Every tool you need to make a game — from the first prototype to the store page.
A curated, link-checked, community-driven index of engines, art tools, audio software, middleware and everything in between.
TL;DR — 24 categories, 1,000+ hand-picked tools, every link verified by CI. Found something missing or dead? Open a PR — it takes two minutes.
- Start Here
- Legend
- 1. Game Engines
- 2. Frameworks and Libraries
- 3. 2D Art and Pixel Art
- 4. 3D Art and Modeling
- 5. VFX, Shaders and Rendering
- 6. Level Design and World Building
- 7. Audio and Music
- 8. Assets, Textures and Icons
- 9. Animation, Cinematics and Video
- 10. Narrative, Dialogue and Writing
- 11. Game Design and Prototyping
- 12. Fantasy Consoles and Retro Dev
- 13. AI and Procedural Generation
- 14. Multiplayer, Networking and Backend
- 15. Analytics, LiveOps and Monetization
- 16. Publishing, Stores and Marketing
- 17. QA, Debugging and Profiling
- 18. Build, CI/CD and Version Control
- 19. Programming Tools and IDEs
- 20. Core Libraries, Physics and Math
- 21. Localization and Accessibility
- 22. Learning and Documentation
- 23. Communities, News and Game Jams
- 24. Everyday Utilities
- Contributing
- Link health
- License
New to this list (or to gamedev)? Pick your path — everything is linked in the full sections below.
| I want to… | Start with |
|---|---|
| Make my first 2D game | Godot · GameMaker · LÖVE |
| Make a 3D game | Unreal Engine · Unity · Godot |
| Ship a browser game | Phaser · PixiJS · PlayCanvas |
| Draw pixel art | Aseprite · LibreSprite · Pixelorama |
| Get free art and audio | Kenney · OpenGameArt · Freesound |
| Design levels | Tiled · LDtk · TrenchBroom |
| Write dialogue and story | Twine · Ink · Yarn Spinner |
| Add sound effects | jsfxr · ChipTone · FMOD |
| Find bugs and slow frames | RenderDoc · Tracy · Sentry |
| Publish and sell it | Steamworks · itch.io · How To Market A Game |
| Tag | Meaning |
|---|---|
OSS |
Open source — the code is available and you can build it yourself |
FREE |
Free to use, source not published |
FREEMIUM |
Free tier or free version, paid upgrades / royalties / pro plans |
PAID |
One-time purchase or subscription |
WEB |
Runs in the browser, nothing to install |
AI |
Uses generative AI |
Prices and licenses change. Every entry here was correct when it was added — if something moved, please send a PR.
The thing that turns your ideas into a running game. Pick one, learn it deeply, ship something.
- Adventure Game Studio – The classic point-and-click adventure engine, still going strong.
OSSFREE - AppGameKit – Cross-platform BASIC and C++ engine with quick device deploys.
PAID - Armory – Blender-integrated engine that exports full games from Blender's node system.
OSSFREE - Bevy – Data-driven Rust engine built on the ECS pattern; very active community.
OSSFREE - Buildbox – Drag-and-drop engine aimed at hyper-casual mobile games.
PAID - Cerberus X – Open-source cross-platform BASIC-like language and 2D engine (successor of Monkey X).
OSSFREE - Cocos Creator – Open-source engine specialised in 2D/3D mobile and mini-games.
OSSFREE - Construct 3 – No-code event-sheet engine that runs entirely in the browser.
FREEMIUMWEB - CopperCube – Simple 3D engine for quickly building walkthroughs and small games, no code required.
FREEMIUM - CryEngine – The engine behind Crysis; pay-what-you-want licensing for indies.
FREEMIUM - ct.js – Free 2D engine with a friendly IDE and JavaScript/TypeScript scripting.
OSSFREE - Defold – Free, tiny, battle-tested 2D/3D engine from the King team, written in Lua.
FREE - Flax Engine – Modern C#/C++ engine with source access and a friendly editor.
FREE - Fyrox – Rust game engine with a full scene editor and 3D/2D support.
OSSFREE - GameMaker – Fast 2D engine with GML and drag-and-drop; a favourite for pixel-art games.
FREEMIUM - GameSalad – Visual, no-code engine for 2D mobile games.
PAID - GDevelop – Open-source no-code engine with a huge library of ready-made behaviours.
OSSFREE - Godot Engine – Fully free 2D/3D engine with GDScript, C#, C++ bindings and a tiny download.
OSSFREE - microStudio – Browser-based engine supporting several languages, perfect for jams and teaching.
FREEMIUMWEB - O3DE – Open 3D engine (the continuation of Amazon Lumberyard) backed by the Linux Foundation.
OSSFREE - Roblox Studio – Build and publish multiplayer 3D experiences to the Roblox platform in Lua.
FREE - RPG Maker – Long-running series for 2D role-playing games with a huge plugin scene.
PAID - Solar2D – Lua-based 2D engine (formerly Corona SDK) with instant device previews.
OSSFREE - Stride – Open-source C# engine with a modern renderer, formerly Xenko.
OSSFREE - Torque3D – Long-lived open-source 3D engine with a small but loyal community.
