★★★★★ 5
For Total Beginners in Godot, But I Still Learned a Few Tricks
Format: Kindle
Godot from Zero to Proficiency is a short book that aims to get total beginners up to speed with the Godot engine. The author does not cover programming (this is saved for the second book in the series) but rather just shows how to do basic things using the editor buttons. Even though I have been using Godot for over a year, I still learned a few interesting tricks, so that made the read worth it for me. However, the book is clearly designed for total beginners. Most of the topics are so basic you could probably figure them out just clicking buttons in the interface, but if you are new to Godot this might be a helpful light introduction.
As mentioned before, the book is not super in depth. It covers how to install the engine, navigating the interface, placing objects and modifying them, adding lights, exporting your game, and importing library assets. Very basic stuff. The artwork used in the book is not great, it definitely has a “programmer art” look to it, but it suffices to show you how things work. Honestly the book only scratches the surface, but if you’ve never used Godot before and are a beginner to game development it might be okay. If you have any experience, I would say look elsewhere, though I did learn a few tricks that made it worthwhile (and the price of the Kindle version was very reasonable).
So overall I would say this is one of the weaker Godot books out there, since it only covers a small portion of the engine. It does have good instructions on the basics of the editor, that was nice, but it doesn’t even show any programming. If you are a beginner and read this book, I think you’ll be more comfortable, but still not at a place to start making your game. There is a second part of this series (I will read that next) so that may help fill in the gaps. But considering the reasonable price (on the Kindle) and also that the book only took about 30 minutes to read, I can’t complain.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2021
