I’ve never done any game dev but have been programming in various domains for a long time. If I wanted to spend a few weekends making a “hello world” game in Godot, where do you recommend I start?
As a starting point, I’d like to make a single-player open world procedurally generated isomorphic map that I can explore with a hovering camera. Is this easy to do?
Thanks. Dwarven Skykeep is my first real commercial project too. So I'm not going to give you any obvious learning tips as anyone can find some good tutorials on youtube. Advice about trying out gamedev that I could actually give are:
* If you can start with some paper prototype or just create some digital visual gameplay screen mockup. Its easier to work toward something you can see.
* Start small and dont bother with code architecture or quality. If 3D seems to hard start with just 2D. Your first goal is to get MVP as quickly as possible. Prototyping on boxes is the best.
* Once you get literally anything running more ideas will flood your mind. So write them all down instead of concentrating on just a single task.
* If you stuck with one idea just jump to another one within the same project. This way you'll find what works.
* Dont hesitate to look for references or play some demo versions off Steam and look for ideas. It much easier to see good and bad sides in someone else game and it help to make your one fun.
As about technical side: isomorphic map does sound like algorithm problem and not game-engine problem. At least on 2D side that I primarily work with Godot have all you need to procedurally generate scenes and reuse them afterwards.
Feel free to ask whatever about development process :-)