OSSFREE - Unity – The most widely used engine for indie and mobile; huge asset ecosystem and C# scripting.
FREEMIUM - Unreal Engine – AAA-grade renderer and Blueprints visual scripting; royalty-based licensing.
FREEMIUM - Urho3D – Lightweight C++ 2D/3D engine with a clean API and many language bindings.
OSSFREE - Visionaire Studio – Adventure-game engine with a visual scripting front end.
FREEMIUM - Wick Editor – Free browser toolkit for games, animation and interactive media.
OSSWEB
- A-Frame – Declarative HTML-based framework for WebXR and 3D scenes.
OSSFREEWEB - Babylon.js – Full 3D engine for the web with an editor, PBR, physics and XR support.
OSSFREEWEB - Excalibur – TypeScript 2D engine with a clean scene/actor model.
OSSFREEWEB - Heaps – High-performance Haxe engine used by many commercial web and mobile games.
OSSFREE - Impact – Classic commercial JS engine, still a great read for architecture ideas.
PAID - Kaplay – Friendly JS game library (successor of Kaboom.js) with a playful API.
OSSFREEWEB - Kha – Haxe framework compiling to WebGL, Vulkan, Metal, Direct3D and consoles.
OSSFREE - melonJS – Lightweight 2D engine with a built-in Tiled map loader.
OSSFREEWEB - OpenFL – Flash-like API that compiles to HTML5, native, iOS and Android.
OSSFREE - p5.js – Creative-coding library, excellent for prototypes, jams and generative art.
OSSFREEWEB - Phaser – Batteries-included 2D HTML5 game framework with a massive tutorial base.
OSSFREEWEB - PixiJS – The fastest 2D WebGL/Canvas renderer; a foundation rather than a full engine.
OSSFREEWEB - PlayCanvas – Cloud 3D editor plus runtime, ideal for teams collaborating in a browser.
FREEMIUMWEB - react-three-fiber – React renderer for Three.js; great for UI-heavy 3D games.
OSSFREEWEB - Three.js – The de-facto WebGL/WebGPU 3D library; thousands of examples to learn from.
OSSFREEWEB
- Adventuron – Browser-based authoring system for 8-bit style text adventures.
FREEMIUMWEB - Arcweave – Collaborative narrative design tool that exports to engines.
FREEMIUM - articy:draft – Industry-standard narrative authoring suite with flow and entity management.
PAID - Chat Mapper – Dialogue database tool with a simulator and many export formats.
FREEMIUM - ChoiceScript – Simple scripting language for choice-based fiction from Choice of Games.
FREE - Dialogic – Visual dialogue and timeline editor for Godot.
OSSFREE - Fungus – Free, mature narrative toolkit for Unity with flowchart authoring.
OSSFREE - Inform 7 – Natural-language parser for interactive fiction, with a huge back catalogue.
FREE - Ink – Narrative scripting language by Inkle, with exporters for Unity, Godot and the web.
OSSFREE - Inky – The official editor for Ink, with live story previews.
OSSFREE - Naninovel – Full-featured visual-novel framework for Unity with a polished editor.
PAID - Quest – Free text-adventure creator with a visual editor and web player.
FREEMIUMWEB - Ren'Py – The most popular visual-novel engine, with Python scripting under the hood.
OSSFREE - Twine – Open-source tool for branching, hypertext-driven stories; runs in your browser.
OSSFREEWEB - Yarn Spinner – Dialogue system for Unity (and C#) with a friendly writer-facing syntax.
OSSFREE
Don't need a full editor? These give you a window, a game loop and input — you bring the rest.
- Allegro – Classic game programming library with a long history and simple C API.
OSSFREE - bgfx – Cross-platform rendering library with many backends and a shader compiler.
OSSFREE - Diligent Engine – Cross-platform low-level graphics framework supporting D3D11/12, Vulkan, Metal and WebGPU.
OSSFREE - EnTT – Header-only entity-component-system library used in many commercial engines.
OSSFREE - Filament – Google's real-time PBR renderer for mobile and desktop.
OSSFREE - flecs – Fast, feature-rich ECS with prefabs, relationships and a query language.
OSSFREE - GLFW – Tiny library for creating windows, OpenGL contexts and handling input.
OSSFREE - Irrlicht – Compact 3D engine with a simple C++ API and software/OpenGL/D3D drivers.
OSSFREE - Magnum – Modern C++11 graphics engine with a focus on clean APIs.
OSSFREE - NanoVG – Antialiased 2D vector drawing library on top of OpenGL.
OSSFREE - Ogre3D – Veteran open-source 3D rendering engine with a scene-graph API.
OSSFREE - openFrameworks – C++ creative-coding toolkit with a friendly, art-first community.
OSSFREE - raylib – Minimal, delightful C library for learning and prototyping; bindings for 60+ languages.
OSSFREE - SDL3 – The cross-platform window, input, audio and GPU access layer behind thousands of games.
OSSFREE - SFML – Friendly C++ multimedia library with graphics, audio, network and window modules.
OSSFREE - sokol – Single-header C libraries for graphics, audio, app and time — perfect for small native games.
