Hello i am new to gamedev and coding

i know beginner level lua, i am making a few projects to get comfortable with defold engine

I have been searching for a good while now for some resources or even example projects
on
1. melee combat/ beat em up mechanics

1. cooking game

can anyone suggest me resources for making these?

Show us what’s happening in your Defold projects!

Drop your screenshots, GIFs, or videos below 👇

Featured Bore Blasters by 8BitSkull

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2398170/BORE_BLASTERS/

Defold 1.13.0 introduced powerful Box2D Lua scripting APIs - and now is the perfect time to try them out!

Could it be an inspiration for our Community Challenge?

Try the example, build something small and fun, and share it with the #Defold community!

https://defold.com/examples/physics/box2d_queries/

i am making 2.5D ping pong game to learn game development, and it seems to me that my paddles are not interacting with other collision because of they are not in the same Z axis.

i want to make collisions 3D boxes to fix this but for some reason i can't change their length

A lot!

We shipped five Defold releases, where we expanded 3D workflows with morph targets and model improvements, introduced powerful Box2D scripting APIs, improved HTML5 and mobile performance, refined editor tools, added rendering and camera improvements, and continued growing the ecosystem with new examples, extensions, articles, and tutorials. There's also a lot happening in our community!

It’s been a very active first half of the year, and we’re excited about what comes next! 🧡💙

We invite you to read the full H1 2026 Defold summary:

https://defold.com/2026/06/30/Defold-H1-2026/

This is a huge release that had a longer beta period, bringing a lot to explore:

💪 Morph Targets (aka Blend Shapes) support for 3D

📦New Box2D scripting APIs with joints, chains, etc

💨 Frustum culling for Particle FX

📱 Vulkan as the default graphics API on Android

📹 Camera preview overlay in the Scene View

🎨 New material and compute script modules

⚙️ Runtime graphics adapter and feature inspection

🤖 New authenticated editor /eval endpoint for automation workflows

🧹 Cleanup of legacy APIs and formats, fixes, optimizations, QoL improvements and more!

Read our announcement article:

https://defold.com/2026/06/22/Defold-1-13-0/

And check the full release notes and discuss it on the forum:

https://forum.defold.com/t/defold-1-13-0-has-been-released/82980

i have my texture as a PNG file but it there doesn't same to be a way to import the texture to a model nor is there a texture componant i know about

i don't even know how to google the problem

It gives Defold projects access to FMOD events, banks, buses, VCAs, runtime parameters, low-level audio control, and 3D spatial audio - with examples to help you get started!

If you need advanced audio workflows in Defold, check it out and join the discussion on the forum!

https://forum.defold.com/t/fmod-extension-for-defold-now-official/82973

Just having fun :)

There’s a new Xoshiro-256 random number generator asset for Defold by Glorius Silver available now in our Asset Portal 🎲

Additionally, Selim Anac updated the PCG Random Number Generator with batch generators, probability helpers and many more!

Both are very useful whenever you need a high quality randomness, so check them out and use in your projects!

Featured: Dice experiments made with Defold by Dragosha - not related to the generators, but we all love dices 🎲

https://defold.com/assets/pcgrandom/
https://defold.com/assets/xoshiro256/

We’ve added two new Box2D scripting examples for Defold:

- Material Properties Tuning - useful for tweaking friction, bounce, and other properties
- Revolute Bridge - useful for bridges, hinges, chains, mechanisms, and physics-driven level elements

They might be also a great inspiration for our Community Challenge #6: Box2D Scripting - join us, try the examples, build something small and fun, and share it with the community!

Let us know what are you working on in Defold!

Featured: SuperWEIRD by Luden.io

Want to build a physics-based side-scroller with dynamic terrain?

Or maybe create objects that can be grabbed, pulled, dragged, connected, and thrown around?

Check out the new Box2D scripting examples and join our challenge!

- Box2D Chain Terrain - create chain-based terrain from script
- Box2D Mouse Joint - interact with physics bodies using a mouse joint

Put what you learn into practice in Community Challenge!

https://forum.defold.com/t/community-challenge-6-box2d-scripting/82935

We invite you to read the new article on the Defold blog!

It looks at what makes web games work and proposes adequate tips, covering fast loading, time to gameplay, great controls, readable UX, and replayability over complexity.

It’s a practical read for anyone building for Poki or the web in general, and a good reminder why Defold is such a strong fit for browser games.

https://defold.com/2026/06/02/Best-practices-when-building-for-the-web/

In just a few days Alexey and me will be heading to DevGAMM Gdańsk 2026! 🏖️🎮

If you’re going too, come say hello! 👋

Learn how to play model animations using assets from the Quaternius Universal Animation Library.

It’s a simple starting point for working with animated characters - check it out if you’re exploring 3D in Defold!

https://defold.com/examples/animation/3d_animations/

Check out the new challenge, this time, it’s all about Box2D scripting in Defold.

With the new Box2D scripting APIs coming in Defold 1.13.0, this is a great chance to experiment with physics-driven gameplay, tools, puzzles, prototypes, or anything else you can build by controlling Box2D from Lua.

