Choosing a game engine is one of those decisions that can quietly haunt a project for years. For indie developer Thomas Grové, the answer was not to argue online first — it was to make the same game twice.
In a video posted on May 17, Grové shared his experience rebuilding his in-development horror adventure game in both Unity and Godot Engine. He had already completed the project’s basic systems, but instead of blindly committing to one engine, he recreated the game in Godot to see which workflow actually felt better for the final version.
The experiment has since kicked off plenty of discussion among developers on Reddit, especially because Unity and Godot are both common options for indie creators. Unity is still the bigger name by far: a Game Developers Conference survey for this year’s GDC Festival of Gaming listed Unity as the primary engine for 30% of developers, while Godot sat at 5%. Still, Godot’s reputation keeps growing, helped by higher-profile projects like Slay the Spire 2 adopting it.
For Malaysian and SEA indie devs, this debate is very real. Not everyone is working from a monster workstation with spare SSD space and endless time. A lot of student teams, solo devs, and after-work hobbyists are building on laptops, juggling class, work, freelance gigs, or game jam deadlines. In that context, “small” workflow differences can become huge.
According to Grové, both engines were capable of running the kind of horror adventure game he wanted to make. Performance was not the main deal-breaker. His target was 60fps, and both Unity and Godot reportedly ran several times above that. Even with future visual upgrades, he felt there was enough headroom on both sides.
The bigger gap was in day-to-day usability. Installation size alone was wild: Unity, with Unity Hub and related components, took around 21GB, while Godot was roughly 164MB. For devs in Malaysia working with limited storage — or anyone downloading tools on average home internet — that difference is not just trivia. It affects how easy it is to set up, move machines, or onboard teammates.
Iteration speed was another major point. Grové’s script compilation test had Unity taking 15.4 seconds, while Godot took only 0.31 seconds. That matters because devs repeat this process constantly: change a script, test, fix, test again. Unity’s standard C# workflow uses a compiled language, while Godot’s GDScript is interpreted, which helps explain the speed difference.
Build times also leaned heavily toward Godot in his test. Unity’s first build reportedly took around 15 minutes, while Godot finished in about 2.5 seconds. Unity also came out slower in full build and startup times overall.
After the comparison, Grové decided to continue development in Godot. His video also covers other practical differences, including the editor interface, importing 3D models, and Godot’s habit of including all project assets by default unless adjusted, which can lead to unnecessarily large file sizes.
Still, this is not a clean “Unity bad, Godot good” verdict. Some developers pushed back, arguing that Godot may struggle more when projects contain huge numbers of objects. Others questioned whether both versions were equally optimised, which is fair. Rebuilding a game also means the second version may benefit from lessons learned during the first attempt.
The career angle also matters. Unity still has a clear advantage if you are aiming for studio jobs, especially since more teams already use it. For fresh grads or junior devs in SEA, knowing Unity can still open doors. But for solo projects, prototypes, game jams, and lean indie teams, Godot’s lighter setup and faster iteration are increasingly attractive.
The real takeaway? Don’t choose an engine based purely on fanboy wars. If your project is still early, try building a small slice in both. For many Malaysian devs, the best engine is not the most famous one — it is the one that lets you keep making the game without fighting the tools every night.
Source: Automaton Media