New Godot, New GodotSteam, and More

Godot 4.7 is finally here and we are rolling out GodotSteam 4.20 (hey-o) too! It brings some small but mighty changes. There is also a new big tool coming for GodotSteamKit soon. The lobbies tutorial got a facelift too. So let's get into it!

GodotSteam 4.20

GodotSteam 4.20 is now live and contains a bunch of tiny changes. First, the Project Settings have been expanded to cover various app IDs like demos, playtests, and tools. You can now enter as many as you need then toggle between them using the new app type field. GodotSteam will then select the app ID used accordingly. In the next patch, I may expose a way to pull that in-use app ID just in case. However, if you need it now, you can still use GodotSteam's get_current_app_id() function.

There is now some automation going on. The first one is related to the above change where GodotSteam will automatically port your old app ID settings (if available) over to the new version for you. The second one is for GDExtension, Windows, and the Steam version of Godot specifically. GodotSteam will now check for the presence of the steam_api64.dll to see if it is outdated then overwrite that with its copy. This prevents conditions where the extension fails to load because Godot's shipped steam_api64.dll is out of date. Godot only seems to update this when a new version comes out so it has caused some problems since 4.6.3 launched.

Some new binds were added to the SteamPacketPeer for those using MultiplayerPeer, thanks to jdbool. This allows you to get the connection handle and packet state easier. A crash with MultiplayerPeer peer that can occur when a lobby member leaves, which triggers during the lobby_chat_update callback, thanks to bearlikelion.

Two small changes that might trip you up: initFilterText() had the parameter removed as it was unnecessary and lobby_data_update now passes a bool for "success" instead of an integer.

The rest is minor tweaks, adding of missing binds, etc. You can read the changelogs for more.

Also for those of you who were a bit dismayed by the LLM-related stuff recently, there is now a fixed 4.5.2 version of GodotSteam starting with the 4.20 patch. I'll keep popping out future builds too.

GodotSteamKit Input Tools

One of the biggest pain points in Steam is Input and GodotSteamKit is tackling that very soon. I have been working on adding a few different tools to the Kit to making this all easier: - An autoload script that handles most of the controller check and core functionality. - A new custom node for controllers specifically; it can be assigned to players and will track an individual controller's state and actions. - New glyph custom nodes for displaying glyphs for each controller type. - A starter kit for displaying glyph and prompt text quickly. - An in-game actions VDF editor that allows you to modify your actions VDF or create one via a form to make them less of a pain in the ass.

There is no ETA on when these will be ready but hopefully next week. Definitely one of the biggest updates to the Kit yet though. And, of course, some new tutorial material covering all of this.

No More Itch.io

GodotSteamKit initially launched on Itch.io then there started being some weird descrepancies with the revenue. I reached out to them but never heard back so I started offering other places to purchase copies: Ko-Fi and a tier on Github Sponsors. A month went by and I still never heard back from Itch about this so I disabled purchases on Itch. Well, that temporary pause has turned into a permanent one and I am still in the dark about what happened.

If you purchased the GodotSteamKit on Itch, you can contact me to get a copy on Ko-Fi while I work on setting up a better system to provide copies and updates.

Lobby Tutorial Update

Speaking of tutorials, the lobby tutorial got a fresh update based on the GodotSteamKit starter kit and it needed it. There was some skimpy information in there that has been really expanded and hopefully answers more questions about the lobby process.

There was also a new text filtering tutorial added recently for those looking to clean up any chat fields.

Oh, and I added the "last updated" information to the top of each tutorial so you have an idea of how fresh it is.

Licenses?

I had actually planned to change GodotSteam's license for this update to lean more towards GodotSteamKit's and restrict some usage; specifically where it could be shared or how it was included in things that weren't games which is what it was made for. That plan is temporarily scrapped though. I will revisit this when we get closer to Godot 5 so I can make a clean break along with a massive overhaul that is planned.

Back to the coding mines for me. See you next update!

Gramps