Godot with C#

We assume you already know how to use C#. If not, you’ll easliy find many tutorials, because C# is a common, majure and relevant language — for example the freeCodeCamp course.

A couple of notes on how to use it with Godot:

• You will need to download the Mono Version of Godot

  • Don’t worry, Mono ist just the name that stuck, it is running .NET Core!

• Once you are in the editor, create a new script file and make sure to pick C# in the dropdown

  • This will create a regular csproj file for you

  • The editor can be configured to open your preferred IDE when double clicking a script file

• As soon as the project has been created you can use your regular IDE (e.g. Rider or VS — look for Godot integration plugins)

  • Don’t bother with the source editor within the Godot editor, it is barbones and comes nowhere near the dev experience in an IDE

  • With a plugin in your IDE you can start the game (and debug!) right from your IDE!

• You can use all regular .NET tools, including NuGet

• Project SDK

  • A C# project that should be able to be run from Godot and use Godot classes should use the Project Sdk="Godot.NET.Sdk/4.2.2" (adjust Godot version) project sdk

  • Hint: by default Godot creates a .NET 6 project, but you can simply change the target framework to .NET 8 and it will work just fine (including all benefits like perf. improvements)

• When creating a script that should be attached to a Node you have to inherit from a Godot node (the one you want to attach the script to, e.g. Area2D)

  • The typical methods like _Process are hooked into by override (no 'magic' reflection method calling here)

  • Regular C# classes (for systems development) don’t need to inherit nodes and can be done as usual, also in extra class library projects

• As with many frameworks where the creation of objects is done by the engine we cannot really make use of the constructor (also no real constructor injection) — use _Ready for your initialization code and keep in mind that fields etc. should be designed for late/lazy init

• A C# class can be the receiver of signals (can be hooked up in the editor), but you have to make sure the signature matches what the signal expects (no auto-generation), otherwise it won’t show up in the editor method picker

  • In general, signals are not as relevant for C#, because we can use regular events or pub/sub architectures (which have the benefit of being .NET runtime internal and not requiring a managed/unmanaged transition via the engine) — all Godot nodes define C# events for their signals, use those instead of stringly-typed signal APIs!

• Export fields can be private, but the data type has to be Variant compatible (that is true for basic types like int etc. and all custom types which inherit from Resource properly)

  • Arrays can also be exported

  • Enum fields turn into nice dropdowns in the editor

These are just a few hints to get you started. In general: it just works, you have regular, up-to-date .NET available (unlike Unity). Usual rules about not stressing the GC too much etc. apply as with all game engines. Tutorials are mostly for GDScript, but translating them to C# is usually no big deal.

Warning

Web export is currently not working, keep an eye at GDExtension for C# and Libgodot for some work to allow Godot to be used as a library which would fix this (and allow for even more awesome stuff).