= Paid, = Limited Free, = 100% Free, = Open Source
A list of game development resources to make magic happen. Created by awesome people for awesome people.
Great graphics placeholders and tools to turn that squared game into a picasso painting
- 2D Cartoon Mobile Game UI Pack - cartoon user interface asset pack. It comes as a layered psd file.
- 420 Pixel Art Icons for RPGs - Set of 420 RPG icons, free for commercial use.
- Blender 3D models - 3D models, particle systems/effects
- CGTextures - A large collection of textures.
- GameDev Market - a community-driven marketplace that connects indie game developers with talented asset creators.
- Games-Icons Set - free icons for your games.
- Iconmonstr - Another free icons resource for your games.
- Kenny Assets - Royalty free assets
- Liberated Pixel Cup assets - Free graphic assets of the Liberated Pixel Cup (LPC) held by the OpenGameArt forums
- OpenClipart - Collection of free cliparts.
- OpenGameArt - a media repository intended for use with free software game projects.
- Oryx Design Lab - Cheap high quality royalty free sprites
- PlainTextures - Free high resolution textures, brushes and photos
- Reiner's Tilesets - A blog with free 2D and 3D graphics.
- Sketchfab - Publish & embed interactive 3D models.
- SpriteLib - a collection of static and animated graphic objects (also commonly known as sprites).
- StickyPNG - Free transparent PNG images.
- TextureKing - Free material stock textures
- Tree Generator - An Online tree generator.
- Upando - Marketplace with lots of resources for game developers.
- Vecteezy - Free Vector Art.
- Yobi3D - Free 3D model search engine.
- Cheetah-Texture-Packer - High efficient and fast 2D bin packing tool
- GraphicsGale - Animation graphic editor easy to use.
- Libgdx Texture Packer - Texture Packer built into Libgdx
- Littera - Bitmap font generator
- ShoeBox - Adobe Air based app with game and ui related tools.
- Sprite Sheet Packer - Combine multiple images into a single sprite sheet and generate a txt map of it.
- Spritesheet Preview - A simple and free tool to preview sprite sheets
- TexturePacker - Great spritesheet creation editor.
- ImageAlpha — Mac OS X GUI for pngquant and other tools
- Kraken.io - robust, ultra-fast image optimizer and compressor with best-in-class algorithms.
- PNGGauntlet - Smash PNGs for faster sites
- PNGoo - Windows GUI for batch conversion.
- Pngyu - simple PNG image file compression tool.
- SuperPNG Photoshop plug-in — Mac and Windows. Comparison with "Save for Web"
- TinyPNG - Advanced lossy compression for PNG images that preserves full alpha transparency.
- FilterForge - A plugin for Adobe Photoshop that allows you to build your own filters.
- PixPlant - PixPlant is a smart 3D texturing tool that creates high quality normal, displacement, specular maps and seamless textures from photos.
- STG - a tool for creating professional seamlessly-tileable textures from photographs quickly and easily.
- Charas - Charas is a charset generator for RPG Maker.
- Loose Leaf - Sprite character generator
- Universal LPC Sprite Sheet Character Generator - Sprite character generator based on the LPC (Liberated Pixel Cup) graphics
- ArrayPainter - Array Painter is the easiest and fastest way to make 2D arrays ready for copy pasting into your own program.
- AutoTileGen - AutoTileGen is an automatic tileset generator for 2D game terrains.
- OGMO Editor - generic level editor.
- Overlap2D - a 2D level and UI editor with an engine agnostic philosophy.
- Mappy - Free tilemap editor.
- Tiled - free, easy to use and flexible tile map editor.
- Fusion Character Animator - small tool for Clickteam Fusion 2.5 to facilitate the animation of 2D character sprites for developers.
- Spine - Spine is dedicated to 2D animation, providing an efficient workflow both for creating amazing animation and for integrating it into your games.
- Spriter - Modern tool for sprite animation.
