π² = Paid,
π© = Limited Free,
π = 100% Free,
Please remember to always look at the license before using something in your project.
Assets
2D Assets
- 2D Cartoon Mobile Game UI Pack - cartoon user interface asset pack. It comes as a layered psd file. π
- 420 Pixel Art Icons for RPGs - Set of 420 RPG icons, free for commercial use. π
- GameartGuppy - Cheap 2D Assets π²
- Games-Icons Set - free icons for your games. π
- Iconmonstr - Another free icons resource for your games. π
- Kenny Assets - Royalty free assets π©
- OpenClipart - Collection of free cliparts. π
- Oryx Design Lab - Cheap high quality royalty free sprites π²
- SpriteLib - a collection of static and animated graphic objects (also commonly known as sprites). π
- Time Fantasy - Lovely SNES-Looking RPG Assets
3D Assets
- Blender 3D models - 3D models, particle systems/effects π
- Matcaps - A Huge library of matcap textures in PNG and ZMT, organized by color. π
- Reiner's Tilesets - A blog with free 2D and 3D graphics. π
- TextureKing - Free realistic meterial stock textures π
Audio Assets
- GameSounds - Archive of all kinds of royalty-free game sounds. π
- FreePD - Public Domain Music π
- FreeSFX - free sound effects π
- Freesound - collaborative database of Creative Commons Licensed sounds π
- Kavex's GameSounds - Free sounds for any use π
- Musopen - Royalty free music. π
- Nameless: the Hackers RPG Soundtrack - high-quality by BoxCat Games π²
- Octave - free library of UI sounds, handmade for iOS. :free1:
- PacDV - royalty free sounds collection. π
- SoundBible.com - Royalty-free of sound effects under various licenses. π
Multiple Graphic Collections
- CGTextures - A large collection of textures. π©
- GameDev Market - a community-driven marketplace that connects indie game developers with talented asset creators. π²
- OpenGameArt - a media repository intended for use with free software game projects. π
- PlainTextures - Free high resolution textures, brushes and photos π
- Sketchfab - Publish & embed interactive 3D models. π©
- Vecteezy - Free Vector Art. π
Code
Ads and Monetization
- AdColony - Mobile video Ads service.
- AdMob by Google - Google's Ads and monetization service for mobile.
- Appodeal - A programmatic ad mediation solution for mobile apps.
- ChartBoost - Monetization, analytics platform.
- Unity Ads - Unity3D Official Ads SDK.
2D Engines and Frameworks
- 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.
π ΎοΈ - Bladecoder - Classic point and click adventure game engine and editor.
π ΎοΈ - Box2D - A 2D Physics Engine for Games.
π ΎοΈ - Chipmunk C# - C# implementation of the Chipmunk2D lib.
π ΎοΈ - Chipmunk2D - A fast and lightweight 2D game physics library.
- Cocos2D - graphic library for games and multimedia, for python language
π ΎοΈ - Cocos2d-x - a C++ OpenGL 2D and 3D game engine. Uses C++ but has JS and Lua bindings. π
- 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. π©
- 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 2D game engine by King π
- Duality - C# / OpenGL 2D Game Engine that comes with visual editor.
- EasyRPG - role playing game creation tool compatible with RPG Maker 2000/2003 games π
- ENGi - A multi-platform 2D game library for Go.
π ΎοΈ - Ejecta - A Fast, Open Source JavaScript, Canvas & Audio Implementation for iOS.
π ΎοΈ - 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.
π ΎοΈ - GameMaker - 2D Game Engine π©
- GameSalad - Game Creation Engine for Mac and Windows.
- Gideros - Mobile Cross-Platform framework using Lua programming language.
π ΎοΈ - Glide Engine - Game engine for making 2d games on iOS, macOS and tvOS, with practical examples.
π ΎοΈ - Gosu - 2D game development library for Ruby and C++
π ΎοΈ - HaxeFlixel - Create cross-platform games easier and free.
