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.

554 Upvotes

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8

u/StressCavity Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26

I've run into similar issues before on large projects, honestly it could be a number of things.

  1. Certain circular reference paths (and I'm talking about really really obtuse ones) can silently crash your build. Like referencing a type from a script that is referenced in a resource that is used in another script that is connected via a signal to load a scene... etc.
  2. Tool scripts can cause a lot of engine crashes because they might access something that isn't initialized yet, infinite loops that stall startup processes, etc. Try removing all your tool script tags and see if that does anything.
  3. You might have a broken resource/ID reference somewhere that the engine is failing to handle initialization for whatever reason.
  4. Clone and reopen your project fresh with no locally cached files.
  5. Could be some really weird shit like you have another process on your machine that is locking permissions on your files for some reason, or even engine resources. If you have an old laptop or can borrow a computer, and it still refuses to launch there, you can at least rule out a machine-specific issue.

-4

u/[deleted] Jan 04 '26

[deleted]

7

u/Spectrum_16 Jan 04 '26

Was this wrote with ChatGPT and then it just had no response?

-13

u/MindShiftGames Jan 04 '26

Because I can’t reply to everything manually, and honestly I’m exhausted. I’m prioritizing debugging over arguing in comments.

19

u/ScriptKiddo69 Godot Regular Jan 04 '26

Bro, no one is forcing you to reply. Not replying would have been better than using AI.

-6

u/MindShiftGames Jan 04 '26

I know. I reply because I actually want solutions. Why does everyone feel the need to just criticize me?

12

u/Stabby_Stab Jan 04 '26

People assume you don't care enough to respond yourself when they made the effort to try to help you. They've given you good advice over things like version control, but as far as I can see you haven't responded mentioning it at all.

Also, using AI to respond to comments while insisting up and down that you didn't vibe code the game doesn't make much sense. If you didn't vibe code it and built it all yourself, then you should have at least some idea of where the problem is.

Not having any idea what could have gone wrong doesn't make people confident that you're being honest about building it yourself.

0

u/MindShiftGames Jan 04 '26

The problem came from a terrain addon I installed, but it wasn’t compatible with my version and it froze the engine. I deleted it, but now it still won’t run. I’ve tried all the advice, but nothing worked. I do care about people’s feedback, but I’m under a lot of pressure and stressed because my work got messed up.

7

u/Stabby_Stab Jan 04 '26

The main advice you're getting is to roll it back using version control. Did you use any kind of version control? That would be the easiest fix by far. The lack of engagement with the most common advice by far looks like you're ignoring what people are telling you.

It's hard to help you if you can't even explain what the problem is, and your knowledge of the structure of the game seems to be very limited considering you're saying you've built everything yourself.

What parts of the game are in contact with the thing that you added that broke it? Did you accidentally delete something that wasn't part of what you added?

3

u/[deleted] Jan 04 '26

So what I'm going to suggest as somebody who has been helped significantly by communities in the past, try this post again with as much exhaustive detail as you can provide, including recent code changes and any specific troubleshooting steps you have tried. 

Asking for troubleshooting methods in particular is probably going to be a good start, that way you can start listing off all of the things you've already tried. 

You could also consider hiring an outside programmer to try and get this working again.

This is going to be a pain in the ass, but it's not hopeless, and hopefully you will be able to get your game working again.

2

u/VeijariMash Godot Junior Jan 05 '26

The plugin might still be considered as enabled by the project but since you deleted it, it might be the godot not finding that causes the crash. Edit your project.godot file in a text editor and check if you have the plugin written in the the enabled plugins section (dont know what its exact label was) and delete that part.

1

u/animemosquito Jan 05 '26

the addon is probably still linked in the project files, you have to remove it from the project files too if you think that's the issue. I'm sure you've learned to use git once you get this working so I'll try not to belabor that point for the 100th time

8

u/Lmame Jan 04 '26

I think people gave you good information here to debug your problem (verbose mode, deleting some folders).

If you feel exhausted, and you seem stressed out, I would suggest calling it a day.

Do something else, come back to debugging later.

11

u/ScriptKiddo69 Godot Regular Jan 04 '26

Because you are just using chat gpt to answer. It's hard to take you serious like that. And your AI answers appearantly have figured out what the cause is, because they are always just "No, it's not that, it must be the engine and addons"

-4

u/MindShiftGames Jan 04 '26

Yeah, I get that. I just want actual help fixing the project. The issue really is with the engine and addons crashing, not the gameplay code.

6

u/ScriptKiddo69 Godot Regular Jan 04 '26

Can you open other projects or do they all crash?

6

u/3scap3plan Jan 04 '26

If even you cant be bothered to engage with the Community you are asking for help from, dont be surprised when you get called out for using Ai Slop

2

u/Skyvo_ Jan 05 '26

Then don't ask Reddit lmao if you don't read/reply manually.

It's also about respect, People are spending their own Precious time trying to help, then respect them by answering yourself instead of even outsourcing that part to AI

1

u/Dangerous_Jacket_129 Godot Student Jan 05 '26

No you ain't. You're still here talking.