- DragonBones - The Open Source 2D skeleton animation solution for Flash
- LWF - Lightweight SWF. LWF is an animation engine which can play animation data converted from FLASH contents in HTML5, Unity, Cocos2d-x, iOS UIKit, and more.
- Affinity Designer - Vector graphics editor with a bunch of features which also supports Adobe file formats
- Affinity Photo - Photo and raster graphics editor which works together with Adobe file formats and Affinity Designer
- Aseprite - animated sprite editor & pixel art tool.
- Gimp - GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
- Inkscape - An open-source vector graphics editor similar to Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Freehand, or Xara X.
- Krita - Krita is a KDE program for sketching and painting, offering an end-to-end solution for creating digital painting files from scratch by masters.
- Multipaint - A cross-platform (Win, Linux, Mac) image editor/painter which covers the color limitations of 8-bit machines (like C64, ZX Spectrum etc.)
- Ormr - Ormr is a fast, light-weight, cross-platform procedural graphics editor.
- Paint.NET - Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for PCs that run Windows.
- Pickle - Another Pixel art Editor.
- PiskelApp - Free Online Pixel Art and Animated Sprite Tool.
- Pixelmator - Full-featured image editing app for the Mac
- Pixen - Pixel Art Editor for OSX
- project one - A picture converter and editor for the Commodore 64 covering different graphics mode of this computer. Windows only
- PXL8 - A cross platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) pixel art editor in development which aims to be distraction free
- PyxelEdit - Pixel art editor designed to make it fun and easy to make tilesets, levels and animations.
- Timanthes - A pixel art editor for the Commodore 64 computer running on Windows
- Artifex Terra - Terrain editor for easy and sophisticated landscape painting and editing
- Canyon Terrain Editor - Create quality, realistic terrain quickly and intuitively
- Fracplanet - Fractal planet and terrain generator
- Nem TG - 3D terrain generator
- World Machine - Procedural terrain creation, simulations of nature, and interactive editing
Set of game frameworks, engines and platforms
- Agen - Cross-Platform framework for making 2D games with Lua, compatible iOS, Mac and Windows devices.
- Allegro - Allegro 4 & 5 are cross-platform, open source, game programming libraries, primarily for C and C++ developers.
- AndEngine - 2D Android Game Engine
- Bacon2D - A framework to ease 2D game development, providing ready-to-use QML elements representing basic game entities needed by most of games.
- Bladecoder - Classic point and click adventure game engine and editor.
- Box2D - A 2D Physics Engine for Games.
- Chipmunk C# - C# implementation of the Chipmunk2D lib.
- Chipmunk2D - A fast and lightweight 2D game physics library.
- Cocos2D - graphic library for games and multimedia, for python language
- Cocos2d-x - a C++ OpenGL 2D and 3D game engine. Uses C++ but has JS and Lua bindings. Target all the major mobile platforms and operating systems. Additional tools CocoStudio and Cocos Code IDE.
- Cocos Creator - Cocos Creator, a free cross-platform game development editor supporting Cocos2d-js, helps developers build 2D and 3D game scenes, edit game UI and other game resources quickly and efficiency.
- Construct 2 - an HTML5 game maker, meaning you are not actually writing JavaScript. Instead, you use actions, events and conditions to do the heavy lifting.
- Coquette - A micro framework for JavaScript games. Handles collision detection, the game update loop, canvas rendering, and keyboard and mouse input.
- Corona SDK - A Cross-Platform Mobile App Development for iOS and Android.
- Defold - Free 2D Game Engine for Cross-Platform Publishing
- Duality - C# / OpenGL 2D Game Engine that comes with visual editor.
- ENGi - A multi-platform 2D game library for Go.
- Ejecta - A Fast, Open Source JavaScript, Canvas & Audio Implementation for iOS.
- EnchantJS - A simple JavaScript framework for creating games and apps.
- Farseer - a collision detection system with realistic physics responses.
- FlashPunk - free ActionScript 3 library designed for developing 2D Flash games.
- Flixel - an open source game-making written in ActionScript3.