- iio.js - A javascript library that speeds the creation and deployment of HTML5 Canvas applications
π ΎοΈ - 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 Lua - Framework for making 2D games with chunky pixels in Lua
π ΎοΈ - Juno TypeScript - Clean and lightweight 2D game framework written in TypeScript
- 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
π ΎοΈ - LibGDX - Powerful (totally free) library for Java, code once and run the game on desktop, Android, Web, and iOS.
π ΎοΈ - LimeJS - HTML5 game framework for building fast, native-experience games for all modern touchscreens and
- Lums - A 2D / 3D framework written in C++11. Very efficient and modern. Still under heavy development.
π ΎοΈ - LΓVE - Lua 2D Game Engine.
π ΎοΈ - MINX - Open Source 2D game framework written in C++ (to the style of XNA)
π ΎοΈ - Matter.js - a 2D physics engine for the web.
- MelonJS - open source light-weight HTML5 game engine.
π ΎοΈ - Monkey X - Multi-platform programming language and cross-compiler, aimed at fast game programming.
- Monogame - Open Source implementation of the Microsoft XNA 4 Framework.
π ΎοΈ - NodeBox - a family of Python tools to create generative design.
- Open Mega Engine
- OpenFL - Open Source Haxe Engine for making multi-platform games.
π ΎοΈ - OpenRA - OpenRA is a Libre/Free Real Time Strategy Game Engine.
- PICO-8 - A fantasy console for making, sharing and playing tiny games and other computer programs.
- PandaJS - Open Source HTML5 Engine.
π ΎοΈ - Phaser - free and fast 2D game framework for making HTML5 games for desktop and mobile web browsers, supporting Canvas and WebGL rendering.
- 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. π
- RPGMaker - series of programs for the development of role-playing games. π²
- Ren'Py - visual novel engine using the Python language in simplified form. It supports Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Android and iOS
π ΎοΈ - 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. π
- SFML - Simple and Fast Multimedia Library. π
- Solarus a free and open-source Action-RPG (Zelda) game engine π
- SpriteBuilder - Open Source Game Development Suite for MacOS
π ΎοΈ - 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.
- Tilengine - C Engine with wrappers for C#, Python and Java
π ΎοΈ - Tiny Computer - a tiny computer where you can make, play and share tiny games.
- vlc-unity - LibVLC plugin for Unity by VideoLAN to integrate multimedia playback inside your Unity apps and games.
3D Engines and Frameworks
- Amethyst - Data-driven game engine written in Rust for 2D & 3D
π ΎοΈ - Azul3D - A 3D engine written in Go.
- bgfx - Cross-platform, graphics API agnostic, "Bring Your Own Engine/Framework" style rendering library.
π ΎοΈ - Blend4Web - A Javascript framework for creating and displaying interactive 3D computer graphics in web browsers.
π ΎοΈ - Bullet - Real-time physics simulation.
- CRYENGINE - A pay what you want next gen 3D game engine written in C++.
π ΎοΈ - Cinder - Cinder is a community-developed, free and open source library for professional-quality creative coding in C++.
π ΎοΈ - Dash - A free and open 3D game engine written in D.
π ΎοΈ - Diligent Engine - A modern cross-platform low-level graphics library that supports Direct3D11, Direct3D12, OpenGL/GLES, and Vulkan.
π ΎοΈ - gameplay3d - 2D + 3D game framework written in C++
π ΎοΈ - Godot - An advanced, feature-packed, multi-platform 2D and 3D open-source game engine.
π ΎοΈ - Havok Vision - a cross-platform game engine that provides a powerful and versatile multi-platform runtime technology.
- Hive3D - Real Time Collaboration 3D engine.
- Horde3D - small open source 3D rendering engine.
π ΎοΈ - Irrlicht - open source high performance realtime 3D engine written in C++.
π ΎοΈ - jMonkeyEngine 3 - a 3D open-source game engine for adventurous Java developers.
- JPCT - jPCT is a 3D engine for desktop Java and Google's Android.
- 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.
π ΎοΈ - Ogre3D - is a scene-oriented, real-time, flexible 3D rendering engine (as opposed to a game engine) written in C++.
- OpenXRay - a community-modified X-Ray engine used in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game series. π©
- Panda3D - a framework for 3D rendering and game development for Python and C++ programs.
- Paradox - Open Source C# Game Engine.
