Scenes and nodes

In this video, we take a deeper dive into nodes and scenes. You’ll also get to create your first Godot scene.

In the next part, you’ll learn about instancing, another fundamental concept you must understand to build games in Godot (and any other engine).

Many game engines separate entities and the components you attach to them. For example, in Unity, you might have a basic game object representing a character, and you will attach a component to detect collisions with the world.

In Godot, it’s a bit simpler as you mostly work with nodes. They work both as base objects and as components, so you don’t have to make a mental separation between the two.

The idea behind scenes is similar: in another engine, you might have multiple tools like prefabs, templates for small objects, and scenes, which are like levels.

In Godot, you don’t need this separation, and this is something Godot users find really intuitive. Scenes do everything: they’re a bunch of nodes (and scene instances) saved in a file, period.

Whether you want to make a character, a reusable room, or an entire indoor level with many of those rooms, these will just be scenes.

If you’re coming from another game engine, you may find it a bit weird. But please give it a try, and it will soon start to feel natural and intuitive.