- GameMaker - GameMaker accommodates the creation of cross-platform video games using drag and drop or a scripting language known as Game Maker Language, which can be used to develop more advanced games that could not be created just by using the drag and drop features.
- GameSalad - Game Creation Engine for Mac and Windows.
- Gideros - A Cross-Platform framework to create Mobile Apps and games for iOS, Android using Lua programming language.
- Godot - An advanced, feature-packed, multi-platform 2D and 3D open-source game engine.
- HaxeFlixel - Create cross-platform games easier and free.
- ImpactJS - Impact is a JavaScript Game Engine that allows you to develop stunning HTML5 Games for desktop and mobile browsers.
- Jitter - a fast and lightweight physics engine written in C#.
- Juno - Framework for making 2D games with chunky pixels in Lua
- Kivent - A 2D game framework for Kivy.
- Kivy - Cross platform Python framework for creating apps and games for Linux, Windows, OS X, Android and iOS
- KiwiJS - a fun and friendly Open Source HTML5 Game Engine. Some people call it the WordPress of HTML5 game engines
- LibGDX - Powerful (totally free) library for Java, code once and run the game on desktop, Android, Web, and iOS.
- LimeJS - HTML5 game framework for building fast, native-experience games for all modern touchscreens and
- Loom SDK - 2D mobile app and game framework with live reload of code and assets, AS3/JS/C#-like scripting language, and powerful 2D rendering and UI framework. Open source with paid "Turbo" service.
- Lums - A 2D / 3D framework written in C++11. Very efficient and modern. Still under heavy development.
- LÖVE - Lua 2D Game Engine.
- MINX - Open Source 2D game framework written in C++ (to the style of XNA)
- MOAI - Cross-Platform framework designed for pro game developers to create iOS, Android, Windows, Linux, Chrome and OSX games using C++, OpenGL and Lua scripting.
- Matter.js - a 2D physics engine for the web.
- MelonJS - open source light-weight HTML5 game engine.
- Monkey X - Multi-platform programming language and cross-compiler, aimed at fast game programming.
- Monogame - Open Source implementation of the Microsoft XNA 4 Framework.
- NodeBox - a family of Python tools to create generative design.
- OpenFL - Open Source Haxe Engine for making multi-platform games.
- OpenRA - OpenRA is a Libre/Free Real Time Strategy Game Engine.
- Origamijs - Lightweight Library to create using HTML5 Canvas.
- PICO-8 - A fantasy console for making, sharing and playing tiny games and other computer programs.
- PandaJS - Open Source HTML5 Engine.
- Phaser - free and fast 2D game framework for making HTML5 games for desktop and mobile web browsers, supporting Canvas and WebGL rendering.
- Pixel Vision 8 - a framework designed to simulate your favorite 8-bit consoles.
- PixiJS - is a newcomer HTML5 game renderer - first released in early 2013. A main appeal of the engine is its use of WebGL for faster performance. If WebGL isn't supported, the engine falls back to standard canvas.
- Processing - Processing is a programming language, development environment for artists, designers, researchers.
- PuzzleScript - open-source HTML5 puzzle game engine.
- PyGame - a 2D game engine in Python.
- QICI - Efficient web-based tool for creating HTML5 games.
- RPGMaker - series of programs for the development of role-playing games.
- Ren'Py - An open-source visual novel engine using the Python language in simplified form. It supports Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Android and iOS.
- Rpgboss - A 2d rpg game engine and editor based on scala and libgdx. Ease of use, with no programming knowledge.
- SDL - SDL is a cross-platform library designed to provide low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, and graphics hardware via OpenGL and Direct3D.
- SFML - Simple and Fast Multimedia Library.
- SpriteKit - iOS/Mac 2D Game Engine.
- Stage.js - Lightweight and fast 2D HTML5 rendering and layout engine for cross-platform game development.
- Starling - The GPU powered 2D Flash API
- Stencyl - a game creation platform that allows users to create 2D video games for computers, mobile devices, and the web.
- TIC - Tiny Computer - a tiny computer where you can make, play and share tiny games.