OSSFREE
- FNA – Accurate XNA4 reimplementation, the backbone of many commercial ports.
OSSFREE - Foster – Small, friendly 2D C# framework built on MonoGame.
OSSFREE - MonoGame – The open-source continuation of XNA; runs on desktop, mobile and consoles.
OSSFREE - Nez – Feature-packed 2D framework for MonoGame with ECS, physics and UI.
OSSFREE - OpenTK – OpenGL, OpenAL and input bindings for .NET with a small game window helper.
OSSFREE - Silk.NET – Modern .NET bindings for OpenGL, Vulkan, OpenAL, SDL and more.
OSSFREE - Veldrid – Low-level, portable .NET graphics API abstraction.
OSSFREE
- bracket-lib – Roguelike-focused toolkit with terminals, pathfinding and utilities.
OSSFREE - ggez – Lightweight 2D framework inspired by LÖVE.
OSSFREE - Macroquad – Simple, fast 2D/3D framework with instant compile times and WASM support.
OSSFREE - Piston – Modular game engine ecosystem of small, composable crates.
OSSFREE
- Arcade – Modern Python 2D library with OpenGL rendering and a beginner-friendly API.
OSSFREE - HaxeFlixel – 2D engine with a rich standard library and web/native targets.
OSSFREE - Kivy – Cross-platform Python UI and game framework for desktop and mobile.
OSSFREE - KorGE – Kotlin Multiplatform 2D game engine with a modern coroutine-based API.
OSSFREE - LÖVE – Delightfully simple 2D framework in Lua; the classic jam weapon.
OSSFREE - Panda3D – Full 3D engine in Python and C++ with a long commercial history.
OSSFREE - pygame-ce – Community edition of Pygame with performance fixes and active maintenance.
OSSFREE - Pygame – The classic Python game library and a rite of passage for new programmers.
OSSFREE - pyglet – Pure-Python windowing and multimedia library with no external dependencies.
OSSFREE
- Bonfire – RPG-focused framework built on top of Flame.
OSSFREE - Ebitengine – Minimal 2D engine for Go with a single-import API.
OSSFREE - Flame – The game engine for Flutter — write once, run on mobile, web and desktop.
OSSFREE - jMonkeyEngine – Open-source 3D Java engine with a scene graph and SDK.
OSSFREE - libGDX – Powerful Java/Kotlin framework for desktop, Android, iOS and web.
OSSFREE - LWJGL – Low-level Java bindings to OpenGL, Vulkan, OpenAL and GLFW.
OSSFREE - Oak – Go game engine with a scene stack and event system.
OSSFREE
Sprites, tiles, portraits, UI. Half of game development happens in these tools.
- Aseprite – The industry favourite: layers, onion skin, tags, tilesets and a powerful CLI.
PAIDOSS - GrafX2 – Free pixel-painting program inspired by Deluxe Paint.
OSSFREE - GraphicsGale – Long-standing pixel and animation editor, now freeware.
FREE - Hexels – Grid-based vector art tool for isometric and hexagonal pixel styles.
PAID - LibreSprite – Free fork of the last open-source Aseprite, actively maintained.
OSSFREE - Piskel – Dead-simple browser pixel editor and sprite animator.
OSSFREEWEB - Pixel Composer – Node-based procedural tool for generating and animating pixel art.
OSSFREE - PixelArtHive – Convert images to pixel art on a controlled grid and scale sprites without blur; processing stays in the browser.
FREEWEB - Pixelorama – Free, cross-platform pixel editor with animation and infinite canvas.
OSSFREE - PixelOver – Turn 3D renders, videos and high-res art into animated pixel art.
PAID - Pro Motion NG – Deep pixel-art tool with advanced dithering, shading and tile tools.
PAID - Pyxel Edit – Pixel editor with excellent tile and animation workflows.
PAID - Sprite Fusion – Free browser tilemap and sprite-sheet editor with a Tiled exporter.
FREEMIUMWEB - Tilesetter – Generate complete tilesets and autotiles from a few hand-drawn pieces.
PAID
- Adobe Photoshop – Industry standard for raster editing, concepts and texture work.
PAID - Affinity Photo – One-time-purchase professional photo editor.
PAID - Clip Studio Paint – Illustrator and manga favourite with superb line and tone tools.
PAID - FireAlpaca – Lightweight free painting app popular for comic and sprite work.
FREE - GIMP – The classic open-source image editor and retoucher.
OSSFREE - Krita – Free professional painting studio with excellent brush engines and animation.
OSSFREE - MediBang Paint – Free cloud-based painting app with cross-device sync.
FREE - MyPaint – Distraction-free painting program with an infinite canvas.
OSSFREE - Paint.NET – Surprisingly capable free Windows editor for quick texture jobs.
FREE - Photopea – PSD-compatible editor that runs entirely in the browser, free.
FREEMIUMWEB - Procreate – Beloved iPad painting app used by countless concept artists.
PAID - Rebelle – Painting software that simulates real watercolour and ink physics.
PAID
- Adobe Illustrator – The standard for vector art, logos and UI assets.
PAID - Affinity Designer – Professional vector and raster design in one app, no subscription.
