Game Dev Tools
27 Dec 2024Here is a list of all of the game development tools that I find interesting as an amateur. Tools are organized into sections with brief explanations. Items are roughly sorted in order of my personal preference. Additionally, some entries will have icons next to them. The key is as follows:
- 💸 The tool in question has a monetary cost. They still may include free options.
- 🐣 I believe the tool in question is very good for beginners.
- ❗❗ The tool in question is more geared towards experienced users.
- ⏲ The tool is in beta - not ready for full use, but worth keeping tabs on.
Development
Game Development can generally happen at 3 levels of abstraction:
- Game Engines, which contain integrated visual editors and are jam packed with tools out of the box.
- Frameworks, which are large, opinionated code libraries that help you rapidly code a game from scratch with basic functionality like graphics, audio, and basic networking
- Libraries, which are generally single purpose for a particular programming language. For example a game may opt to use a particular library specifically for loading png images from disk into a format usable by their game.
Fair warning that the lines between these can get blurry.
Game Engines
- Godot
- 💸 Unity
- ❗❗💸 Unreal
- 🐣💸 Game Maker
- 🐣 RPG Maker
Frameworks
Languages
❗❗ Libraries
Editors
- VSCode (All)
- Visual Studio (C#, C++, Python, Javascript)
- PyCharm (Python)
- QtCreator (C++)
Art
Sprite Art
- 💸 Aseprite
- Pixelorama
- Krita
- ⏲ PixieEditor
- Paint.NET
- ❗❗💸 PhotoShop
Music
Audio
Resources
Assets
Videos
Books / Blogs
- Game Programming Patterns
- Fix Your Timestep!
- What Every Programmer Needs To Know About Game Networking