The clock on Chris's computer ticked over to 9:00 PM. Six hours had flown by, filled with the dense, rewarding exhaustion of learning something new.
"Okay," Chris said, stretching his arms. "Interface Mastery...check?"
Max nodded, rubbing his eyes. "I think so. I mean, I'm not an expert, but I can navigate. I know where things are now."
Tyrone leaned back in his chair. "Same. I even figured out how to customize the editor layout. Saved a custom workspace."
They'd spent the evening systematically working through the Godot interface. Chris had focused on the Scene Tree, understanding the hierarchical relationship between nodes. He'd dragged and dropped, created parent and child nodes, and experimented with grouping.
Max had been obsessed with the Inspector panel. He'd clicked on every property, tweaked every setting, and seen how they affected the objects in his scene. He'd discovered the built-in documentation, a lifesaver.
Tyrone, true to form, had gravitated towards the visual aspects. He'd played with the 2D viewport, zooming, panning, and getting a feel for how to compose a scene. He'd even managed to import a test sprite and position it.
There had been moments of frustration. Times when a button wouldn't click, a panel wouldn't open, or a concept wouldn't quite "click" in their brains. But they'd helped each other, Googled solutions, and persevered.
"My biggest takeaway," Chris said, "is that everything's a node. Everything. It's like...digital LEGOs."
Max grinned. "And the Inspector is your control panel for those LEGOs. You can change their color, size, position, everything."
"I like how visual it is," Tyrone added. "I can see what I'm doing. It's not just lines of code." He added "No Offence Max"
Max chuckled "None taken"
They took a few minutes to share their individual notes, comparing what they'd learned and filling in any gaps.
Chris smirked. "So, tomorrow...GDScript. Ready for some actual code, Max?"
Max's eyes lit up. "Bring it on. I've been itching to make things move."
Tyrone gave a slightly less enthusiastic nod. "I'll stick with my sprites for now. But I'll be listening in. Gotta understand the code eventually."
They were tired, but satisfied. They'd conquered the first step, a small but crucial victory in their journey to build a game. The interface, once a bewildering maze, was now a familiar workspace. They were ready for the next challenge.