We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Free cross-platform game engine Defold is now on Steam

By - | Views: 21,216

Looking to make games? Defold is a pretty great option that has wonderful cross-platform support and it's free too, available under a pretty open license (but not open source).

With an editor that's available across Linux, macOS and Windows so you can develop anywhere you like. It can also export games to all three and HTML5, Android and iOS as well. A fully featured game engine, with the source code available to view if needed.

"Defold is a completely free to use game engine for development of desktop, mobile and web games. There are no up-front costs, no licensing fees and no royalties. The source code is made available on GitHub with a developer-friendly license. The Defold editor runs on Windows, Linux and macOS and includes a code editor, debugger, profiler and advanced scene and UI editors. Game logic is written in Lua with the option to use native code to extend the engine with additional functionality. Defold is used by a growing number of developers to create commercial hits as well as games for game jams and in schools to teach game development. Defold is known for its ease of use and it is praised for its technical documentation and friendly community of developers."

Pictured - Defold running nicely on Linux

Quite a capable game engine that mainly targets 2D games with support for OpenGL, Vulkan and Metal. It has fully scriptable rendering pipelines with low-level access, a particle effects editor, 2D and 3D particle effects, spine models, a tile editor, a full extension system, Lua scripting and Haxe support, 2D and 3D physics (Box 2D and Bullet) fully integrated and much more.

It's been around for a long time and now with it on Steam, perhaps more developer will take a look. What games have been made with it? Some more recent commercial indie game releases include Fates of Ort, Interrogation and Faerie Solitaire Harvest.

Find it now on Steam and see more on the official site.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
12 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
9 comments

hardpenguin Jan 29, 2021
If it wasn't for Unity being the current industry standard, I would love to spend some time with Defold and Godot as well 😢


Last edited by hardpenguin on 29 January 2021 at 1:36 pm UTC
PublicNuisance Jan 29, 2021
Quoting: hardpenguinIf it wasn't for Unity being the current industry standard, I would love to spend some time with Defold and Godot as well 😢

If we go by marketshare Windows is the standard of consumer operating systems yet here we all are using Linux. You should use what you want to use regardless of what the lemmings are telling you to use.
Kimyrielle Jan 29, 2021
Quoting: PublicNuisance
Quoting: hardpenguinIf it wasn't for Unity being the current industry standard, I would love to spend some time with Defold and Godot as well 😢

If we go by marketshare Windows is the standard of consumer operating systems yet here we all are using Linux. You should use what you want to use regardless of what the lemmings are telling you to use.

I would interpret the original quote more in the direction of "If I am looking to work at a studio, they're more likely to want Unity experience than Godot or Defold". Which is probably true.
If you're a one-(wo)man studio you're obviously right. I looked at Unity and couldn't wrap my head around how art-centric its processes are. Godot is much more up my alley (and I don't have to read a novel-length Terms of Usage document either), so that's what I am using.
hardpenguin Jan 29, 2021
Quoting: KimyrielleI would interpret the original quote more in the direction of "If I am looking to work at a studio, they're more likely to want Unity experience than Godot or Defold".
Correct!

Quoting: PublicNuisanceIf we go by marketshare Windows is the standard of consumer operating systems yet here we all are using Linux. You should use what you want to use regardless of what the lemmings are telling you to use.
Luckily enough, the fact that I do not run Windows on any computer I own has not been a problem in finding a job so far :P
Icefinity Jan 30, 2021
Quoting: PublicNuisance
Quoting: hardpenguinIf it wasn't for Unity being the current industry standard, I would love to spend some time with Defold and Godot as well 😢

If we go by marketshare Windows is the standard of consumer operating systems yet here we all are using Linux. You should use what you want to use regardless of what the lemmings are telling you to use.

Unity is also supported on Linux ,so... , why is that a bad thing?
I wish Godot would focus more on the 3D part and on the Vulkan api.

I am currently working on a crossplatformed 3D game in Unity with vulkan.
Wish Godot would have been more developed since I encountered a lot of problems in Unity , and a lot of "reverse engineer" to actually realise how the engine developers wanted to use their engine.

Not to mention that everything in Unity is now like a beta, even the asset store , since they developed multiple pipelines 90% of the assets work only on 1 pipeline and not the others so it's a hit or miss.
Shaders that only work for one pipeline and not the others etc.
And now? They want to remove the Built in Render Pipeline , they already modified the lwrp to urp , and the hdrp is a complete mess , basically breaking the hard work of many people.
Sure you can still use them but they have no future.

All of that and still, sadly , it doesn't come close to the lack of features that Godot has.
Waiting for the future development of Godot.
PublicNuisance Feb 1, 2021
Quoting: Icefinity
Quoting: PublicNuisance
Quoting: hardpenguinIf it wasn't for Unity being the current industry standard, I would love to spend some time with Defold and Godot as well 😢

If we go by marketshare Windows is the standard of consumer operating systems yet here we all are using Linux. You should use what you want to use regardless of what the lemmings are telling you to use.

Unity is also supported on Linux ,so... , why is that a bad thing?
I wish Godot would focus more on the 3D part and on the Vulkan api.

