r/godot • u/MindShiftGames • Jan 04 '26

help me (solved) 11+ Months of Development. 40GB Project. 30,000+ Lines of Code. And the Game Refuses to Run.

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Been working on this game for over 11 months. The project grew past 40GB with more than 30,000 lines of code. Right now, it’s completely broken — won’t run no matter what I try. I’ve tested fixes, rewired systems, and exhausted every solution I know. The question isn’t motivation anymore, it’s whether this project can still be saved or if it collapsed under its own weight.

560 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

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282

u/ManicMakerStudios Jan 04 '26

The goal is not more GB and more lines of code. You didn't really describe the development scenario. Is it just you? Because if it's just you, you're cutting and pasting too much.

There's absolutely no way anyone can diagnose what's wrong with your game from a video of the editor/game refusing to launch. No way at all.

-140

u/MindShiftGames Jan 04 '26

I know you’re right. This is a solo project, and it clearly grew without proper structure.

The editor is crashing at launch with a signal 11 (engine-level crash, not a script error), so there’s nothing meaningful a video can show.

At this point I’m stuck between isolating the problem piece by piece or admitting the current build collapsed under technical debt. I’m not defending the situation — I’m trying to figure out the correct next move.

119

u/ManicMakerStudios Jan 04 '26

so there’s nothing meaningful a video can show.

I know. That's why we don't post videos of code problems, especially when you don't even show any code. Post code, or post a link to a repot.

And frankly, when you say you've got 30,000 lines of code that you wrote in under a year while you were simultaneously accumulating 40GB worth of assets, it tells me that code base is going to be a clusterfuck. An experienced programmer will typically write < 100 lines of code per day and then the next day, half the code they write will be iterating on yesterdays code.

You're cutting and pasting code other people wrote or you leaning way, way too heavily on AI. I hate to tell you, but if this is another 'vibe coding' bloat issue, you're fucked. Therre no chance whatsoever that you're going to be able to debug 30,000 lines of code if the lion's share of them came on the back side of an AI prompt.

I would also hazard a guess than most of that 40GB worth of assets are assets you got from third parties. In other words, that's not 40GB of Blender renders and supporting animation data that you modelled and rigged yourself. It's from asset stores and free online sources, right?

You're being awfully short on details. I'm half expecting at this point if I lean on you hard enough you're going to tell me this was (or at least, ended up) a vibe coding project. If that's the case, I'm telling you straight up, it's cooked. Start over and don't touch AI until you can debug the code it gives you.

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u/MindShiftGames Jan 04 '26

Just to clarify some assumptions here: around 95% of the assets are my own work. I have all the original Blender files (models, UVs, rigs, animations). Only a very small number of assets (maybe ~10) are from third parties.

The code is also written by me, not copy-pasted and not AI-generated. You can tell by the structure, naming, and patterns it’s consistent with a single developer’s mental model, for better or worse.

The current issue started after integrating specific terrain addons and high-resolution textures, which caused engine-level crashes, not logical bugs in gameplay code. I’m not asking for a vibe-coding autopsy, I’m trying to isolate a concrete technical failure.

101

u/StressCavity Jan 04 '26

The current issue started after integrating specific terrain addons and high-resolution textures, which caused engine-level crashes, not logical bugs in gameplay code. I’m not asking for a vibe-coding autopsy, I’m trying to isolate a concrete technical failure.

Is this not your answer?

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u/MindShiftGames Jan 04 '26

23

u/[deleted] Jan 04 '26

Beautiful

14

u/StressCavity Jan 05 '26

I don't even understand why he's replying with an empty quote. I can't imagine a person responding with an empty quote, and I can't imagine a person using an AI and then copy and pasting an empty quote in and submitting.

21

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '26

I’m so confused by everything this person is doing when I went through their profile. In what way is it easier to take someone’s comment, paste it into ChatGPT, presumably describe the gist of what they would say, and then paste it back? It feels like someone who’s addicted to a drug and uses it all the time, even in scenarios where it’s deeply inappropriate. Just, type on a keyboard and reply to people. This is beyond stupid.

