New Godot Visual Scripting Language - Block Coding

There is a new Visual programming language available for the Godot game engine, Block Coding. Taking heavy inspiration from other visual scripting languages such as Scratch and MakeCode Arcade, this method of programming games using virtual lego blocks is very beginner friendly. Block Coding however is very early in it's development, but already shows a ton of potential.
Links
gamefromscratc...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Support : / gamefromscratch
GameDev News : gamefromscratc...
GameDev Tutorials : devga.me
Discord : / discord
Twitter : / gamefromscratch
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[@gamefromscratch]

Links gamefromscratch.com/godot-block-coding-plugin/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Support* : www.patreon.com/gamefromscratch *GameDev News* : gamefromscratch.com *GameDev Tutorials* : devga.me *Discord* : discord.com/invite/R7tUVbD *Twitter* : twitter.com/gamefromscratch -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[@pieugedher257]

Can you make a video on Godot fo 3D

[@Scudmaster11]

I'm so happy about this.. I am a scratcher... looks like scratch got so popular someone brought it to godot

[@EndlessOS]

Thanks for showcasing our work and for your valuable feedback!! Indeed we're in early stages but aiming to keep iterating. Great point about the block deletion. The latest version adds zooming support. We're also experimenting with learner-friendly abstraction, e.g. instantiate a SimpleCharacter scene and you will see that it has ultra simple blocks for movement available within. More to come!

[@Gocompte5]

doesnt work for me

[@BrynStudios]

yeah your plugin sucks ass imagine not adding anything you cant even add block code to your block code plugin

[@PICO-8-Bit]

@EndlessOS will there be documentation explaining how gd script translates into the block code? Like a how to code documentation I mean.

[@rompevuevitos222]

@@BrynStudios It is literally working in the video. "not adding anything" get out of here.

[@BrynStudios]

@@rompevuevitos222 damn dude i thought they had not added anything to the repo yet. i fixed it but it'd be nice if it auto enabled

[@KaiOfAspen]

i love how many people are making projects this impressive out of raw passion for the community and the art

[@avp2501]

Love the fact that it generates the actual code which you can review or copy / paste elsewhere.

[@Coreybyte]

as someone who has used scratch i was happy to see a block code solution get added to godot, making it closer to something i have used before is so nice.

[@rashmitachakraborty3209]

Me Too😁

[@_mickmccarthy]

Nice! Looking to get my daughter into development in the next year or so, this looks very promising!

[@brahillms1374]

hope she has fun with it 🤝

[@PandaBoyMakeStuff]

I feel like scratch is more straight forward and easy for beginners first getting into programming

[@_mickmccarthy]

@@PandaBoyMakeStuff 100% I'll likely start with Scratch as it's got a huge amount of tutorial content aimed at kids (and she's already been using Scratch Jr.). But this looks like it'll be a great little stepping stone after that

[@aneesh.videos]

This is so cool when a community comes together to make a good software even better.

[@HE360]

WOW, this is an EXCELLENT idea!! There are going to be more Scratch programmers using Godot. And people have done some fascinating stuff with Scratch! Also, I'm a teacher. I hope that this develops more. I could say Scratch is used in schools and kids could used some of the skills they learn in Scratch, with the Godot Engine.

[@alexhooi7268]

Really hope this project can be expanded to a fully functional feature, as a visual artist it makes coding more bearable

[@idoblenderstuffs]

not surprised. i was honestly considering making this myself, and was shocked it hadnt already been done. this is brilliant.

[@dallinyauney3131]

I think one of the things that made scratch so powerful is that every project you were impressed by was source available, so the common techniques were easy to pick up quickly. I'm not sure how this will tackle that issue (maybe we'll keep relying on KZbin tutorials) but I live the direction this project is going in.

[@andrewpullins8817]

I have been wanting to see scratch programming moved out of scratch for a while. I'd never use it as I know how to program C# etc. but I think this is a great language for beginners to pick up. So happy to see this.

[@EthanLR]

Miles more intuitive than the current system. Leverages knowledge from scratch. I think this is an outstanding step in the right direction.

[@RenderingUser]

We got scratch in godot before gta 6

[@whoeverofhowevermany]

I hope Rockstar goes straight to GTA 7 so you get GTA 7 before you get GTA 6.

[@ahmede92]

@@whoeverofhowevermany Oh yeah, I can’t wait for GTA 8, they said it will work better on tablets idk what they’re talking about

[@whoeverofhowevermany]

@@ahmede92 tablets? Those things with the rectangle wedges in them they used to use instead of paper? That's funny. Games don't run on those. Not even mancala.

