Great free tools for game development

Today we want to talk about some great tools for game development that are completely free. Game development is a complex task and there are lots of tools that can help to make it easier, unfortunately most of these tools are not free, and no one wants to use illegal software, right? Fortunately there are some tools that can help tho get the job done and that are free.

First of all we want to talk about game engines, he have to say that there are great options out there:

• Unity, it is the most popular among indie developers, this game engine is used for the development of 3D and 2D games. It allows to develop and export for most of the actual gaming platforms. Unity has got a really intuitive interface with a drag and drop system and it is the most easy to learn game engine of the list. The code languages used in this engine are C# and javascript and it has a huge community were a great amount of tutorials and scripts can be found. Unity is free for small game companies and individuals if they don't surpass certain anual benefits.

• Unreal Engine is also a great option. This game engine is more focused on the development of 3D games and it is a little more complex than Unity. Unreal Engine has been used by many professional studios in the development of AAA games. It allows to export to most of the platforms too. The code lenguage used for programming is C++ but it also has a blueprint system that can make the development of the game very intuitive. Unreal Engine is free for small game companies and individuals if they don't suspass certain anual benefits.

In 3D modelling the most popular option is the following:

• Blender, it is an open source 3D modelling software used by lots of people. It allows: modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation. It is very easy to use and it has a great community, lots of tutorials can be found on the internet.

For 2D graphics we have the following tools:

• Krita, it is a great alternative to Photoshop. Krita has lots of brushes and effects and it is used by a great amount of artists. It is completely free and great results can be achieved using this program.

• Piskel, it is an online 2D graphics development tool focused on pixel art. It is completely free and with it you can creat great 2D pixel art sprites and animations. It allows to save your creations on your computer to continue working with them later. This is an amazing tool for pixel art sprites creation.

Other useful tools:

• Google Docs, it is completelly free and it allows to create all kind of documents. It can be great for the development of GDD and it allows to work at the same time with other people on the same document.

• Trello, it is a great tool for planification, one of the most important tasks in game development. You can creat and manage tasks and asign each task to a member of the team. It is a visual solution for this kind of stuff.

This are all the tools that we found interesting for the moment, if you think that we missed any tools leave a comment or send us an email and we will update the list.

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