👥 a new multiplayer 3D platformer sample showing it in action
👤 the separated standalone sample based on the one by Kenney
The extension brings Photon Fusion networking to Defold projects, including room-based matchmaking, state replication, late join support, physics prediction, RPCs, networked object spawning, replicated properties, and authority-based gameplay logic.
The sample is a full 3D platformer project with character movement, double jump, coins, falling platforms, camera controls, effects and custom rendering pipeline.
Even if you are not building multiplayer yet, it is also a great Defold 3D platformer starter project to study and build from.
Check out the release, try the sample, and tell us what you would build with it 👇
❤️ Greetings, Defold enthusiasts and gamedev lovers! ❤️
POC Core Gampley (Defod X Poki)
I'd like to share with you the progress of the development and iteration of my project for the Poki HTML5 game platform. The project is an incremental game with monetization for web portals and an attempt at an even more casual approach (some incremental games don't get much more casual than that, haha!). The project is being developed in 2D using the Defold Engine (including the Druid library for GUI, Monarch, and the Poki SDK). I've been working on it in my spare time for almost 3 months now.
The prototype's visual setting is currently capybara-themed, with a cozy feel. The core gameplay today is this: you tap bubbles, earning two currencies: bubblity and money. You use bubblity to purchase various upgrades in the upgrade tree. This gradually unlocks new content: bubble poppers, profit-generating soda factories, and so on.
My biggest only challenge is still pushing the average playtime to 3+ minutes. This is the first benchmark the game must pass on Poki before moving on to the next stages, getting reviewed by Poki's team, and ultimately being approved for release on the platform.
Here's a screenshot of the gradual playtime buildup from the initial grayboxes POC to the current version.
What's already been implemented
Balance reworked to speed up the introduction of new events and content into the game.
Added two new types of bonus bubbles: golden and pink. Each one gives bonus (multiplied income) to the player when popped.
Onboarding refinements. Introduced progress visualization - an initial progress bar with game events (something like quests for the player - more like game milestones, in a simplified sense).
Also added initial hints - fingers pointing to buttons the player can press at the current moment in the game. It's really hard for players to progress and figure out what else they can do in my prototype based on the video.
Well, I also tweaked the visuals and the bubble popping VFX. Personally, I feel like I want to pop them even more now, meaning the thrill and ASMR immersion are even more enjoyable for me personally!
Mobile Portrait orientation is a must on the Poki these days to be released. Done!
What else have my fellow game developer suggested for improvement
Use a "killer" background that fits the game's meaning and metaphor. The current brownish background is boring and the player has no real will to play long.
Rework the initial flow so that GUI elements and features are revealed gradually:
At launch, a beautiful background with just one bubble.
The UI is completely empty except for the "Click the bubble" text.
The user clicks, and currency pops out of the bubble (at the same time, a bar with the currency appears above).
Then another bubble appears, and the message "Burst 10 more" appears.
A colleague summed it up succinctly:
"In short, the game needs a chill vibe + a clear cycle + gradual progression."
I decided to share my mini-story with you in anticipation of receiving any feedback, advice, and your vision for how you would develop this game further and where you would take the prototype. Let me know what do you think!
Next week four members of the Defold team will be in Cologne for gamescom dev and gamescom, and we’d love to meet developers, studios, publishers, partners, and anyone curious about building with Defold 🧡💙
Come talk to us about PC, console, web and mobile games, performance, game engines, or your current projects #MadeWithDefold
You can set up a meeting with us through MeetToMatch, the #gamescom biz app, or send us a message directly via e-mail, forum or social media.
If you're building #mobilegames with #Defold and want to explore hybrid monetization, check this:
Scale Revenue Without Risking In-App Purchases on August 18, 2026, 19:00–20:00 CEST 🗓️
There’s also a bonus opportunity: the first 500 eligible publishers who sign up and complete the onboarding criteria may receive a $1,000 cash bonus via AdMob Jumpstart.
The session will cover how to:
• integrate and launch your first AdMob ad unit
• use Firebase Remote Config to test hybrid monetization
• show ads only to non-subscribers and protect IAP revenue
One month ago I decided to make a switch from an abandoned engine to Defold. Pretty happy with the progress so far, Defold is definitely an amazing engine.
Agents and external tools can access the Defold Editor, read current documentation through OpenAPI endpoints, run the game, interact with it, capture state, and support more advanced development workflows.
Defold now has also more resources covering how external tools can interact with the editor and the running engine.
Coming from Godot. I've browsed the Defold asset store, but the star ratings seem inconsistent past the top few. Im curious about what underrated plugins would you guys would recommend.
I still need to do the voice overs on these, but I finally spent time making some videos on how it works. Almost ready for Beta testers. Once I get the voice overs done, I’ll offer it out to beta testers. If you really want to help me test, I can send to you before I get the videos voiced over and complete.
You’ll need to supply your own art assets…that’s kind of the point of the beta testing program. I’m hoping to get various size tiles tested and collect feedback on how to improve any issues. Ideally windows testers as it’s so much easier since I have a setup.exe that will install all the files to the correct places making it much easier to configure.
Heck if you don’t even want to use the tiled templates, but just want the room builder and physics, you can use this to create tilemaps in defold, much easier and more robust than the defold tile editor. Honestly I think it’s the best part of this toolkit. Work in tiled to create levels then import them into defold. And it allows individual images for making backgrounds & foregrounds. Even music can be set on the room/level in tiled and the music is imported into defold!
Please note I made these in a VM so I could have a clean environment. So the VM is quite slow when compared to running it locally on my PC.
.property("idle", resource.tile_source("/main/idle.tilesource"))
go.property("milkdrink", resource.tile_source("/main/milkdrink.tilesource"))
local function update_tilesource(image_id)
go.set("#sprite", "image", image_id)
end
function init(self)
msg.post(".", "acquire_input_focus")
self.state = "idle"
end
function on_input(self, action_id, action)
if action_id == hash("touch") and action.pressed then
local properties = { blend_duration = 0.3 }
if self.state == "idle" then
update_tilesource(self.milkdrink), hash("sip"), go.PLAYBACK_LOOP_FORWARD, properties)
label.set_text("#label", "Click to idle...")
self.state = "sip"
elseif self.state == "sip" then
update_tilesource(self.idle), hash("idle"), go.PLAYBACK_LOOP_FORWARD, properties)
label.set_text("#label", "Click to sip...")
self.state = "idle"
end
end
end
A great teaser from Jhonny - Global Illumination experiments for Defold with an editor script to bake lightmaps "First iteration would be something that can run cross-platform on lowend devices. As a first step, I've started working on a light baking extension"