- Twine - Downloadable or browser-based game development platform that allows users to create linked story paths. Not just text-based, Twine supports music, images, and sound effects. Very little coding knowledge required for basic text adventure games.
- XNA - Microsoft's game development framework.
- iio.js - A javascript library that speeds the creation and deployment of HTML5 Canvas applications
- p2.js - JavaScript 2D physics library
- Azul3D - A 3D engine written in Go.
- Blend4Web - A Javascript framework for creating and displaying interactive 3D computer graphics in web browsers.
- Blitz3D 3D basic-like programming language for fast 3D desktop games.
- Bullet - Real-time physics simulation.
- CRYENGINE - A pay what you want next gen 3D game engine written in C++.
- Cinder - Cinder is a community-developed, free and open source library for professional-quality creative coding in C++.
- Dash - A free and open 3D game engine written in D.
- Havok Vision - a cross-platform game engine that provides a powerful and versatile multi-platform runtime technology.
- Haxor - Combine the power of HaXe language and HTML5+WebGL to easily develop powerful applications that can run in any modern browser.
- Hive3D - Real Time Collaboration 3D engine.
- Horde3D - small open source 3D rendering engine.
- Irrlicht - open source high performance realtime 3D engine written in C++.
- JPCT - jPCT is a 3D engine for desktop Java and Google's Android.
- LumixEngine - 3D Game engine built on C++.
- Lumberyard - Amazon Lumberyard is a free AAA game engine deeply integrated
- ODE - ODE is an open source, high performance library for simulating rigid body dynamics.
- Ogre3D - is a scene-oriented, real-time, flexible 3D rendering engine (as opposed to a game engine) written in C++.
- Panda3D - a framework for 3D rendering and game development for Python and C++ programs.
- Paradox - Open Source C# Game Engine.
- Piston - a modular open source game engine written in Rust.
- PlayCanvas - A WebGL Game Engine.
- Polycode - Open-Source Framework for creating games in C++ (with Lua bindings).
- Rajawali - Android OpenGL ES 2.0/3.0 Engine
- Spring - A powerful free cross-platform RTS engine.
- Superpowers - HTML5 Collaborative 2D/3D Game Maker
- Three.js - Javascript 3D Library.
- Turbulenz - Turbulenz offers the ability to build, publish, iterate and monetise high-quality games that react like no others, with immersive 3D effects and real-time physics that open up a whole new world of unprecedented and extraordinary web content.
- Unity 3D - A development engine for the creation of 2D and 3D games and interactive content.
- Unreal Engine 4 - the new game engine technology developed by Epic Games.
- Urho3D - Cross-platform rendering and game engine.
- Wave - Cross-platform engine written in C#
- WhiteStorm.js - 3d javacript framework for building apps and games
- bgfx - Cross-platform, graphics API agnostic, "Bring Your Own Engine/Framework" style rendering library.
- gameplay - A free, open-source, cross-platform, 2D + 3D game framework written in C++. It is aimed towards indie game developers who are creating desktop and mobile games.
- jMonkeyEngine 3 - a 3D open-source game engine for adventurous Java developers.
- voxel.js - voxel.js is a collection of projects that make it easier than ever to create 3D voxel games like Minecraft all in the browser. with AWS and Twitch – with full source.
- SimpleAI - C++11 behaviour tree based library with a QT5 based remote debugger (and with optional LUA bindings) released under MIT.
Audio editors, sounds collections and more.
- Free Game Sounds - Archive of all kinds of royalty-free game sounds.
- Freesound - collaborative database of Creative Commons Licensed sounds.
- LaptopNoise - Large collection of random 'glitchy' computer effects free for use.
- Musopen - Royalty free music.
- Octave - free library of UI sounds.
- PacDV - royalty free sounds collection.
- SoundBible.com - Royalty-free, searchable archive of sound effects under various licenses.
- Audacity - open source, cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds.
- Audiosauna - transforms your web browser into a fast and flexible music production studio with built in synthesizers and live effects.
- Audiotool - Online music producer.
- Bfxr - A tool to make sound effects for computer games.