[@ahmede92]

@@whoeverofhowevermany It was a Windows 7 to Windows 8 joke, isn’t clear ik

[@whoeverofhowevermany]

@@ahmede92 I almost made a Windows joke myself and didn't see it 😆 I do not withdraw my wordplay joke about tablets in that context.

[@TrustonAilende]

Very rarely am I impressed with a new tool. However this tool is like the introduction of fire to civilization. It will allow for a much lower barrier to game development for beginners. My hats off to the developers. Thank you for this excellent tutorial.

[@Teckstudio]

Scratch in Godot is the perfect match and a great starting point! 🤩 Especially the possibility to run some nodes on Blocks and other on regular scripting gives you so much possibilites. Luv this project, thanks for sharing! 👍👍

[@juliusjohannsmann346]

This is awesome! I hope it becomes interoperable with regular GD scripts! Would be amazing for learning!

[@neelsg]

Just looking at this video, on the right of the editor there is a button called "Print Generated Script". I would imagine that it would print the generated GD Script

[@Dark__Thoughts]

@@neelsg He literally does it in the video...

[@HonsHon]

​@@Dark__ThoughtsIt would also be nice if he showed the page for the plug-in in the video

[@joechristo2]

It’s not?

[@juliusjohannsmann346]

@@neelsg yes but I also wish it worked the other way around and was seamless

[@makebreakrepeat]

Just sat down to start scripting out a cutscene. Feels like the perfect time to try this!

[@gokudomatic]

It really looks awesome. That's one of those plugins like phantom camera that will become a must-have.

[@DrW1ne]

I honestly was stuck to scratch and wished for more visual scripting game engine but I learned godot faster than this appeared. Anyhow, I think its decent for lazy small code but I don't think that I need stuff like this anymore. But I know who'd love it . Thank you.

[@IraKane]

Beautiful! I'm teaching the kids to code on Scratch and the next step was going to be Godot. So this is going to be very helpful. Funny thing is that I thought of trying to do something like this myself but life happens all the time and I have no time and look at that! Some awesome people is doing it for everybody now. Thanks !

[@ego-lay_atman-bay]

As someone who has used a lot of scratch in the past (and am currently very active helping people with snap (like scratch, but more advanced)), this project makes me very excited. I love visual block based programming, so I'm glad someone is bringing it to godot.

[@neelsb7889]

Yeah, and another similar "system" is EduBlocks, which can be used very effectively with Python students! Oh, and I can recommend the Python Micro:Bit IDE as well!

[@JohnnyThund3r]

This looks perfect for prototyping, particularly since you can just translate it to GD_script later, you could just program most of your code in this and only use GD_script when this isn't enough.

[@ViktorSarge]

Hey this could be an awesome platform to teach people. Scratch is great for learning how to think like a programmer, but working inside an actual engine can probably make it more "real" for teenagers since Scratch has a bit of kids vibe.

[@visual_chris]

This is a gamechanger for many starters

[@JoltNet]

This is very cool! Looking forward to more 3D integration!

[@thedemr9736]

As someone who used scratch for 7 years I see this a complete win

[@Ji.GamingYT-Vr]

This made me start using Godot

[@drewo.127]

This….my gosh…THANK YOU GODOT COMMUNITY!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

[@Alche_mist]

Totally need this for teaching!

[@A08J]

MAN HAVE I BEEN WAITING FOR THIS OPPORTUNIT6

[@LuKiZenith]

For anyone who it just shows variables for, I was on 4.2.1 and downloaded 4.2.2 (windows NET version, haven't tested normal) and the other blocks finally showed up

[@MrEnderNerd]

Just like Scratch And I Love It

[@GugureSux]

Don't know how I missed this, but this is awesome! I know some children who are already very serious about making games, but find basic Scratch and Roblox restrictive. This might just become their gateway to real deal game-dev'ing. And can't say I'd hate toying around with this feature either myself!

[@MushroomDev]

i really like the concept.

[@hopelessdecoy]

I love it! So great

[@larscwallin]

Very nice! Any API to create your own blocks I wonder? 🤔

[@tanishqdhoteyt]

This reminds me of my childhood with scratch 😭

[@MrDanINSANE]

It's truly awesome and the potential is great! The problem is that the devs mentioned it's not going to get too deep (probably won't cover all GDscript) but only for beginners, which means it will be very limited on scope of what you can do. A nice way to learn the basics of logics in general but unless they'll decide to make it cover all GDscript it may probably not be very usable for a complicated game production. I hope they will decide to continue maintain and evolve it to cover more of GDscript. The most amazing Visual Script piece will be EVENT SHEET like Construct, GDevelop, ClickTeam, etc.. that will make EVERY beginner to jump to Godot instead of the other PREMIUM game engines since Godot is much more powerful and fully free unlike the others.

