I've been thinking a lot about how we learn game development. Books have been my go-to resource for years (I'm a kind of a bookworm) but lately, I've realized they have some serious limitations when it comes to teaching interactive media like games.

The Problem with Static Learning

Here's the thing: books are fundamentally constrained by being non-interactive, static media. Even digital PDFs can't capture the dynamic nature of what we're trying to teach.

Think about it this way: when you're learning to cook, you understand what a tomato tastes like and what salt tastes like. So when a recipe says "add salt to the tomato sauce," you can imagine the result. But with game mechanics? How do you feel what it's like to swing with a grappling hook using a RigidBody2D just from reading about it? It’s way harder.

And that's not even mentioning the technical friction. Line breaks, tabs versus spaces, code spread across page breaks…it all adds up. At least with digital books you can copy and paste code (unlike video tutorials), but that's barely an improvement.

I'm Guilty Too

Before I point fingers at everyone else, let me be honest: I've written books that suffer from these same issues. But here go some recommendations.

Godot 4 Development Projects 2nd Edition by Chris Bradfield is fantastic. Chris is an incredible teacher whose work has inspired my own content creation. His book walks you through five projects with excellent didactics. But in Chapter 4, when he teaches character animation, you're looking at static screenshots. Animation depends on timing and movement. These are all things that are impossible to convey in still images. A simple preview video would solve this instantly.

Learning GDScript by Developing a Game with Godot 4 by Sander Vanhove was my first resource for GDScript 2.0. Sander provides great documentation and even quizzes. But without being able to see and interact with the results of each coding step, learners have to rely heavily on intuition. Plus, you can't make contextual annotations or easily verify your code matches the examples.

Godot 4 for Beginners by Robert Henning is probably my favorite. Robert is an ethical developer with a beautiful mission and excellent teaching skills. His book introduces Godot 4 to complete newcomers through both 2D and 3D projects. But many introductory topics explain the interface using screenshots, content that would work better as a short video with a searchable transcript. And you can't play with the projects before building them, which would help you understand what you're working toward.

Game Development Patterns with Godot 4: this is my book, and I'm proud of it. Part 1 is great because design patterns are abstract and concept-heavy, which suits the book format perfectly. But Parts 2 and beyond, where I present patterns in the context of an actual project? My book suffers from all the same problems: readers can't interact with the initial project to understand the problem we're solving, and they can't easily copy solutions to follow along.

The Essential Guide to Creating Multiplayer Games with Godot 4.0: another one of mine, and this one shows the problem most clearly. We're dealing with multiplayer games and networks. You NEED to experience how data packets work. Timing matters. Lag is critical. You need to FEEL the difference between a laggy implementation and one using mitigation techniques. But with a book, you only discover this after implementing everything yourself.

(Despite all this, I still recommend all these books (especially mine)! They're excellent resources for your learning journey.)

What About Digital Formats?

You might think:

"Well, digital versions solve some of these problems, right?"

Not really. My Platformer Essentials Cookbook was initially distributed as a PDF. People still asked for a course format because they wanted to watch processes instead of imagining them. But one comment really opened my eyes:

Modern HTML pages are basically portable apps. With browsers becoming almost operating systems themselves, especially with WebAssembly, we have incredible power for game development education!

The Solution: Interactive Web-Based Learning

I've been using Notion for everything lately: my blog, my shop (with Buttons and PayPal integration), and now... my courses.

I realized I could create courses in Notion that solve all these problems. Check out the revamped Path-follow Platform chapter from my Platformer Essentials Cookbook. It now includes:

• Embedded videos showing the mechanic in action
• Dynamic GitHub issues so students know if bugs have been fixed

This is the kind of improvement I'm bringing to the entire Platformer Essentials Cookbook. We're porting it right now, and it's the perfect time to grab a copy at the original price of $9.99 before the price increases. You'll get access to what I genuinely believe is the most innovative learning material in the Godot community.

Being able to interact with what you're learning: to play the mechanic, see it in motion, copy code easily, and make annotations…changes everything. This is how game development education should work.

The future of learning is interactive. And I'm excited to be building it

— Henrique Campos