- Bosca Ceoil - Online (and also desktop) music producer made by Terry Cavanagh. Simple, intuitive, has a distinctive retro-ish sound.
- ChipTone - Online sound effect generator
- FamiTracker - free windows tracker for producing music for the NES/Famicom-systems.
- iNudge - Create sound patterns online.
- jfxr - A JavaScript port of the Bfxr sound effect generator.
- MadTracker - a powerful and efficient approach to making music. Versatility and compatibility are guaranteed due to full VST™, ASIO™ and ReWire™ support.
- musagi - open source, fairly large and sophisticated music editor and synthesizer
- Sekaiju - Open Source MIDI sequencer.
- Soundation - Online Professional music studio.
- SunVox - a small, fast and powerful modular synthesizer with pattern-based sequencer (tracker).
Tools for making board games
- Boardgamizer - Board Game Design Idea Generator.
- RPTools - a brand of open-source programs designed to enhance traditional pen-and-paper role playing games.
Blogs, portals, magazines and more
- Amit's Game Programming
- BigSushi
- Designer Notes
- Emanuele Feronato's Blog
- Extraguy
- Gamasutra
- Game Development on StackExchange
- GameDev
- GameDevs.org
- Game Hero
- GameJolt
- GameMarketeers
- Greenlit Gaming
- HTML5 Game Devs Forum
- HobbyGameDev
- Html5 Game Development
- IndieDB
- Indius
- Mod DB
- Java Gaming
- Lost Garden
- Polygon
- Real-Time Rendering
- Superlevel
- TIGSource
- TruePCGaming
- WhatGamesAre
- iforce2d
- indiegames
- indievault
- 3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development
- Artificial Intelligence for Games
- Essential Mathematics for Games and Interactive Applications: A Programmer's Guide
- Flow
- Game Coding Complete
- Game Development Essentials: Game Level Design
- Game Engine Architecture
- Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design
- Game Programming Gems
- Game Programming Patterns
- Game Scripting Mastery
- Hello Scratch: Learn to Program by Making Arcade Games
- Level Up!
- Making Games with Python & Pygame
- Mathematics For 3D Game Programming And Computer Graphics
- Nature of Code
- Physics for Game Developers
- Programming Game AI by Example
- Real-Time Rendering
- Rules of Play
- The Art of Game Design
- The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design
- The Visual Story
- Theory of Fun
- Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus
- awesome-gametalks - A curated list of game talks (GDC, youtube, etc).
- Twitch GameDev - Twitch GameDev Streams
- CompoHub - A compilation site of many game jams in a timeline.
- Game jams on itch.io - Listing of itch.io game jams
- Game Off - GitHub's game jam
- Indie Game Jams - Listing of game jams
- Ludum Dare - very popular game jam
- One Hour Game Jam - Weekly 1 hour game jam
- Casual - Visual Project Management
- Codecks - Project Management Tool inspired by Collectible Card Games
- HacknPlan - Project management for game developers
- Taiga - Project management platform for agile developers & designers
- Trello - Organize and prioritize projects
- Doom 3
- Doom
- Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition
- Prince of Persia
- Quake 2
- Quake III Arena
- Quake
- SimCity
- Wolfenstein 3D
We still need to make some money, right?
- AdMob by Google - Google's Ads and monetization service for mobile.
- AdColony - Mobile video Ads service.
- Appodeal - A programmatic ad mediation solution for mobile apps.
- ChartBoost - Monetization, analytics platform.
- RevMob - Monetization and Ads solution.
- Unity Ads - Unity3D Official Ads SDK.
- Vungle - Video Ads service.
Online courses, tutorials, screencasts
- Coursera: Beginning Game Programming with C#
- Coursera: Introduction to interactive Python programming
- HandmadeHero: making 2D game from scratch
- Khan Academy: Advanced JS: Games & Visualizations
- Simple HTML5 Canvas Game
- miloyip/game-programmer A Study Path for Game Programmer
- TheChernoProject
- Udacity: HTML5 Game Development