[@neelsb7889]

Thanks for sharing this very interesting discovery, Mike. It certainly has lots of potential for making Godot more accessible to learners (AKA *noobs*) of all ages :) Now I want to use my 2nd wish for the Godot genie... Godot Dev team: PLEASE create an official, integrated RAD UI designer as present in C++ Builder, Delphi, Ultimate++, etc... That will be a HUGE enhancement to the Godot editor and make for a much faster and less frustrating UI creation experience... ✨🔮

[@Enderking394]

this is amazing, i am pretty good at blueprints in unreal engine and im slaso really good with srcatch coding. Ive been wanting to make a good 2d game in godot but i dont want to learn gd script

[@Wrenosaur_]

At 0:57 when you Enable it, you get a new tab. For some reason that doesn't happen for me.

[@thespinningcube]

I will always be in support of Scratch style block-based visual scripting systems. Compared to node-based systems, block code is more compact and a closer analogue to traditional text-based programming languages. I’m glad to see it applied to a proper game engine.

[@ValiantFan771]

I love this, I will still primary use GDscript but if I need to quickly and dirty do some testing or something, I will definitelly use it. It looks like it is more welcoming and easier to use then Orchestrator which can also help begginers. Amazing project Edit: typo

[@kaya_stu]

we scratching out our head with this one!!

[@smile4cs]

man do i wish this was around when i was still on Scratch 😢

[@mckendrick7672]

Honestly I always thought one of the big misses of Unreal's virtual scripting was that it wasn't scratch-like and instead created that whole mess of spaghetti structures. This is amazing by comparison.

[@BroSender]

man this seems kind of fun to try, I've been using Unreal engine for a while and I even used to use BGE and refreshed my memeory with UPBGE but I think I might as well try godot to see if it's any good :)

[@DillsArtThing]

This is actually really cool. Node based scripting isnt really appealing to me since it can get very messy very quickly. Im learning how to write code normally now but if i was gonna keep using a visual system, scratch just works way better.

[@131Eyez]

Please please keep developing this!

[@ReDkOaLa64]

i prefer nodes to blocks, but this is still a step in the right direction for non-coders like me... will defo be looking into this once the feature is more fleshed out and official.

[@OmarLeKing]

As someone terrified of coding, this is a great addition for me

[@TYTYUNDERGROUND]

OMg does it work with 3D please somebody say yes you can and more

[@KatTheOneAndOnly]

Finally something so newbies like me don't have to think about lighting themselves on fire :D

[@nawordrago9163]

I literally just decided to transition from scratch to godot yesterday, after four years. I guess i got lucky

[@anth5189]

I see this as being great for education. Also for quickly trying out an idea without needing to type a lot of code.

[@makanansari144]

I really liked it! I hope they keep it up! I might even switch to Godot from Uneal if they keep it up! because Godot devs don't add Visual Scripting! one of my main problems with the engine is this!

[@MelodiCat753]

The division of resources would probably not be worth it, but imagine if this became an official part of Godot? Would be so cool as an educational tool!!! Though I do think GDScript is very accessible. This is still awesome though! Lol, Godot could have block-based programming, high level Pythonic-like programming, mid-level C#, and then low level C++. Options for days Actually, I think Godot used to have visual programming in earlier versions, now that I think about it.

[@HamguyBacon]

that's real cool, they should add the ability to group and add node editing.

[@donlad]

Visual scripting is a godsend. I think it will revolutionize accessibility to game development, if it hasn't already.

[@God_Highfield]

Great Addon for a beginner like me

[@joshuajennerdev]

Would've been really cool if you could attach a block script the same you you add a regular script. Plugin looks sick either way.

[@fablewalls]

Hope this gets developed, it could be promising. Download and install crashed Godot on my Mac and then on restart - it worked. Will test on my PC but I suspect it will work first time there.

[@marek_tarnawski]

This would be helpful if someone wanted to get started quick and then transition from visual scripting to regular written code.

[@DevJeremi]

Looks cool. but I don't see any support for singals or export vars which are a huge part of godot

[@n3rf591]

How do you actually open block code because it isn’t opening automatically when I add the node and I don’t see where to actually start using it All it lets me do is add the node and doesn’t give me the tab for block code at all

[@G5349]

Ok this is very nice, especially if you are a kid that just learned to code with scratch. 👍

[@jimmytinkler889]

So I am new to all this stuff I don’t know if I am doing something wrong or what but my block code doesn’t show as tab up top. When I clicked on it show worded script not the bubbles like in the video

[@CerealKiller]

This is cool!