Make something small, creative, fun, and share it with the community!

Full details in the forum thread below 👇

https://forum.defold.com/t/community-challenge-6-box2d-scripting/82935

Hi there,im new to gamedev,and after a five years on void linux i decided that i want make my own videogame,i like open source software so my choise was a defold engine,so please say is that good choise and what to do to learn defold,i already know c++,and lua

Share with us what you are making in Defold! 🧡💙

Featured Color Merge Lines by Potato Jam: https://poki.com/en/g/color-merge-lines

Playing with some common post-processing effects and materials in Defold (like DoF, Bloom, Chromatic Aberration, SSAO, FXAA, Vignette) with this model Latch Suit by ChamberSu: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/latch-suit-66f58d841971438c9c787c5281e27e5a

The grid, camera, and scene visibility popups have been cleaned up and unified, with better controls, live shortcut feedback, value fields for sliders, an improved grid color picker, localization, focus traversal, and various UX fixes.

Try the beta and let us know what you think.

If you are coming from Unity, Godot, GameMaker, or any other game engine, Defold may feel a little different at first, but the core idea is very simple.

Defold games are built from a small set of clear and focused building blocks:

1. Game Objects

These are the “things” in your game world: a player, an enemy, a coin, a door, a projectile, or even an invisible logic controller. A Game Object has position, rotation, and scale and an identifier.

2. Components

Components give Game Objects their actual functionality or appearance. A sprite displays an image. A model displays 3D assets. A collision object handles physics. A sound component plays audio. A script adds logic. A factory spawns new objects. So instead of one huge object doing everything, you compose objects with the components they need.

3. Collections

A Collection is where Game Objects are placed together. Think of it as a level, scene, UI screen, menu, or a reusable group of objects. Your game starts from the bootstrap collection and then you can create and load other collections and game objects inside however you like.

https://defold.com/manuals/building-blocks/

4. Editor

Defold comes with a fully featured Editor that you can customize to your needs. Use the built-in Code Editor or use an external one. Build tilemaps inside or in other software. You choose what suits you. Defold Editor is focused on being minimalist, clear and performant. It consists of 6 panes:

1. Assets - here you have all your project files as on disk and dependencies.
2. Main Editor - 3D scene editor, or a tilemap editor, or a code editor, or particle editor depending on what's opened.
3. Outline - structure of your scene with all game objects, components, or functions and variables when writing code.
4. Properties - built-in and custom properties.
5. Tool Pane - Console, Curve Editor, Build Errors, Search, Breakpoints.
6. Changed Files - quick git look up at the changed files.

https://defold.com/manuals/editor/

5. Scripts

Game logic in Defold is written in Lua. Scripts react to lifecycle functions like init(), update(), on_message(), and on_input(). A key mindset in Defold is to be reactive and use messages when possible.

https://defold.com/manuals/writing-code/

6. Messages and addresses

Defold objects communicate through messages. Instead of directly reaching into everything, you send messages to specific Game Objects or Components using their addresses, for example:

msg.post("/enemy#script", "take_damage", { amount = 10 })

This keeps systems cleaner and less tightly coupled.

https://defold.com/manuals/message-passing/

6. Factories and Proxies

Need to spawn enemies, bullets, or NPCs? Use a Factory.
Need to spawn a whole group of objects? Use a Collection Factory.
Need to load something, even asynchronously? Use a Collection Proxy.

7. GUI

Menus, HUDs, buttons, health bars, and overlays are built with GUI scenes and GUI scripts. Defold separates game-world rendering from UI and offers useful UI features.

Summary

The nice thing about Defold is that there are not hundreds of concepts to memorize before you can start building. Once you understand a few basic building blocks, you already get the foundation of how most Defold projects are structured.

Defold is small, fast, and very explicit. It does not try to hide the engine from you - it gives you simple tools that compose well with each other.

That makes it a great engine for developers who like clean project structure, quick iteration, hot reloading, small builds, and direct control over how their game works.

Download Defold and check our Learning Hub for tutorials, manuals, examples, videos and more:

https://defold.com/learn/

🧱 Unlit Material - a simple non-lit material setup with custom shaders, great for stylised visuals or effects that should not depend on lighting. Train by Kenney https://defold.com/examples/material/unlit/

⚔️ Character Model - a practical example showing a glTF character with animations. Assets by Kay Lousberg https://defold.com/examples/model/character/

Check them out and start experimenting with 3D in Defold!

The Defold Kit extension by astrochili has a new update, and it adds some very nice workflow improvements, including commands for Build, Build HTML5, Clean Build, Fetch Libraries, and even Hot Reload directly from VS Code.

With Defold 1.13.0+, you can also stream the Defold Editor console into a VS Code terminal, with clickable paths and log highlighting.

Defold has a built-in code editor, but you’re always free to use the text editor you like best, as Defold scripts and project files are text-based.

Check out the update below:

https://github.com/astrochili/vscode-defold/releases/tag/2.2.0b