Did somebody use Defold? :)

Apollo14

Hi guys!
I came to know about Defold engine, some Gideros clone (or not clone).
I wonder why did they create Defold? They intended to add something that they think is missing in Gideros?
Do you know if Defold offers anything that Gideros doesn't? I've googled, but didn't find much.
And what does Gideros offer that Defold doesn't

What do you think?

antix

Defold has a lot of stuff that is better than Gideros, most notably their infrastructure like docs, tutorials, examples. It also has native Spine support *drools* and one button export to multiple formats. The animation system looks good and then there's the visual editor which looks interesting.

When you look at their entire framework, Gideros is better IMHO and Gideros infrastructure would be right up there if Gideros had the kind of money and human resource that King have at their disposal.

Anything that you can do in Defold you can do in Gideros and most likely better (except native Spine *hehe* and the visual editor and maybe faster? I would have to compare but Gideros is flipping fast!

Gideros is more bare bones and you probably have to work a bit harder but personally I think that makes you a better programmer.

There are way crazy things like the new plugin system and the coming Gideros Studio improvements, the extended Lua instructions (macros, fast bit and such), fake threads, random generator that is the same on every architecture, the list goes on and on that Defold doesn't have at all.

Oh, and Gideros is true open source!!! :bz

Atavismus

I agree with Antix.

I tried Defold: to me it's more a kind of lua Unity (editor oriented).

I'm very new to Gideros (joined in september), I tested several engines: Gideros is the best 2D engine imo.

Also, the position of King towards indiedev is very questionable and even worrying.

Imo, better choose a real free open source independent engine.

oleg

defold created for the internal needs of the gaming company (King- Candy Crush Saga)

and then they decided to make the engine public

Apollo14

Okay it seems the main difference is visual editor
guys from defold forum also shared their opinions
https://forum.defold.com/t/defold-vs-gideros/13510

I guess I have to actually try both engines and see what suits my personal needs better.

Projects bound to Defold's server are spoiling my mood right from the start.

SinisterSoft

On closed vs open, I don't know how one of them (on their forum) could have be 'burnt' on open source software in the past - I'd say it's more likely with closed software.

On being all-in-one, defold will have the edge as it has built-in editors for lots of stuff. But if that is what you want then you should move to Unity as that has even more. The more of these you add though then the bulkier the output and the likelyhood of supporting lower performance devices reduces. Output a Gideros program (with the requires plugin set to allow tv, etc) and you exclude about 250 to 300 Android devices - do the same with Unity and you allow only 250-300 devices (no idea about defold compatibility range).

On flexibility, Gideros is more low-level - you have to do slightly more, but the results will be more rewarding as a result - you can tweak things to what you want. If you need lower-level then the source code is available so you can also add it there.

On Lua vs Lua, the Gideros version should be much better (built-in profiler, fake threads, binary numbers, 64-bit integers, etc) and faster (if you use the new operators) that we added.

On number of targets, Gideros already has more targets - as new targets arrive then as Gideros is open source if a main team member doesn't add it then someone else can join the team to add it instead. With defold you have to wait to see if King decide it's worth the effort.

On code protection, Gideros 'compiles' your Lua source into our unique universal version of Lua Bytecode. This bytecode is further encrypted. With other systems that compile the code for you on their servers you don't know what they are doing with it (do you trust King?). I know of at least one other Lua based system that actually doesn't store bytecode on iOS (because normal Lua bytecode isn't universal), instead they encrypt your original source code and store that instead - hoping that their encryption can't be cracked - which it has been btw! I don't know if defold also does this, but I might download a King ipa file and take a look.

antix

@SinisterSoft, yeah I really agree about the code security thing. When I tried Corona you were forced into cloud builds. This was no good because I was overseas with very expensive internet charges and also I didn't trust Corona with my code. I'd trust King even less

I'd be interested to see what you discover with the ipa file too

To use a Star Wars analogy, Defold is the dark side of the Force, the easier way that leads to pain and ruin

keszegh

@SinisterSoft, by being burnt by open source software i guess they meant that they may be left behind by the developers. but you are right that this happens with non-open source on the same level and for open source at least there is the theoretical chance that you and others can continue to develop/maintain it.
also with gideros nowadays i'm quite confident that it will not sink, whereas back when it was not open-source at some point it looked like a realistic possbility.

keszegh

also if one insists on having a visual editor then gamemaker, godot etc. among others are further alternatives to defold.

oleg

Game Maker: Studio is better than Defold

totebo

One major area where Defold mysteriously still lags behind is monetisation. There is only limited support for ads (Admob, Unity ads and Appodeal). So unless your game is premium (pay once and play) or relies entirely on IAP, Defold is simply not an option for a professional game developer.

