Welcome to our Defold Tutorials

Let's learn how to use this Awesome Game Engine!

Introductory Tutorials Game Project Tutorials TactxStudios Projects
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Section I: Introductory Defold Tutorials

These tutorials illustrate several common features of the Defold Game Engine, to include: (a) Image Procedures, (b) Dragging and Dropping Game Objects, (c) various Game Object Movement Techniques, (d) Preliminary use of 2d Physics based Collisions, (e) Graphic User Interface (GUI), and (f) an introduction to Defold Levels, Messaging and Menu Development.

NEW - Video Versions of these Tutorials now Available on YouTube

I had published this set of introductory tutorials many months ago – but, since their release – I have received several requests to publish these topics as YouTube videos. Well, it has taken significantly longer than I had planned – but, they are now ready in video form. If you prefer to learn using a video platform, you might want to take a look at the following YouTube Entry.

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1 - Kickoff with the Defold Game Engine

Defold is a turnkey solution which includes a Visual Editor, Lua Code Editor, Scene Editor, Version Control, Particle Editor and Tile Editor, enabling deployment across six target platforms (iOS, Android, HTML5, Mac OS X, Windows and Linux).

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2 - Defold Image Procedures

This tutorial focuses on image related processes: (1) an overview of the Defold Building Blocks (Collections, Game Objects and Game Components); (2) adding images to a Defold project, (3) (4)che Atlas feature; (4)creating a Defold collection, and (5) adding Game Objects.

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3 - Select, Drag and Drop a Defold Game Object

This tutorial expands on several procedures: (1) scripting to invoke a ‘Factory’ to spawn additional instances of a Game Object Prototype; (2) scripting associated with the cursor to enable a player to select a specific game object; and (3) scripting which allows us to drag a game object to a new position and drop it at a new position.

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4 - Game Object Movement Techniques

This tutorial explains several alternative means for moving a Game Object around the play area, to include: (1) using the keyboard’s left/right/up/down arrow keys; (2) enabling a user to click (or touch) a location on the screen and have the Game Object move to that location; and (3) having a pre-planned path defined within the game area which the Game Object follows during its movement.

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5a - Preliminary Use of 2D Physics based Collisions

Physics is essential - this tutorial describes: (1) incorporation of Collision Objects for modeling the effects of gravity – weight, friction and restitution (bounce); (2) boundaries to constrain Game Objects to the ‘world’; (3)animated surfaces affecting collision effects; (4) script logic driven deletion of a Game Object, and (5) inclusion of an explosion effect upon deleting a Game Object.

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5b - Convex-Shaped Collision Objects

In Tutorial # 5, we set collision object shapes to either a box, capsule or sphere shape. What if you have a different shape, i.e. a triangle? To create a Collision Object Shape which matches this polygon, the simplest approach is to create a convex hull shape using data within a .convexshape file.

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6 - Animated GUI Nodes

In this tutorial, I’m going to describe how to animate the Graphical User Interface (GUI) components of a menu. The end result for this tutorial provides a GUI where animated buttons are displayed (varying both size and opacity) to provide a user with two level options.

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7 - Introduction to Levels, Messages and Menus - Parts I & II

This next Defold Introductory Tutorial is focused on the concept of a Game Level - enabling separate scenes for introductions, game instructions, progressive game levels, etc. Key features explained within this tutorial include: (1) Collections, (2) Collection Proxies and (3) Defold Messaging.

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Section II: Defold Game Project Tutorials

The following tutorials are simple game projects which apply each of the techniques described in the Introductory Section, to include: (1) an enhanced Defold Game Template which incorporates animated splash screens and a menu linked to distinct game levels, (2) several simple games: CoinDrop,Balloon Pop, IceJump and Peg Puzzle.
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A - New Enhanced Defold Game Template

This template includes stubs for each of the commonly used game components – to include: (a) Animated Designer and Game Logos, (b) Animated Graphic User Interface with a set of Level Buttons, (c) Separate Defold Collections for each game level, (d) an Information/Help Panel to provide game instructions, (e) a customized Rendering Script, and (f) Lua Modules to support common functions.

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B - Balloon Pop! - Defold Game Tutorial

How many balloons can you pop before too many of those balloons escape. Key features: (a) use of multiple Atlases, (b) use of several Lua Modules, such as timer, hash_utils and animationFunctions, (c) many lessons learned in using multiple collections to represent the levels of the game and (d) multiple Graphic User Interfaces (GUI) supporting main menu, level controls, information panel and exit menu.

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C - CoinDrop! - Defold Game Tutorial

A coin is placed on top of a stack of blocks and the player must remove each of the wooden blocks without letting the coin hit the ground. Several features: (a) all elements of the game are included in a single collection, with a set of data tables used for generating game objects unique to each game level, (b) reuse of many of the routines developed in previous tutorials, and finally (c) a Level Selection GUI.

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D - IceJump! - Defold Game Tutorial

The goal is to see how many ice blocks you can get a penguin to jump onto before it’s knocked off the stack. The use of a kinematic game object for the penguin is probably the key Defold feature being highlighted in this tutorial — this approach provides much greater control over game play than reliance on a standard physics model.

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E - Peg Puzzle - Defold Game Tutorial

This tutorial builds four levels of the Peg Puzzle game - describing: (a) full game setup, (b) routines to handle player actions for moving, jumping and removing the pegs, (c) procedures to accommodate unique game conditions -- error-prone actions (multiple clicks on a peg, selecting an invalid jump move, selecting a jump path when multiple jump options are available) and determining victory conditions.

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F - Tower Defense - Defold Game Tutorial

Tower Defense games remain extremely popular -- and Defold is an excellent engine for a very effective design and development within this genre. The objective of the game is to defend a location on the gamemap by deploying defensive 'towers' which can fire upon oncoming enemy units. For this game, we'll use tanks for the enemy units and provide a three-level game.

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Section III: Active TactxStudios Projects

As I continue to develop new projects based on the Defold Game Engine -- I'll be providing detailed game design, development and status related information here.
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Red October - March on Moscow

The initial project for TactxStudios is a pocket wargame: Red October -- focused on the Eastern Front during World War II - focusing on: (a) conforming with industry-standard game setup, duration of play and game mechanics, (b) integrating both heuristic and state-machine related optimization routines to provide solitaire play, and (c) incorporating high resolution graphics.

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