Game engines and web projects in Jabali Studio

Every Jabali Studio project is built on a game engine. You can pick one when you create a game, or leave the choice to Bali.

Choose an engine

On the home screen, open the Engine menu under the prompt box:

Option	What it’s for
Let Bali Decide	The default. Bali picks the engine that best fits your prompt.
Godot	Advanced 2D and 3D games, with scenes you can edit in the Layouts tab.
Web	Games built with native web technologies that run in any browser.

If you choose Web, you can also pick a starter:

Starter	Best for
Phaser	2D games for the browser
Three.js	3D experiences rendered with WebGL or WebGPU
React Three Fiber	3D games written as React components on top of Three.js
Babylon.js	Full-featured 3D games for the web
PlayCanvas	3D games built on the PlayCanvas engine

Choose Web without a starter to begin with a plain web project and bring your own libraries.

Next to Engine, the Camera menu sets the perspective: 2D for arcade games, platformers and top-down RPGs, or 3D for action, first-person and open-world games. Let Bali Decide works here too.

Watch: Bali recommends a starter for your game (2:12, from the masterclass How to Build a Game on the Jabali Studio)

Godot projects

Godot projects give you the most built-in tooling in Studio:

The Layouts tab for editing Godot scenes (.tscn files)
Godot plugins you can install from a curated catalog
Templates for popular genres

Scripts in Godot projects are written in GDScript. Bali understands Godot scenes and resources, so you can ask about nodes, signals and scene structure as well as code.

Web projects

Web projects use the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem, so Bali can bring in libraries from the npm registry when your game needs them. They come set up with:

TypeScript support and type checking
Fast development builds and optimized production builds, so published games download and load quickly
Linting and code formatting
Unit tests

Bali understands JavaScript, TypeScript, JSX and TSX code, including how components and modules connect. To run project commands like installing a package or running tests, Bali uses the Shell tool, which asks for your approval before running most commands.

First-time downloads

The first time you open a project, Studio may need to download the tools that build and preview it, such as the Godot engine for Godot projects or a Node.js runtime for web projects. A banner above the preview shows the progress. This only happens once per tool.

Can I change the engine later?

The engine is set when a project is created. To try the same idea on a different engine, start a new project with the same prompt and pick another engine.