PAID - Boxy SVG – Clean SVG editor that runs in the browser or as a desktop app.
FREEMIUMWEB - Figma – Collaborative UI/UX design; great for HUDs, menus and design docs.
FREEMIUMWEB - Graphite – Open-source 2D vector and raster editor built in Rust.
OSSFREEWEB - Inkscape – Full-featured open-source SVG editor.
OSSFREE - Penpot – Open-source design and prototyping platform, self-hostable.
OSSFREEWEB - SVG-Edit – Fast, dependency-free browser SVG editor you can embed in tools.
OSSFREEWEB - Vectr – Free, simple vector editor for quick icons and UI pieces.
FREEWEB
- Adobe Animate – Flash successor for interactive 2D animation and games.
PAID - Cartoon Animator – Quick 2D character animation with motion libraries.
PAID - Creature – Animation tool with procedural and mesh-based deformation.
PAID - DragonBones – Free 2D skeletal animation with an editor and open runtimes.
OSSFREE - Live2D Cubism – Layered 2D character animation used in visual novels and VTuber rigs.
FREEMIUM - Moho – 2D rigging and animation suite with powerful bone and physics tools.
PAID - OpenToonz – Professional 2D animation suite used by Studio Ghibli.
OSSFREE - Pencil2D – Simple hand-drawn animation for frame-by-frame work.
OSSFREE - Rive – Interactive, state-machine-driven vector animation for games and apps.
FREEMIUMWEB - Spine – The standard 2D skeletal animation tool, with runtimes for every engine.
PAID - Spriter – Affordable cutout animation tool with a gentle learning curve.
PAID - Synfig Studio – Vector-based 2D animation with a tweening workflow.
OSSFREE - Toon Boom Harmony – Studio-grade 2D animation pipeline.
PAID
- Free Texture Packer – Free, open-source atlas packer with a web app and CLI.
OSSFREEWEB - Leshy SpriteSheet Tool – Browser tool for packing and slicing sprite sheets.
FREEWEB - LibGDX TexturePacker – Built-in atlas packer with nine-patch and whitespace stripping.
OSSFREE - ShoeBox – Adobe AIR utility for extracting, packing and slicing sprites.
FREE - SpriteIlluminator – Generate normal maps for 2D sprites to light them dynamically.
PAID - spritesmith – Node.js sprite-sheet generator for build pipelines.
OSSFREE - TexturePacker – The reference sprite-atlas tool with exporters for every engine.
PAID
- Adobe Color – Colour-wheel based palettes plus trend and accessibility tools.
FREEWEB - Coblis – Simulate colour-blindness to check your readability.
FREEWEB - ColorBox – Create colour scales and accessible gradients by curve.
FREEWEB - Color Hunt – Hand-picked four-colour palettes for UI and art.
FREEWEB - Colormind – Machine-learning palette generator that can lock colours you like.
FREEWEB - Coolors – Fast palette generator with contrast and accessibility checks.
FREEMIUMWEB - Image Color Picker – Pull hex values straight out of a reference image.
FREEWEB - Lospec – The pixel-art hub: thousands of palettes, tutorials and a palette editor.
FREEWEB - Paletton – Classic colour-scheme designer built around colour theory.
FREEWEB - Picular – Search colours by keyword for quick mood palettes.
FREEWEB - WebAIM Contrast Checker – Verify text and UI contrast ratios against WCAG.
FREEWEB
- Basis Universal – Supercompressed GPU textures that transcode at runtime.
OSSFREE - CloudConvert – Converts almost any asset format, with an API for automation.
FREEMIUMWEB - Compressonator – AMD's texture compression and analysis suite (BCn, ASTC, ETC).
OSSFREE - crunch – Advanced lossy texture compression for DXT/ETC.
OSSFREE - ezgif – Browser toolkit for GIF, APNG and WebP conversion and trimming.
FREEWEB - gifsicle – Command-line GIF optimiser and manipulator.
OSSFREE - GraphicsMagick – Lighter, faster ImageMagick fork favoured for batch jobs.
OSSFREE - ImageMagick – The Swiss army knife for batch conversion, resizing and compositing.
OSSFREE - ImageOptim – One-drop Mac app that runs several lossless optimisers for you.
OSSFREE - KTX-Software – Khronos tools and library for KTX2 texture containers.
OSSFREE - libvips – Very fast demand-driven image processing library.
OSSFREE - oxipng – Fast, multithreaded lossless PNG optimiser for CI pipelines.
OSSFREE - pngquant – Lossy PNG compressor that keeps alpha; huge wins on sprite sheets.
OSSFREE - sharp – Node.js image processing built on libvips; great for asset pipelines.
OSSFREE - Squoosh – Google's browser-based image compressor with side-by-side preview.
OSSFREEWEB - SVGO – Node-based SVG optimiser for build pipelines.
OSSFREE - SVGOMG – Friendly web UI on top of SVGO with live preview.
OSSFREEWEB - TinyPNG – Web service for shrinking PNG and JPEG files with smart quantisation.
FREEMIUMWEB
- Birdfont – Friendly font editor for creating and editing glyphs.
OSSFREE - BMFont – The classic bitmap-font generator for games.
