very few moments of waiting or writing repetitive code. Since the game’s resources are publicly available, I plan to implement it in Unity to see how it compares to Godot.
Overall, the course is very engaging, and you get a high return for the time invested. In summary: a highly recommended course.
