Godot Engine caught my eye a while back as a serious open source alternative to the ubiquitous Unity. Some of you may know I've been involved with the Libgdx project for some time, I even wrote a book about it!
There's nothing wrong with Libgdx, I absolutely love the project and the more than welcoming community around it.
The problem is that shipping a game is hard. Doing so whilst working a full time job is harder. Adding a semi-decent social life to the mix makes it a mighty quest. There's no such thing as too much help when it comes to such venture. Consequently, the tooling around a fully featured engine is hardly beatable.
Personally, I felt slightly uncomfortable working with Unity because of its proprietary nature. However, the fact that there was no competitive open source alternative out there really annoyed me too.
That's why Godot has a strong appeal.
Last week, they announced the Godot Community Jam, which started on December 16th and will continue until January 31st. It's hosted on itch.io and people will be using #godotjam on Twitter.
Looks like a great opportunity to learn the engine to me.
There's enough time to put something together, even for a total n00b like me. Moreover, the theme *2 buttons" encourages simplicity and the rules are pretty lose.
I have a very rough idea of what I want to do, so it's time to get to work.
Will report back!