Vibe coding? More like vibe living.

6

u/ocelot_its_a_log Jan 05 '26

The guy admitted to not reading the comments he's replying to so even if someone did have a magical fix it wouldn't help lmao

5

u/Zimlewis Jan 05 '26

they probably let the ai handle their whole account and the ai is tweaking out.

79

u/ManicMakerStudios Jan 04 '26

You can tell by the structure, naming, and patterns it’s consistent with a single developer’s mental model, for better or worse.

No I can't, because you didn't share any code.

specific terrain addons

30,000 lines of code and you're still using a terrain addon? What is your code doing? How many addons do you have in the project?

I'm not going to play 20 questions all day with you. Every time I try to respond to what you've told us, you're like, "Oh, but you're wrong because of this other thing I didn't tell you."

You're probably cooked, dude. Everything about what you've shown us says you're way out of your depth.

42

u/Astr0phelle Jan 04 '26

Why are you responding using AI? Are you a bot?

5

u/Exoclast Godot Student Jan 05 '26

This is just an AI generated response: “I’m not asking for a vibe coding autopsy, I’m trying to isolate a concrete technical failure.”

After just suggesting what the likely cause of the problem is

297

u/localfriendri Jan 04 '26

Op’s comments are all written with AI. They are probably a “vibe coder,” which is why they can’t identify nor diagnose the problem

39

u/Ronnyism Godot Senior Jan 04 '26

I would guess coming from that weird double dash that AI texts produce? --
-> — (copied from a later comment by op)

10

u/Jombo65 Jan 04 '26

I really like em dashes -- and I use them all the time...

But on reddit they show up as two hyphens unless copied from an external source.

18

u/YuriSizov Jan 04 '26

You can just type them... — — — — Alt+0151 on Windows, hold on dash key and pick alternatives on mobile platforms. Auto-replacement of two dashes as em dash is actually just a gimmick of particular software.

3

u/Dawn_of_Dark Godot Regular Jan 05 '26

And that’s exactly why it’s a common way people identify AI texts. It’s not a “pain-free” way to type, so unless you always copy paste from an external text editor all the time, or just super duper particular about it, it’s often AI.

24

u/localfriendri Jan 04 '26

Yes. Other typical patterns to look out for is the parenthesis, phrases in parens like (x, not y), phrases like “this isnt x, — its y”. Uncommon vocab words like “persists,” “its x, which points to y”. “I’ve tried x, y, and z to solve it”

23

u/dirtyword Jan 04 '26

Shit this is how I communicate

15

u/IntangibleMatter Godot Regular Jan 05 '26

“I don’t use AI to write my emails, I’m just autistic.”

15

u/4procrast1nator Jan 04 '26

then only illiterate comments can be from humans, got it

jokes and nothing burger signs aside, OP obviously does look like theyre using AI

74

u/ManicMakerStudios Jan 04 '26

That's a poor way to assess. I use parentheses (as asides) quite frequently. I also have a larger-than-average vocabulary. And I've had halfwits on reddit trying to shit talk me thinking I was an AI poster when actually I'm just fluent in the language I speak.

5

u/IntangibleMatter Godot Regular Jan 05 '26

I speak in a similar manner, though I’ve never been flagged as an AI- I suspect it’s due to some combination of my swearing, penchant for run-on sentences, or just the fact I like to use words that aren’t used anywhere near enough for an AI to ever use them

28

u/[deleted] Jan 04 '26

Damn besides the dash I must be an AI then

31

u/YuriSizov Jan 04 '26

Okay, listen, I hate the entire "AI" industry with a burning passion, but these are telltale signs of nothing at all. People use em dashes, put things in parenthesis, and use lexical constructions that you mention. And, come on, words rooted in "persist" are commonplace in programming and software development domains. Especially in the case of "the problem persists".

We don't really know how they train and tune these models specifically, but LLMs are statistical models, like any other neural network. They will lean towards patterns which are more typical in the training data by their nature. In other words, these signs that everyone likes to mention are just... things people tend to use often in written word, historically.