FREE - Calligraphr – Turn your handwriting into a usable font.
FREEMIUMWEB - DaFont – Enormous archive of freeware and shareware fonts.
FREEWEB - FontForge – Full-featured open-source font editor and converter.
OSSFREE - Fontsource – Self-hostable open-source font packages for web and app builds.
OSSFREEWEB - Font Squirrel – Curated free fonts plus a webfont generator.
FREEWEB - Fontstruct – Build fonts out of geometric bricks in the browser.
FREEWEB - Glyphr Studio – Free browser-based font designer aimed at beginners.
OSSFREEWEB - Google Fonts – 1500+ open-licensed families, all free for commercial games.
FREEWEB - SnowB – Modern bitmap font builder with effects, shadows and outlines.
FREE
Mesh, sculpt, texture, rig, export — the 3D pipeline outside the engine.
- Autodesk 3ds Max – Modelling and level-art staple for environment work.
PAID - Autodesk Maya – Animation and rigging powerhouse in AAA pipelines.
PAID - Blender – The complete free 3D suite: modeling, sculpting, animation, VFX, video editing.
OSSFREE - Cinema 4D – Motion-graphics favourite with a gentle modelling workflow.
PAID - Dust3D – Open-source tool for quickly rigging and texturing simple 3D models.
OSSFREE - Houdini – Procedural modelling, simulation and VFX; also has a free Apprentice version.
FREEMIUM - Modo – Modelling-centric 3D package with strong subdivision and UV tools.
PAID - Plasticity – CAD-like modelling with a game-art-friendly export path.
PAID - SketchUp – Very approachable architectural and blockout modelling.
FREEMIUM - Wings 3D – Lightweight, ergonomic box modeller for quick shapes.
OSSFREE - Womp – Browser-based soft-body and blob modelling, great for stylised props.
FREEMIUMWEB - ZBrush – The sculpting standard for characters and high-poly detail.
PAID
- 3D-Coat – Voxel sculpting, retopology and hand-painted texturing in one.
PAID - ArmorLab – Open-source AI texture generator and material converter.
OSSFREE - ArmorPaint – Open-source, GPU-accelerated PBR texture painter.
OSSFREE - AwesomeBump – Free normal/specular/AO map generator from a single image.
OSSFREE - Filter Forge – Node-based texture and filter generator with a huge library.
PAID - Knald – GPU-accelerated map baker with excellent quality.
PAID - Laigter – Free normal-map generator built for 2D sprites.
OSSFREE - Mari – High-resolution texture painting for film and AAA games.
PAID - Marmoset Toolbag – Baking, texturing and beautiful real-time model presentation.
PAID - Materialize – Free tool that creates full PBR material sets from one photo.
FREE - Material Maker – Free node-based procedural texture generator, Godot-adjacent.
OSSFREE - NormalMap-Online – Zero-install normal map generator in the browser.
OSSFREEWEB - Quixel Mixer – Free material blending and authoring with Megascans integration.
FREE - ShaderMap – Procedural map creation from images, with a free version.
FREEMIUM - Substance 3D Designer – Node-based procedural material authoring.
PAID - Substance 3D Painter – The industry standard for PBR texture painting.
PAID - Substance 3D Sampler – Turn photos and scans into materials quickly.
PAID - xNormal – Free, battle-tested normal/AO map baker.
FREE
- Crocotile 3D – Build 3D scenes from flat 2D tiles for that retro 2.5D look.
PAID - Goxel – Open-source voxel editor with export to many formats.
OSSFREE - MagicaVoxel – Free, beloved voxel editor with a path-tracing renderer.
FREE - Qubicle – Commercial voxel tool with a clean pipeline for games.
PAID - Sprytile – Blender add-on for painting tile-based 3D levels.
OSSFREE - vengi – Open-source voxel editor and file-format toolbox.
OSSFREE - VoxelShop – Free voxel editor with rigging and animation support.
FREE
- AccuRIG – Free automatic rigging tool for humanoid meshes.
FREE - ActorCore – Large mocap and character asset store with free samples.
FREEMIUM - Auto-Rig Pro – Popular Blender add-on for fast, game-ready rigs.
PAID - Cascadeur – AI-assisted keyframe animation with physically plausible poses.
FREEMIUM - Character Creator – Full character creation pipeline with rigging and blendshapes.
PAID - Daz Studio – Free character posing and rendering studio with a paid asset store.
FREEMIUM - DeepMotion – AI motion capture and body tracking from video.
FREEMIUM - MakeHuman – Open-source parametric human character generator.
OSSFREE - MB-Lab – Blender add-on for creating realistic human characters.
OSSFREE - MetaHuman – Unreal's free high-fidelity digital human creator.
FREE - Mixamo – Free auto-rigging plus a library of ready-to-use humanoid animations.
FREEWEB - Move.ai – Markerless mocap from multiple phone cameras.
PAID - Plask – Browser mocap from a single video, exportable to engines.
FREEMIUMWEB - Rokoko – Affordable mocap suits and AI video-based motion capture.
PAID - VRM / UniVRM – Open avatar format and Unity tooling for VTuber-style characters.
