Coding with Godot: Book 3 - The Ground is Wobbly

Designing Responsive Gameplay with Godot 4.4: Build Wobbly Worlds, Playful Physics, and Seamless Scene Logic
What if the floor could bounce beneath your feet? What if water wasn’t a backdrop, but a living threshold between gravity and freedom?

This book is more than a game development guide: it’s an invitation to create the kinds of experiences that feel impossible at first glance. Drawing deep inspiration from Auren Snyder’s visionary work The Floor is Jelly, the project developed in this guide unpacks how to bring that sense of playful responsiveness and environmental wonder to life in Godot 4.4.

The Coding with Godot | The Ground is Wobbly guide has been developed around the Australian Curriculum Framework Level 4 and covers key outcomes in Digital Technologies and Design and Technologies, including algorithmic thinking, conditional logic, and data representation. Students will explore visual programming concepts through the Godot 4.4 engine while applying structured problem-solving methods in a real-world creative context.

The guide promotes computational reasoning, user interaction design, and testing procedures, all aligned with Level 4 achievement standards. Embedded throughout are opportunities to extend learning via inquiry-based challenges, design iteration, and expressive media creation.
By working with students through this book, you will:
Craft dynamic, wobbly ground that ripples, wobbles, and breathes in response to player interaction.

Utilise trigger-based underwater systems to seamlessly transition between dry land, swimming mechanics, and surface bursts, making them ideal for hybrid worlds that feature both air and water.

Build a modular character controller designed to navigate not just terrain, but atmosphere: water, ice, gravity shifts, and space.

Structure your code to teach: every system is clean, extensible, and learner-ready, grounded in best practices for both developers, educators, and learners alike.
Embrace scene-based logic as a design philosophy, where placement and layout drive behaviour instead of fragile code conditionals.

From wobbly ground to splashy surfaces, you’ll shape a world that responds to every touch.
Why this book stands out:
Inspired by art, built with intent: The floor really is jelly here—but so is your path through water, your spring off the surface, your ripple on landing.
Systems over genres: Instead of building one game, you’re building tools to create any game that embraces responsiveness, immersion, and playful logic.
Classroom and solo developer friendly: Rooted in clear GDScript, with scaffolding for educators and hobbyists alike.

Designed for discovery: Each chapter sparks new “What ifs?”—encouraging readers to tweak, challenge, and build worlds that wiggle with potential.

By the final page, you’ll have a fully interactive environment where even the ground seems to breathe. And more importantly, you’ll understand why it works and how to shape your own expressive systems from the ground up.
This version of Coding with Godot | The Ground is Wobbly includes a comprehensive teacher’s guide, assessment ideas, and assessment marking rubric aligned to AQF Level 4.

All GDScript, support videos, and a range of resources are included in this package.