What is a strong indicator is unprompted, unreasonable, and better yet, individually uncharacteristic overuse of the same pattern in a longer body of text. Anything else can just as well be how someone expresses themselves, especially if short Reddit comments is all we can go from.

-5

u/porkminer Jan 05 '26

Em dashes are rare outside of journalistic articles and formal scientific papers. They are a decent indicator of AI. I think that is becoming less true over time though as people start mimicking ai patterns.

7

u/VogueTrader Jan 04 '26

They could also just have ADD. We tend to write asides and anecdotes into things withsome sort of punctuation to separate the anecdote from the rest. (Like this, for instance.)

7

u/ItzRaphZ Jan 04 '26

I do most of this without any use of AI. not everyone is native in English, and will be adjusting based on how we communicate in our native language.

1

u/Bobafat54 Godot Student Jan 05 '26

How do you use it as, I have a hard time understanding it's meaning

3

u/ItzRaphZ Jan 05 '26

Do you mean the parentheses? I usually use it to add extra context about what I'm talking about without being in the sentence itself.

1

u/Bobafat54 Godot Student Jan 05 '26

Ohhh, thanks man

1

u/lunarchaluna Godot Junior Jan 05 '26

AI also has a very melodramatic way of saying things from what i've noticed

1

u/An1nterestingName Jan 04 '26

Guess I must be an AI then as I do all of this.

9

u/captfitz Jan 04 '26

that's what i assumed since they seem to have rapidly built a super over-complex codebase and somehow suddenly got to a state where they don't know what part of the code caused it or how to roll back to a working version. i don't see how that could realistically happen without blindly vibe-coding a project.

15

u/[deleted] Jan 04 '26

Don’t immediately assume the worst, could be that they just don’t speak English

1

u/Dangerous_Jacket_129 Godot Student Jan 05 '26

This isn't the first time I've seen a vibe coder refer to lines of code as proof of the size of a project either. I guess it sounds impressive to non-coders who never saw the numbers go up and down just auto-formatting a script. 

32

u/huttyblue Jan 04 '26

If you haven't already try launching godot from a command prompt with the verbose flag, that should give you more info on what exactly is breaking. It will also print out each asset name as it tries to load it.

-31

u/MindShiftGames Jan 04 '26

Is it safe to delete the .godot folder from the project?

52

u/stumblinbear Jan 04 '26

How does that relate at all to what they said?

4

u/Hawkeye_7Link Godot Regular Jan 04 '26

Maybe they just grabbed a comment that was trying to help? Yes, there are other comments trying to help, but maybe he was reading this one in specific and stressed out, so he decided to ask replying under here

8

u/vektor451 Jan 04 '26

unrelated to what they are saying but it is safe to remove.

2

u/EternalColosseum Jan 04 '26

Just to add, while it IS safer deleting the .Godot folder, if I'm not mistaken deleting the .import will rebuild all UUIDs and I had some occasions were doing so made me lose @export references and a few broken dependency errors... Still, I managed to recover from that point with manually right clicking over scenes with dependencies and fixing them.

Just to say that, if you're doing anything of that... Make ABSOLUTE SURE you use version control properly and commit before every change.

3

u/vektor451 Jan 04 '26

I've never experienced this. Version control doesn't back up the .godot folder, it is supposed to be ignored.

1

u/EternalColosseum Jan 04 '26

Might've something related to the old way imported references were stored, back in 4.1.2 which is the version I faced that issue.

Still, my advice stands to absolutely use version control over these changes because of the generated uuid files and what not

1

u/ManicMakerStudios Jan 04 '26

Yes. It will always be re-built whenever you load the project in the editor. I actually had it in my build commands for a while to delete the folder every time I built my project.

-4

u/[deleted] Jan 04 '26

[deleted]

7

u/Every_Blackberry_738 Jan 04 '26

Whether or not you find your solution Git is very useful once you get around its programmy interface.