OSSFREE - Xsens – Professional inertial mocap hardware and software.
PAID
- Assimp – Library that loads and converts 40+ 3D file formats.
OSSFREE - BlenderKit – Search and drag assets straight into Blender.
FREEMIUM - Draco – Google's geometry compression library for 3D meshes.
OSSFREE - FBX2glTF – Facebook's command-line FBX to glTF converter.
OSSFREE - glTF-Transform – Powerful glTF editing, optimisation and inspection CLI.
OSSFREE - glTF Validator – Catch malformed glTF assets before they hit your engine.
OSSFREE - glTF Viewer – Drag-and-drop PBR preview for glTF files.
FREEWEB - Instant Meshes – Fast automatic retopology for scanned or sculpted meshes.
OSSFREE - MeshLab – Open-source mesh processing: cleaning, remeshing, simplification.
OSSFREE - meshoptimizer – Mesh simplification, vertex-cache optimisation and the
gltfpackcompression CLI.OSSFREE - obj2gltf – Convert OBJ models to glTF/GLB from the command line.
OSSFREE - Online 3D Viewer – Preview STL, OBJ, glTF and more without installing anything.
OSSFREEWEB - OpenUSD – Open Universal Scene Description for interchange between DCC tools.
OSSFREE - three.js editor – Browser-based 3D scene editor with glTF export.
OSSFREEWEB
Sparks, smoke, water, glow. Where the "juice" comes from.
- Bonzomatic – Live-coding shader tool used at demoscene competitions.
OSSFREE - glsl-sandbox – Minimal, classic GLSL playground in the browser.
FREEWEB - glslViewer – Console GLSL viewer for fast shader iteration.
OSSFREE - Godot Shaders – Community library of copy-paste Godot shaders.
FREEWEB - ISF – Interactive Shader Format, used by VJ software for live visuals.
OSSFREE - KodeLife – Real-time shader editor with live MIDI and audio input.
PAID - LYGIA – Cross-language shader library of reusable functions for GLSL, WGSL, Metal and HLSL.
OSSFREEWEB - SHADERed – Full shader IDE with debugging, buffers and plugin support.
OSSFREE - shaderLABS – Wiki and Discord for Minecraft shader developers, with great technique docs.
FREEWEB - Shader Park – Write 3D shaders in JavaScript with a friendly API.
OSSFREEWEB - Shadertoy – The biggest shader community on the web; thousands of runnable GLSL examples.
FREEWEB - The Book of Shaders – The best gentle introduction to fragment shaders.
FREEWEB
- After Effects – Motion graphics and 2D VFX compositing for trailers and cutscenes.
PAID - Effekseer – Free, open-source particle effect editor with runtimes for many engines.
OSSFREE - EmberGen – Real-time fluid, smoke and fire simulation baked to flipbooks.
PAID - Godot GPUParticles – Built-in GPU particle system with a visual process material editor.
OSSFREE - Niagara – Unreal's node-based VFX system for particles and simulations.
FREE - Notch – Real-time motion graphics and VFX for live and interactive content.
PAID - Particle Designer – macOS particle editor with plist and sprite-sheet export.
PAID - PopcornFX – High-performance particle middleware used in AAA productions.
FREEMIUM - SpriteMancer – Particle, fluid and smear effects for 2D sprites, with a node graph and sprite-sheet export.
PAID - TimelineFX – Particle editor with an extensive library and engine exporters.
PAID - TouchDesigner – Node-based real-time visual programming for interactive installations.
FREEMIUM - Unity VFX Graph – Node-based GPU particle system for Unity.
FREE - vvvv – Hybrid visual/textual programming environment for real-time graphics.
FREE
From a 16×16 tile grid to a 64 km² open world.
- Border Kit for Tiled – Python CLI to extrude PNG tilesets and update external TSX files while preserving tile IDs and metadata.
PAID - Dungeon Scrawl – Fast browser tool for drawing dungeon maps and exporting images.
FREEWEB - LDtk – Modern, friendly level editor with auto-layers, entities and a JSON format.
OSSFREE - OGMO Editor 3 – Lightweight, highly customisable level editor with custom entity exports.
OSSFREE - Tiled – The universal tilemap editor; exports to every engine imaginable.
OSSFREE
- Godot CSG – Built-in CSG nodes for rapid blockouts in Godot.
OSSFREE - NetRadiant – Community fork of GtkRadiant for Quake and id Tech maps.
OSSFREE - ProBuilder – In-editor level prototyping and UV editing for Unity.
FREE - RealtimeCSG – Free constructive solid geometry modelling inside Unity.
OSSFREE - SabreCSG – Another solid CSG level-design extension for Unity.
OSSFREE - TrenchBroom – Best-in-class brush-based level editor for Quake-style geometry.
OSSFREE
- Gaea – Node-based terrain generation with beautiful erosion simulation.
PAID - Gaia – Unity terrain, biome and stamping toolkit.
PAID - MapMagic – Node-based infinite terrain generation for Unity.
PAID - Terragen – Photoreal terrain and atmospherics for cinematics and backdrops.
PAID - Voxel Plugin – Voxel terrain and destruction for Unreal Engine.
