Comment by eudamoniac
4 days ago
They're still quintupling down on their sad Python-lite clone language and toy inbuilt text editor, what a damn shame. Still no way to avoid GC in C#. Godot had real potential, but they continue to insist it is a playground for learning about game development, rather than a tool to release a real game. If a fraction of gdscript and editor manhours had gone into real engine development, it would be better than Unity by now.
Agreed 100%, C# is obviously a second-class citizen and I'm not going to waste my time with GDScript. It really is a shame because there are so many things to like about Godot, but the litany of issues with C# support due to their focus on GDScript has just soured the whole thing for me. Unity is just not an option as far as I'm concerned due to their bizarre licensing fiasco (and their own mountain of technical issues). So it's Monogame/FNA for me I suppose.
> I'm not going to waste my time with GDScript.
The GDScript hate is so odd.
If you know any scripting language you know GDScript. How much time are you wasting when it takes one afternoon to learn? And nowadays it even has gradual typing support for those that are scared of dynamic types.
I have seen C# devs coming to Godot being super prejudiced against GDScript and then end up using GDScript anyway because it is just more pleasant to use.
Still doesn't have full static typing support to my knowledge, which is a dealbreaker to me.
The other things are that it just has less support for structuring your code in different ways, and of course the performance is vastly worse. My game does some state space exploration for the enemy AI, so having code that runs an order of magnitude slower just doesn't work for me.
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I don't hate it, but I don't like it either.
Mostly because I don't like the Python-style use of significant whitespace. But functions aren't first class citizens, making closures and lambdas awkward, type hinting isn't supported everywhere (such as with callables). I could probably come up with more petty gripes if I opened up a project and played with it. "pass" is an abomination to God.
It's a lot better than it used to be and it gets the job done but I still find it ugly and awkward as a language.
A more general complaint I have is that Godot tries to load every script regardless of whether it's actually included in the game hierarchy.
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>for those that are scared of dynamic types.
If you aren't scared of dynamic types for any type of semi-large project (like a game..) then you aren't qualified to talk about much.
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Did you check out Stride? https://www.stride3d.net
I'm developing a game in Godot using C# and my experience with it is very good. I guess it depends on how deeply you integrate with Godot. I try as far as its possible to write my game headless. My opinion may change when I have gotten to the point of actually shipping a game though, so this take needs a grain of salt.
For me the real headaches emerged when I started writing [Tool] classes in C# for scripting within the editor itself. I don't know enough about the lower level nitty-gritty stuff to explain it, but I basically had to close and re-open the editor every time I recompiled. It had something to do with not being able to load assemblies, for example if I had a Tool script which referenced a sqlite library. There were also some concerning instances of Exported properties losing their saved values, though in that case they can at least be restored from previous versions of the .tscn file from version control
Very true. While I believe there can be a place for a language tailored specifically for gamedev, GDScript certainly is not it.
C# support seems to have been added reluctantly, because the prospect of attracting unity devs was to good to pass on. But then they switch over and realize it is treated like the ugly stepchild and the hope is that you will just use their scripting language to avoid the friction.
And don't get me started on using GDExtension for other languages. Claiming C/C++ is available as a scripting languages in the same sentence as GDScript is a joke.
I'll look into Libgodot, maybe it's an option.
that's not been my experience at all. I've found that Godot works exceptionally well with C#, and I've felt zero pressure to use GDScript. It integrates really well with Rider too, which is the C# IDE I use. Even when there's places online that use GDScript examples, they tend to translate pretty much directly 1:1 to C#.
Rider seems neat, and I'd be happy to purchase a license, but subscription only? No thank you.
Can you please elaborate why you think C# is not really well integrated into Godot? I'm using it myself and it seems fine to me. There's quite a community around Godot + C# check out https://chickensoft.games as well. FWIW the Slay the Spire 2 devs also seem to be happy with Godot + C#
For the record I would still choose C# out of all the options for a bigger game (GDscript with strict type-hinting might suffice for small ones). My main complaints that I can still remember:
- deprecated web export for C# with Godot 4. This is basically my main gripe and why C# has been a non-starter for me.
- Engine still has a separate binary for C# support. I think they are working on unifying them. But once you use the .NET one you can't export to web even when you don't use C#.
- setting up debugging+lsp was a pain and consistency was very flaky afterwards
Also a lot of the editor workflow is built around using GDScript with the built-in text-editor. I don't actually mind it that much, but you asked why it's not as well integrated and that's an obvious one for newbies. If your experience was wildly different, please do tell.