Ninjadoodle

I've tried Defold, and personally didn't like it. I've found the workflow to be weird and to be honest I find Gideros much easier

jdbc

I do not like Defold for many reasons.

Apollo14

I do not like Defold for many reasons.

Can you please provide more details? Thanks!

Apollo14

I checked many videos of Defold evangelists. Either I am stupid, or their arguments are all blah-blah-blah, but I didn't understand what Defold actually offers that other software doesn't.

SinisterSoft

What a terrible presentation.

talis

I don't want to comment on the content but the presentation is like a nightmare really, i agree on that. I can not watch it after 2 min, even i am a patient person.

oleg

what Defold actually offers that other software doesn't.

they promise to give you a job

jdbc

You have to use git repository in Defold servers, my question is ¿what do they do with source code? I do not trust King company.

Defold seems to have a very specific workflow to develop, it is not natural for developers.

oleg

You have to use git repository in Defold servers,

it is not necessary

jdbc

You have to use git repository in Defold servers,

it is not necessary

You are right, authentication is done in Defold servers but we can use another git repository.

http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2016/03/29/Using-The-Defold-Engine-With-Your-Own-Git-Server.aspx

antix

Really its all a bit like Corona. I didn't like having to connect to them to even compile. apart from not being so trusting with my source code.. I was overseas and internet was hugely expensive so Gideros was really a dream come true. I'm so glad I discovered it.

Forget Defold, Gideros for the win!!! :bz

talis

Actually in a way i am happy that other companies also exists. We should be looking for their strong sides and either replicate either overwrite them within Gideros in time.

Starting from time that Gideros made "Open Source" we really covered so much ground, and become one of the best 2D gaming framework. Now i can easilly say Gideros is continuing to add great features to itself like in 3D, Business applications widgets, new technology additions and so on..
Some of them are great implementations of the existing new technologies(viewport, texttospeech,wide support of platforms...) and some of them are really innovative features like no one has. (Lua additions, macros, fake threads ..)

As a conclusion all those other frameworks also in my watchlist and from time to time i am checking them for new features, but as you said @antix none of them like Gideros

Apollo14

As a conclusion all those other frameworks also in my watchlist and from time to time i am checking them for new features, but as you said @antix none of them like Gideros

What is "fake threads" and what are they needed for? Something perfomance-related?
(I've googled but didn't find much. Even on this forum there are just few mentions)

talis

@Apollo14 here is long discussion about thread system in Gideros.
http://giderosmobile.com/forum/discussion/6531/threading-system-in-2016-6/p1

SinisterSoft

Basically they are for using up the spare time between the frame events. The time is measured and a lua state is activated and then paused for that period of time. In a way like time slicing. You can have multiple slices and they share the same overall time.

I use fake threads for:

In retrostar to generate the plasma weapon sprites as they use random graphics.

In a soccer game to expand a table that has 26,000 football players.

In a sudoku game to generate a buffer of puzzles in the background so they are immediately ready for the user.

All of these speed up the initial loading process.

Ninjadoodle

Gideros is absolutely AMAZING but I would love to see improvement in one area (if possible).

Defolds HTML5 export size is now under 1mb, which is much smaller than the one for Gideros. I also wonder if the speed and memory handling could be improved in any way for HTML5 exports in Gideros.


Like @talis said - it's good that other engines exist, so Gideros can look at their strong sides

SinisterSoft

Is the HTML5 export calling libs to be loaded from other sites - to reduce the export size?

Ninjadoodle

@SinisterSoft - Hmmm that might be, not sure what happens behind the scenes. The 15mb or so minimal HTML that Gideros exports scares me a little tho lol.

SinisterSoft

I can't think of any other way they are doing it. Have you got a link to one of their exports on a webpage?

Ninjadoodle

Here is one of them - https://britzl.github.io/lowrezinvaders/

here is a few more ...

http://britzl.github.io/publicexamples/