FREEMIUM - World Creator – Real-time GPU terrain and landscape generator.
PAID - World Machine – Classic procedural terrain tool with powerful erosion filters.
FREEMIUM
- Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator – Free procedural world map generator with cultures, states and rivers.
OSSFREEWEB - Campaign Cartographer – Veteran map-making software for tabletop campaigns.
PAID - Dungeondraft – Battle-map creation for tabletop games with auto-walls and lighting.
PAID - Flowscape – Quickly block out and render stylised 3D landscapes.
PAID - Inkarnate – Browser fantasy map builder with a large asset library.
FREEMIUMWEB - Watabou's Procgen Mansion – Generate detailed mansion floor plans for RPGs.
FREEWEB - Wonderdraft – Beautiful fantasy map making with brushes and coast generation.
PAID
Sound is half the experience. These tools cover the other half of your game.
- Ableton Live – Session-view workflow loved by electronic and game composers.
PAID - Ardour – Open-source digital audio workstation for recording and mixing.
OSSFREE - Audiotool – Complete music studio that runs in a browser.
FREEMIUMWEB - Bespoke – Modular DAW with a patch-and-play philosophy.
OSSFREE - Bitwig Studio – Modern DAW with a modular, modulation-heavy workflow.
PAID - Cakewalk – Fully free professional Windows DAW from BandLab.
FREE - ChucK – Strongly timed programming language for real-time sound synthesis.
OSSFREE - Cubase – Long-standing professional DAW with strong MIDI tools.
PAID - FL Studio – Pattern-based production suite with lifetime free updates.
PAID - LilyPond – Text-based music engraving for clean, publication-quality scores.
OSSFREE - LMMS – Free, beginner-friendly DAW with built-in synths and samples.
OSSFREE - Logic Pro – Apple's complete composition and mixing environment.
PAID - MuseScore – Free notation software for composing and printing scores.
OSSFREE - Pure Data – Visual programming for audio processing and synthesis.
OSSFREE - Reaper – Lightweight, scriptable DAW with an unlimited-time evaluation license.
PAID - Sonic Pi – Code-based music creation designed for live performance and teaching.
OSSFREE - SuperCollider – Programming language and environment for algorithmic sound.
OSSFREE - VCV Rack – Eurorack-style modular synthesiser for sound design experiments.
FREEMIUM
- BeepBox – Browser chiptune sketcher with instant sharing links.
OSSFREEWEB - Bosca Ceoil – Wonderfully simple loop maker by Terry Cavanagh.
OSSFREE - DefleMask – Multi-chip tracker with exports for real retro hardware.
FREEMIUM - FamiTracker – Classic NES/Famicom music tracker.
FREE - Furnace – Massive multi-system chiptune tracker supporting dozens of sound chips.
OSSFREE - hUGETracker – Game Boy music tracker with an easy export path.
OSSFREE - JummBox – BeepBox fork with more instruments and advanced features.
OSSFREEWEB - MilkyTracker – Faithful, cross-platform clone of FastTracker II.
OSSFREE - Musagi – Free modular synth and sequencer from the creator of sfxr.
FREE - OpenMPT – Tracker for module music with modern editing features.
OSSFREE - Orca – Esoteric live-coding sequencer for emergent music.
FREEMIUM - Renoise – Modern commercial tracker with a polished workflow.
PAID - Strudel – Live-coding music patterns in the browser (TidalCycles port).
OSSFREEWEB - SunVox – Tiny modular tracker/synth that runs everywhere, including handhelds.
FREEMIUM
- as3sfxr – Flash-era sfxr port, still handy for quick blips.
FREEWEB - Bfxr – Enhanced sfxr with more parameters, presets and exports.
FREEWEB - ChipTone – Friendly procedural SFX generator with a large preset library.
FREEWEB - jfxr – JavaScript sfxr fork with a clean UI and reproducible seeds.
OSSFREEWEB - jsfxr – The classic sfxr in your browser; perfect for instant retro SFX.
OSSFREEWEB - LabChirp – Windows tool for designing layered retro sound effects.
FREE - rFXGen – Small cross-platform SFX generator by the raylib author.
OSSFREE - sfxr – The original by DrPetter that started the whole genre.
FREE
- 99Sounds – Curated free sample packs for sound designers.
FREE - BBC Sound Effects – Thousands of BBC archive recordings, free for personal and educational use.
FREEWEB - Freesound – Enormous community library of CC-licensed recordings.
FREEWEB - Kenney Audio – Ready-made game SFX and jingles in the classic Kenney style.
FREE - Looperman – Free loops and acapellas from a community of producers.
FREEWEB - Mixkit – Free SFX and music clips for games and video.
FREEWEB - Pixabay Sound Effects – Free SFX and music under a permissive license.
FREEWEB - Sonniss GDC Game Audio Bundle – Gigabytes of royalty-free professional SFX released every GDC.
FREE - SoundBible – Simple collection of free, categorised sound effects.
FREEWEB - ZapSplat – Large free SFX and music library with clear licensing tiers.
FREEMIUMWEB
- CRI ADX2 – Audio middleware widely used in Japanese console titles.
