Why Defold?

Defold provides low-level building blocks to create high-level things. The design philosophy is to give developers low-level building blocks that can be used to create just about anything. But they are just that, low level, which means you have to do a bit more work yourself. On the other hand, you are in full control of what you create.

Two examples to show what we mean:

• Need a button? Instead of restricting you to pre-made, limited button components, Defold's GUI system gives you basic, flexible elements like Box Nodes. You can design any button you imagine by combining 9-sliced textures, icons, text, and adjust things like pivots, padding, and layering—you're in charge of the look and feel. Adding custom button interactions is just a few lines of Lua, giving you the freedom to implement unique behavior. For those who want a head start, the community maintains advanced open-source UI libraries such as Druid to help you rapidly build complex, polished interfaces.
• Want a spaceship that shoots bullets? With Defold, you construct it from game objects—the essential, flexible building blocks of your game world. A game object is a container you can assemble by adding any combination of components: add a Sprite for graphics, a Collision Object for physics, a Factory to spawn bullets, and scripts to control the logic. This approach makes every entity—from spaceships to particles—modular and reusable. Because you define what goes in your game objects, you’re never boxed in and can build exactly the gameplay and systems your vision requires.