After letting the internet shape our game’s genre, setting, and characters, we’ve finally reached the point where ideas turn into a build. Day 1 starts with the engine.
There’s a big difference between talking about a game and actually starting one.
Up to this point, our project has been all about decisions: choosing the genre, defining the world, and letting the community shape what this game could become. That part was exciting, but it still lived in the realm of ideas. Day 1 marks a different kind of milestone.
This is where the build officially begins.
Before we can create characters, maps, combat systems, or anything else, we need the thing that will hold the whole project together: the game engine.
For this project, we’re using Godot.
If you’ve never made a game before, a game engine is basically the toolbox that lets you build and run one. It handles the structure behind the scenes: scenes, movement, physics, animation, and eventually exporting the game so people can actually play it.
In other words, this is the foundation. Without it, there is no build.
Why we chose Godot
Godot felt like the right place to start for a few reasons.
First, it’s free and open source, which makes it easy to access and easy to recommend. Anyone can download it, experiment with it, and follow along without running into a paywall. That matters to us because a big part of this series is making game development feel visible and approachable, not locked behind expensive software or insider knowledge.
Second, it’s lightweight and straightforward enough for this kind of public build. We’re documenting the process as we go, and that means the tools we use need to support momentum rather than slow it down.
So with the engine picked, it was time to make the project real.
Setting up the project
The setup itself is simple, but it carries a weird amount of weight when you know what it means.
You go to the Godot download page.
- You install it.
- You launch it.
- You click New Project.
That’s it. Mechanically, it’s not dramatic.
But creatively, it’s the moment the game stops being hypothetical.
Once Godot opens, we create a new project, give it a name, choose where it’ll live on the computer, and pick the renderer. For this build, we chose Compatibility, mainly to keep things running more smoothly across a wider range of devices.
That choice is small, but it reflects how we want to build the game overall: accessible, practical, and stable from the start.
When you’re early in development, decisions like this matter more than they seem to. You are not just choosing settings. You are quietly setting the tone for how the project will be built.
Why this step matters
Engine setup is one of those moments that can look boring from the outside.
It’s not a flashy reveal. There’s no finished character art walking across the screen. No dramatic soundtrack. No polished combat demo.
But this is still one of the most important parts of the process, because it’s the point where intention becomes action.
For us, that matters even more because this project didn’t start in a private planning document. It started in public. The internet helped define what this game should be, and now we’re responsible for turning that shared idea into something playable.
That starts here.
Not with a trailer.
Not with a launch page.
With a blank project window and a new engine install.
The beginning of the real build
There’s something satisfying about seeing a fresh project open for the first time. It’s empty, but it’s full of possibility.
This is the first real step in building the game the community helped shape. It may look small, but every bigger system comes after this: the first scene, the first character, the first mechanic, the first playable version.
You can’t build the rest until the foundation exists.
And now it does.
Next up, we’ll start creating our first scene and take the project from setup into actual game structure.
That’s when things really start to take shape.