π ΎοΈ - Piston - a modular open source game engine written in Rust.
π ΎοΈ - 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
π ΎοΈ - Source Valve's Flagship engine π
- Spring - A powerful free cross-platform RTS engine.
- Stingray - 3D game engine and real-time rendering software π²
- 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.
π ΎοΈ - Wave - Cross-platform engine written in C#
- WhiteStorm.js - 3d javacript framework for building apps and games
π ΎοΈ - 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.
- Xenko Game Engine - open-source C# game engine designed for the future of gaming
π ΎοΈ - XNA - Microsoft's game development framework.
Game Source Code
- BrowserQuest
π ΎοΈ - Diablo
π ΎοΈ - Doom 3
π ΎοΈ - Doom
π ΎοΈ - Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition π
- HandmadeHero: making 2D game from scratch π²
- Prince of Persia
π ΎοΈ - Quake 2
π ΎοΈ - Quake III Arena
π ΎοΈ - Quake
π ΎοΈ - SimCity
π ΎοΈ - Wolfenstein 3D
π ΎοΈ - Delver
π ΎοΈ
Modules and Additional API
- AirConsole- Add controller support using broswer π
- ecs-lib - ecs-lib is a tiny and easy to use ECS (Entity Component System) library for game programming. It's written in Typescript but you can use on node.js and web browser too.
π ΎοΈ - kitlang - Kit is a programming language designed for creating concise, high performance cross-platform applications.
π ΎοΈ - p2.js - JavaScript 2D physics library
π ΎοΈ - SimpleAI - C++ AI behaviour tree based library with a QT5 based remote debugger
π ΎοΈ - snex.io - Add controller support using broswer
π ΎοΈ
Design
Idea Generators
- Boardgamizer - Board Game Design Idea Generator. π
- Gigster Randomized Game Idea Generator π
- RPTools - a brand of open-source programs designed to enhance traditional pen-and-paper role playing games. π
- Video Game Name Generator Randomized video games names π
Marketing and PR
- A Guide to Launching Indie Games - successful launch strategy for Indie Games π
- Gamebrief Focus development of your game with 10 questions. π
- Yunoia - Online Publishers/Marketing π
Mechanics
- Board Game Mechanics Set of different board game mechanics π
Project Management
- Asana - Free cloud project Management π©
- Casual - Visual Project Management π²
- ClickUp - One app to replace them all. π©
- Codecks - Project Management Tool inspired by Collectible Card Games π²
- HacknPlan - Project management for game developers π©
- Taiga - Project management platform for agile developers & designers π©
- Trello - Organize and prioritize projects π©
Meta
Blogs and Portals
- Designer Notes - Soren Johnson's Game Design Journal π
- Gamasutra - The Art & Business of Making Games π
- Game Development on StackExchange - Game Development Stack Exchange π
- GameDev - Game Development Community π
- GameDevs.org - various topics relating to game development π
- Game Hero - Indie Game Developer Community π
- GameJolt
- GameMarketeers
- Greenlit Gaming
- HTML5 Game Devs Forum
- HobbyGameDev
- Html5 Game Development
- IndieDB
- Indius
- Java Gaming
- Lost Garden
- Real-Time Rendering
- Superlevel
- TIGSource
- TruePCGaming
- WhatGamesAre
- iforce2d
- indiegames
- indievault
Books
- 2D Game Development: From Zero To Hero π
- 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
- Interactive Computer Graphics: A Top-Down Approach with Shader-Based OpenGL, 6/E
- Level Up!
- 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
Game Jams
- 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
Magazines
- Casual Connect π
- Game Developer Magazine π
- IndieMag π
- Making Games π
- indie-o-rama π
Videos/Podcasts
- awesome-gametalks - A curated list of game talks (GDC, youtube, etc).