[@KaasTVNL]

wow maby game development programming is finaly something i can do

[@timquestionmark]

I can't imagine this being any easier to understand than coding, like you still need to understand what variables and methods are, but now its just represented in a less flexible gui? Maybe the colors are nicer than indentation but I know for a fact there's a vscode extension that does the same thing

[@PortfolioPL]

Stencyl lives! (Yes Stencyl game engine is still being developed even if you, dear read already forgot about it).

[@dudewhodoesstuff2]

does it work in 3d?

[@lawrenceho2518]

The 'Block Coding' option doesn't show upper next to the AssetLib in 4.3 after enabling it in project setting, does anyone have any ideas?

[@d_shadow.]

Right now, blockcode doesnt open when you add it in. Any idea on why that is? It's completely unusable like this, of course.

[@ARobloxDev]

me neither \_(°-°)_/

[@pawall3deller468]

Omg!! Its cool!!🎉

[@obviousalexc]

This is kind of neat.

[@MellowFeeling]

finally, scratch for adults

[@airbrushdungeon]

So how does it compare to Orchestrator?

[@Nixomidi]

scratch 2 : the electric boogalo

[@shadoweater18]

Can i write out a script as a function in gdscript or python and then call those within this system?

[@KorinDevsDumbStuff]

You should check out the post process plugin :D

[@hanro50]

I was sad back in the day when I realised you couldn't export a scratch 2 project into a stand-alone executable. This may be something I seriously consider using since normal game dev stuff can be a bit tedious for me. Which ends up draining away my motivation if I'm not careful.

[@whtiequillBj]

my first experience of this kind of coding was in Stencyl: Indie Edition speaking of which have you talked about Stencyl before? In Stencyl its a block version of C# or at least it was in 2015

[@Daniel_VolumeDown]

I would love to see LabView like programming language for gameengines but also for general puprpose (there was project called Zaluum, that was more like general purpose, but it is dead now).

[@cariyaputta]

Nice potential.

[@mikaelfoster9726]

Okay but honestly i found making (3d) minecraft in scratch to be way more fun than what id imagine a c implementation would be- ever since i tried it my autistic ass loves the scratch language- i just wish it was more powerful- so this intrigues me. U could cross over griffpatch tutorials with godot

[@TodorImreorov]

I tried to warn them that the blueprint approach is a bad fit for godot :) why cant they just adopt gdevelop's event sheet way. Its more popular for 2d games than all the others

[@SangHendrix]

Dang, if this gets more advanced, I'll consider using this cuz I'm afraid of coding.

[@bksubramanyarao]

afraid of coding? its easy, start slow, in 3 months you can build anything

[@SergeyKloninger]

GodotScript ist not so hard like CSharp or C++ , this language is based on structure of Python and syntax is very friendly understandable. Of course you will need time and basics to understand😊

[@mschulmeister6519]

Same here, coding is doable but i get MAD really fast having to write everything and needing to know the functionalities beforehand to be able to do so, while if it was visual you can literally see everything there is to it and plan ahead and simply do stuff with no wiki nor months of specific technical knowledge of specific languages and its quirks. I dropped out of technical school because of coding... for some unknown reason art, design and 3D was mixed with programming classes and i could not bare the coding part, but on the other hand i get away with visual scripting, it's not that far from visual shader implementation, something i am used to tweak with.

[@catto-from-heaven]

I will never get people like this. If you can use that, you can write gdscript

[@DevUndead]

Just learn to code. It will make other things in future way simpler (like writing a shader, understand third party add-ons, write short scripts for handling files, write more complex code, get comfortable with text based tools like GIT). Also as others said, GDScript is straight forward. Also when you look at the blocks, most of them are 1 or 2 lines of actual, simple code

[@PurpleKnightmare]

Needs a list for like groups, and methods.

[@Technocraft27]

its not working for me i had install and set as plugin need help

[@Black_Sheep_0213]

They implemented Scratch? Nice lol

[@MrBowmanMakes]

brilliant!

[@sasaha8389]

Oooh!!!!😮😮😮

[@CrowleyBlack2]

My favourite Windows sound.

[@billy6427]

This is Cool man

[@XXYUCATECOTACTICOXX-q3k]

for 3d?

[@JurassicJordan]

Can you use this in tandem with orchestrator or gdscript?

[@rompevuevitos222]

This is technically GDScript. You just get to make the code with blocks instead of typing it manually.

[@igorgiuseppe1862]

noooo! they should use the spread sheet aproach! its much faster than scratch aproach!

[@littledemo3605]

it has android compiling?