I am currently working on a crossplatformed 3D game in Unity with vulkan.
Wish Godot would have been more developed since I encountered a lot of problems in Unity , and a lot of "reverse engineer" to actually realise how the engine developers wanted to use their engine.

Not to mention that everything in Unity is now like a beta, even the asset store , since they developed multiple pipelines 90% of the assets work only on 1 pipeline and not the others so it's a hit or miss.
Shaders that only work for one pipeline and not the others etc.
And now? They want to remove the Built in Render Pipeline , they already modified the lwrp to urp , and the hdrp is a complete mess , basically breaking the hard work of many people.
Sure you can still use them but they have no future.

All of that and still, sadly , it doesn't come close to the lack of features that Godot has.
Waiting for the future development of Godot.

Godot is open source and Unity is not. That is my main reason. Bugs have a better chance of getting fixed and features of getting added in open source software. Whatever you think Godot lacks over Unity you could literally add if you were so inclined. Whatever Unity may lack you can't just make it yourself as easily.
starfarer Feb 1, 2021
Quoting: Kimyrielle
Quoting: PublicNuisance
Quoting: hardpenguinIf it wasn't for Unity being the current industry standard, I would love to spend some time with Defold and Godot as well 😢

If we go by marketshare Windows is the standard of consumer operating systems yet here we all are using Linux. You should use what you want to use regardless of what the lemmings are telling you to use.

I would interpret the original quote more in the direction of "If I am looking to work at a studio, they're more likely to want Unity experience than Godot or Defold". Which is probably true.
If you're a one-(wo)man studio you're obviously right. I looked at Unity and couldn't wrap my head around how art-centric its processes are. Godot is much more up my alley (and I don't have to read a novel-length Terms of Usage document either), so that's what I am using.

What do you mean by art-centric?

I was thinking about toying with a game engine and Godot immediately comes to mind but I totally forgot about Unity.
Icefinity Feb 1, 2021
Quoting: PublicNuisanceGodot is open source and Unity is not. That is my main reason.
I 100% agree and it's the reason I still use Linux Mint at this day , BUT , when it comes to development , nothing matters more than productivity , and on this point Godot is way behind Unreal , Unity or CryEngine.

Quoting: PublicNuisanceBugs have a better chance of getting fixed and features of getting added in open source software.
Yes that is theoretically true.
The problem is that most devs don't want to invest time on most open source projects (Godot included).
Godot team are barelly getting 15k$ out of patreon donations per month while Unity made last year over 750 million $.
Even if Unity would invest only 1% of that money back in development they would still have waaaay more and eager devs working on the engine.

Quoting: PublicNuisanceWhatever you think Godot lacks over Unity you could literally add if you were so inclined. Whatever Unity may lack you can't just make it yourself as easily.
It lacks vulkan. At least a stable variant.
It lacks visual quality.
It lacks simplicity and optimization.
In unreal you can decimate your meshes automatically in the editor and use them as LODs , same in unity with some assets , can even create fake clones after them (impostors) that look the same but have under 10 vertices.
Imagine having 10.000 trees with 25k verts each and having impostors of them.
The original 10.000 trees would make 250.000.000 verts while the impostors look the same and would make only 100.000 verts.
The performance gain is incredible and it's how both Unreal and Unity make far away objects look realistic while keeping the performance high and having huge number of objects consisting of grass,trees etc.
Such features are reliant on shaders.
You can't make shaders like that on Godot especially since they will remove all the current api sooner or later and change to vulkan , making your strugle useless.

(I suggest you look at the Unreal Engine 5 demo in which you will see performance and quality (8k textures , with over a billion triangles each frame and you get better performance than you get in Godot with 50 objects with 2048 textures and 1m triangles)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC5KtatMcUw

At the end of the day Godot is decent-ish for 2d games but they need a lot of effort to come close to the Big 3 (Unreal,Unity,CryEngine).

But I do wish that Godot one day will be the best since their philosophy is what matters.
PublicNuisance Feb 7, 2021
Quoting: IcefinityBut I do wish that Godot one day will be the best since their philosophy is what matters.

You wish it to be true but what are you doing to try to make it happen ? Are you making games using Godot ? Are you donating money to Godot ? Are you contributing code to Godot ? Are you helping with documentation ? Are you making turorials for others to help them use Godot ? I'm not trying to shame you but it is a self fulfilling prophecy that Godot won't have the things you want if you don't do anything to help it get there. I give them $5 a month. I try to play and review games that use Godot as well as try to point out bugs or issues to developers. Are these groundbreaking things ? Nope but I want Godot to succeed and I do what little I can to help it along. If I'm wrong and you do indeed contribute in some way to Godot then so be it, i'll eat crow and will be happy you are helping.

I remember I use to have the attitude that I would leave Windows for Linux when it got just right for gaming but then realized that if I was doing nothing to help it get to where I wanted it would forever never be good enough. Sometimes you have to be the change you want to see.


Last edited by PublicNuisance on 7 February 2021 at 8:15 am UTC
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.