π ΎοΈ - BigSushi - BigSushi GameDev Podcast π
- TheChernoProject - TheChernoProject youtube channel π
- Twitch GameDev - Twitch GameDev Streams π
Tools
Animation
- Fusion Character Animator - small tool for Clickteam Fusion 2.5 to facilitate the animation of 2D character sprites for developers. π²
- ScreenToGif - record a selected area of your screen and save it as a Gif π
- Spine - Spine is dedicated to 2D animation, providing an efficient workflow both for creating amazing animation and for integrating it into your games. π²
- Spriter - Modern tool for sprite animation. π²
- DragonBones - The Open Source 2D skeleton animation solution for Flash
π ΎοΈ - 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.
π ΎοΈ
Audio Tools
- Ardour - A multichannel digital audio workstation
π ΎοΈ - as3sfxr - Generating sound effects π
- Audacity - cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds.
π ΎοΈ - Audiosauna - transforms your web browser into a fast and flexible music production studio with built in synthesizers and live effects.
- Audiotool - Online music producer.
- BeepBox - online tool for sketching and sharing chiptune melodies π
- 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. π
- ChipTone - Online sound effect generator π
- FamiTracker - Produce music for the NES/Famicom-systems π
- iNudge - Create sound patterns online.
- jfxr - A JavaScript port of the Bfxr sound effect generator.
- LMMS - digital audio workstation software
π ΎοΈ - MadTracker - a powerful and efficient approach to making music. Versatility and compatibility are guaranteed due to full VSTβ’, ASIOβ’ and ReWireβ’ support.
- Musagi - fairly large and sophisticated music editor and synthesizer
π ΎοΈ - PulseBoy web-based musical sequencer which only uses 8bit sounds and samples π
- Rosegarden - music composition and editing environmen
π ΎοΈ - Sekaiju - Open Source MIDI sequencer.
π ΎοΈ - Soundation - Online Professional music studio.
- SunVox - a small, fast and powerful modular synthesizer with pattern-based sequencer (tracker).
Bitmap Compression
- ImageAlpha β Mac OS X GUI for pngquant and other tools π
- Image Asset Generation Photoshop plug-in β Easy export layers to files.
π ΎοΈ - Kraken.io - robust, ultra-fast image optimizer and compressor with best-in-class algorithms. π²
- Littera - Bitmap font generator π
- PNGGauntlet - Smash PNGs for faster sites π
- PNGoo - Windows GUI for batch conversion. π
- Pngyu - simple PNG image file compression tool.
π ΎοΈ - SuperPNG Photoshop plug-in β Mac and Windows. Comparison with "Save for Web" π
- TinyPNG - Advanced lossy compression for PNG images that preserves full alpha transparency. π
Character Generators
- Charas - Charas is a charset generator for RPG Maker. π
- Loose Leaf - Sprite character generator π
Design Tools
- articy:draft visual environment for the creation and organization of game content. π²
- Dundoc Game Design starter Template π
- plotbot Write screenplays in your browser. π
- Scrivener Helps concentrate on composing and structuring long and difficult documents π²
- Tiny Game Design Tool small, portable booklet created in order to help game designers. π
- Twine - Open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories.
π ΎοΈ
IDE and Editors
- Atom Highly customizable open source text editor
π ΎοΈ - Eclipse - integrated development environment mainly used for Java π
- Notepad++ Notepad replacement that supports several languages.
π ΎοΈ - Sublime Text Sophisticated text editor for code, markup and prose. π²
- Visual Studio Community Edition A fully-featured, extensible, free IDE π
Modeling
- Blender - free and open source 3D creation suite
π ΎοΈ - MakeHuman - free and open source software to create realistic 3d humans
π ΎοΈ - sculptris π
- SketchUp - 3D modeling computer program for a wide range of drawing application π²
- Maya Industry animation software π²
- 3ds Max Industry modeling software π²
- Clara.io - Start creating, rendering and sharing 3D π©
Pixel Editor
- Aseprite - Animated sprite editor & pixel art tool π²
- Hexels - intuitive 2D, grid-based painting tool π²
- Pickle - Another Pixel art Editor. π²
- PiskelApp - Free Online Pixel Art and Animated Sprite Tool.
