Devlog #3 – Start Menu, Coin Win Condition, and a UI Challenge 🎮
Made some nice progress on my Godot platformer today!
I added a simple start menu, so the game now begins from a proper title screen instead of jumping straight into gameplay. It already feels much more like an actual game.
I also implemented a win condition. Once the player collects all the coins in the level, the game automatically returns to the start menu. It’s a simple feature, but it completes the gameplay loop and makes the level feel finished.
The biggest challenge today was the coin counter UI. I wanted to display the number of collected coins on the screen using a CanvasLayer and a Label. It sounded straightforward, but I ran into issues with node paths, CanvasLayer setup, and null instance errors while trying to update the label from my game logic. After moving things around and experimenting with different approaches, I realized I still need to clean up how my GameManager communicates with the UI.
So the score display isn’t finished yet, but I understand the problem much better than when I started.
Even though everything didn’t work on the first try, today was a reminder that game development is often about debugging and understanding how different systems connect together.
Progress today:

✅ Added a start menu.

✅ Player returns to the start menu after collecting all coins.

✅ Started implementing a coin counter UI.

🛠️ Still debugging the score display.