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https://github.com/godotengine/godot-proposals/issues/7842
For starters. Read through this thread and be appalled.
My philosophy has always been “ergonomic scripting or drop to C++”, so I’m quite okay with it.
C# has always felt a bit clunky to me. It’s nice to have alternatives.
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So use Rust instead, Godot supports bindings via FFI: https://godot-rust.github.io/
I wont claim it works flawlessly, but you don't have to use GDScript or C# to program Godot.
You can also use C++, Go, Java, Typescript, Zig, Scala, Kotlin and Swift: https://github.com/Godot-Languages-Support/godot-lang-suppor...
I was able to hack together a toy game with godot-rust several years ago, and it had some rough edges but I was able to integrate Bevy’s ECS with godot’s editor and rendering. I’ve loosely followed its development since then, and the roughest parts seem to have been smoothed out. If it’s important to the dev, they can absolutely use rust
Is the GC in C# actually that much of a problem? Slay the Spire 2 is made with Godot + C# and the devs seem to be fine with it. Of course, it's probably not a computationally very demanding game but still the GC in C# does not seem to be a problem there.
I don't know about it's use in godot but it's obvious it's not a problem to shipping a good game
https://unity.com/blog/games/games-made-with-unity-2025-rele...
Yes it is a big problem. StS devs cannot write normal C# code, you have to really work around the C# integration to avoid lag spikes. See my other comment GitHub thread. There's also things like this https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues/86926 and that the underlying types aren't compatible (Godot collections) that make it clear they aren't serious with the C# support.
The other huge problem is the terrible external editor support, it does not work well at all. This means your vim, jetbrains, whatever muscle memory from a lifetime of professional dev work becomes useless, and you have to use a gimped text editor worse than notepad++. You can use an external editor, but then lots of things don't work very well, scenes get randomly corrupted, hot reloading doesn't work, etc. It's many issues like this that prove Godot's only priority is attracting and entertaining people who have never written code before, instead of making an engine viable for shipping games.
I gave Godot a real chance for years, but at the end of the day it's a toy. There's a good reason that there are barely any games using it, and they're all extremely technically simple; surprisingly, that reason is not an unsophisticated underlying engine, but rather a million DX papercuts that a good ambitious developer would just never accept.
> StS devs cannot write normal C# code, you have to really work around the C# integration to avoid lag spikes
Do you have any sources for this? A while ago I had a small chat with the StS devs on the Chickensoft Discord server and they didn't mention this. Instead they were overall just very positive about their Godot + C# experience.
> The other huge problem is the terrible external editor support
Have your recently tried JetBrains Rider for Godot + C# development? Lately, they've been quite actively improving the Godot integration https://github.com/JetBrains/godot-support and also showing some significant commitment https://godotengine.org/article/jetbrains-joins-dev-fund-sup... and tbh I can't share your experiences since I'm using Rider. Even hot reload works really well without losing the running game state.
> There's a good reason that there are barely any games using it, and they're all extremely technically simple
Well, as of now when checking https://steamdb.info/tech/Engine/Godot/ there are 6,109 games made with Godot engine on Steam with 2,568 of them having been released in that last 12 months so there is a strong growth going on right now. But I agree that most of those look technically simpler.
> but rather a million DX papercuts that a good ambitious developer would just never accept
I think you're generalizing a bit too much here. You're implying that the StS devs or the devs of Road to Vostok are not ambitious?
I don't know man, there's more nuance to this. Don't get me wrong, I'm aware that Godot + C# still has a bunch of shortcomings and there's still some catch up to do but overall it's imo already quite pleasant to use.
I use visual studio pro and when I hit F5, my game runs in the godot ide. I can pipe the log output back to visual studio. So, I think the integration is quite good, imo. ( sorry for formatting on phone )
You can make up some 'critical defects' for every tool and engine in the universe. So what game engine is perfect for an 'ambitious developer' to use?
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Miguel de Icaza of Mono fame has a whole video on how C# was a "multi billion dollar mistake," and is working on a Swift Godot package.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzt36EGKEZo https://github.com/migueldeicaza/SwiftGodot
(I've had some fun dabbling with Swift Godot but all of the documentation seems to be a bit out of date)
As a current C# web developer I think C# is amazing. I know multiple other languages (Java, JS, Python and others) fairly well and none of them measure up to modern C# in my opinion. Visual studio is trash though.
Garbage collection hiccups are probably meaningless on a web platform. As far as real-time processing goes, one of the most significant figures in the history of C# thinks it's a bad fit. If you disagree with him, respond to the video, I guess.
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It has been used for pretty successful games on steam