π ΎοΈ - Pixi Paint Desktop version of Pixie Engine π
- Pixie Engine - Free online pixel editor π
- Pixen - Pixel Art Editor for OSX (Warning: Pixen previously did not support custom gif palettes before becoming paid, and may still have this limiation.) π²
- PyxelEdit - Pixel art editor designed to make it fun and easy to make tilesets, levels and animations. π²
Spritesheet
- Cheetah-Texture-Packer - High efficient and fast 2D bin packing tool
π ΎοΈ - GlueIT Free Simple Spritesheet Tool π
- GraphicsGale - Animation graphic editor easy to use. π²
- Leshy SpriteSheet Tool - HTML5 tool for creating, packing, and modifying sprite sheets and texture atlases π
- Libgdx Texture Packer - Texture Packer built into Libgdx
π ΎοΈ - MakeAtlas - Simple tool to pack a texture atlas π
- ShoeBox - Adobe Air based app with game and ui related tools. π
- Sprite Generator - O-tree based rectangle sprite packing π
- Sprite Sheet Packer - fully featured tool for combining multiple individual images into a single, efficiently laid out image π
- Spritesheet Preview - A simple and free tool to preview sprite sheets π
- SpriteUV2 - tool for creating optimal meshes for textures/sprites and packing them into an atlas. π©
- Stitches An HTML5 sprite sheet generator
π ΎοΈ - TexturePacker - Great spritesheet creation editor. π²
Terrain Generators
- Canyon Terrain Editor - Create quality, realistic terrain quickly and intuitively π
- Fracplanet - Fractal planet and terrain generator
- Nem TG - 3D terrain generator
- World Machine - Procedural terrain creation, simulations of nature, and interactive editing π²
Texturing
- FilterForge - A plugin for Adobe Photoshop that allows you to build your own filters. π²
- PixPlant - Smart 3D texturing tool that creates high quality normal, displacement, specular maps and seamless textures from photos. π²
- STG - a tool for creating professional seamlessly-tileable textures from photographs quickly and easily. π²
Tile/Level Editors
- OGMO Editor - generic level editor.
π ΎοΈ - Overlap2D - a 2D level and UI editor with an engine agnostic philosophy.
π ΎοΈ - Mappy - Free tilemap editor. π
- Tiled - free, easy to use and flexible tile map editor. π
Vector/Image Editor
- Gimp - GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
π ΎοΈ - Krita - Sketching and painting, offering an end-to-end solution for creating digital painting files from scratch by masters.
π ΎοΈ - 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. π
- Pixelmator - Full-featured image editing app for the Mac
- Affinity Designer - Professional graphic design software, easy to use and fast π²
- Affinity Photo - Professional photo editing software π²
Voxel Editors
- goxel - Open source 3D voxel editor
π ΎοΈ - MagicaVoxel - free lightweight 8-bit voxel editor and interactive path tracing renderer π
- Sproxel - 3d interface designed to let the user quickly create and edit voxel-based 3d models π
- VoxelShop- Open source for modify and create voxel objects
π ΎοΈ
Bug Reporting
- Instabug - Bug Reporting tool for Unity that enables beta users to send feedback in-app. π©
Tutorials
Game Development Tutorials
- 3D Game Shaders For Beginners - Step-by-step guide to real-time shading techniques. π
- Simple HTML5 Canvas Game - Simple HTML canvas RPG looking game π
- Udacity: HTML5 Game Development - HTML5 Game Development by Google π
- Udemy: Make a Unity 2D Physics Game - For Beginners! - Unity 2D Physics π
Graphics/Modeling Tutorials
- Coursera: Interactive Computer Graphics π
- How to make 2D Game Tilesets - Setup & The Basics Youtube vid by ORIANART
- Pixel Art Tutorial Basics for Beginners
- Udacity: Interactive 3D Graphics - Interactive 3D Graphics by Google π
- Udemy: The Complete Blender Creator Course High quality Blender 3D tutorial for all levels π²
Music Tutorials
- How To Make Game Music with FL Studio Youtube vid by rm2kdev π
Programming Tutorials
- Coursera: Beginning Game Programming with C# π
- Khan Academy: Advanced JS: Games & Visualizations π
- Udemy: Fundamentals of Programming π
- Udemy: Learn to program Tic Tac Toe Game in Visual C++ on Windows π
A selection of major game studios, publishers, etc. using GitHub: