Thinking about trying Godot? Here is the mental mapping from RPG Maker concepts to Godot ones, from someone-had-to-write-it-down experience:
Honest advice: the jump is real but smaller than it looks, and Godot being free and open source means trying it costs you nothing but a weekend. The engine will not make an RPG for you the way RPG Maker will, so expect your first month to be slower and your sixth month to be faster.
Godot users of this forum: what do you wish you had known during the switch? And who here is building an RPG in Godot right now? Show us.
- Maps become scenes. But so does everything else: characters, menus, items. A scene is any reusable bundle of stuff.
- Events become nodes with scripts. The visual event editor is gone; GDScript takes its place. The good news: GDScript reads close to plain English and is widely considered one of the friendliest first languages.
- The database becomes resources you define yourself. This is the real difference: RPG Maker gives you an RPG's skeleton for free, Godot gives you nothing and lets you build any skeleton you want.
- Plugins become... just code. No waiting for someone to have made the plugin. Also no plugin to lean on. Freedom cuts both ways.
Honest advice: the jump is real but smaller than it looks, and Godot being free and open source means trying it costs you nothing but a weekend. The engine will not make an RPG for you the way RPG Maker will, so expect your first month to be slower and your sixth month to be faster.
Godot users of this forum: what do you wish you had known during the switch? And who here is building an RPG in Godot right now? Show us.