PAID - FMOD – The most popular game audio middleware: events, mixing and DSP.
FREEMIUM - Godot Audio – Built-in buses, effects and positional audio.
OSSFREE - libsoundio – Cross-platform audio input/output library for real-time software.
OSSFREE - miniaudio – Single-file C audio playback and capture library.
OSSFREE - OpenAL Soft – Cross-platform 3D audio API implementation used by many engines.
OSSFREE - PortAudio – Portable audio I/O library, the base of many tools.
OSSFREE - Resonance Audio – Google's spatial audio SDK for VR and 3D sound.
OSSFREE - SoLoud – Small, easy C++ audio engine with many backends.
OSSFREE - Steam Audio – Free spatial audio, HRTF and occlusion for games.
OSSFREE - Superpowered – Low-latency audio SDK for mobile games.
FREEMIUM - Wwise – AAA audio middleware with deep integration for every major engine.
FREEMIUM
- Adobe Podcast Enhance – One-click speech cleanup that rescues noisy recordings.
FREEMIUMWEB - Altered Studio – Voice changing and speech-to-speech for characters.
FREEMIUMAI - Auphonic – Automatic levelling, noise reduction and loudness normalisation.
FREEMIUM - Bark – Open generative audio model for speech, music and effects.
OSSFREEAI - Coqui TTS – Open-source text-to-speech and voice-cloning toolkit.
OSSFREEAI - ElevenLabs – High-quality AI voice generation with cloning and multilingual output.
FREEMIUMAI - iZotope RX – The standard for audio repair and dialogue cleanup.
PAID - Kits.ai – Voice models and conversion for music and character work.
FREEMIUMAI - Piper TTS – Fast, offline neural text-to-speech that runs on modest hardware.
OSSFREEAI - Respeecher – Voice conversion used in film and games to match performances.
PAIDAI - RVC – Popular open-source voice conversion interface.
OSSFREEAI
- A Sound Effect – Blog, podcast and marketplace for game sound designers.
FREEWEB - Audacity – The default free editor for quick SFX surgery.
OSSFREE - FFmpeg – Convert, trim and encode any audio or video format from the CLI.
OSSFREE - Ocenaudio – Fast, friendly audio editor with real-time effect previews.
FREE - Sonic Visualiser – Visualise and analyse audio for timing and frequency issues.
OSSFREE - SoX – Command-line audio Swiss army knife for batch conversion and effects.
OSSFREE - Spek – Quick spectrogram viewer to check your audio quality.
OSSFREE - TwistedWave – Fast Mac/browser editor for bulk audio processing.
FREEMIUM - Wavosaur – Tiny free Windows audio editor with VST support.
FREE
Free and paid places to find art, models, materials and icons — with licenses you can actually ship.
- CraftPix – Professionally produced 2D game assets, many of them free.
FREEMIUMWEB - Fab – Epic's unified marketplace for Unreal, Unity and UEFN assets.
FREEMIUMWEB - GameArt2D – Cheap and free 2D art packs: tilesets, sprites and backgrounds.
FREEMIUM - GameDev Market – Marketplace for 2D, 3D, audio and GUI assets.
PAIDWEB - Godot Asset Library – Official repository of Godot add-ons, templates and tools.
FREEWEB - itch.io Game Assets – Huge marketplace with a strong free and "pay what you want" section.
FREEMIUMWEB - Kenney – Thousands of free, cohesive 2D/3D game assets and audio packs.
FREEWEB - OpenGameArt – The biggest community archive of freely licensed game art and audio.
FREEWEB - Synty Store – Cohesive low-poly art packs, widely used in indie 3D games.
PAID - Unity Asset Store – Vast marketplace of assets, tools and extensions for Unity.
FREEMIUMWEB
- 3D Warehouse – SketchUp's enormous user-contributed model collection.
FREEWEB - Blend Swap – Community library of Blender scenes and models.
FREEWEB - CGTrader – Marketplace with a solid free section for game-ready models.
FREEMIUMWEB - Free3D – Free 3D models across many formats and categories.
FREEMIUMWEB - Khronos glTF Sample Assets – Reference models for testing renderers and importers.
OSSFREE - Poly Haven – CC0 HDRIs, textures and models of outstanding quality.
FREEWEB - Poly Pizza – Search thousands of free low-poly models with direct engine exports.
FREEWEB - Quaternius – Beautiful free low-poly models and animation packs, CC0.
FREEWEB - Sketchfab – Massive 3D model library with a large free and CC-licensed selection.
FREEMIUMWEB - The Models Resource – Ripped models from games — useful for study, check licenses carefully.
FREEWEB - TurboSquid – Large professional 3D marketplace with free picks.
FREEMIUMWEB
- 3DTextures.me – Free seamless PBR materials with regular updates.
FREEWEB - ambientCG – Thousands of CC0 PBR materials, HDRIs and decals.
FREEWEB - cgbookcase – Curated CC0 PBR texture collection.
FREEWEB - FreePBR – Free PBR material downloads for hobby and commercial work.
FREEMIUMWEB - Poliigon – Premium PBR textures, models and HDRIs with free samples.
PAID - ShareTextures – Free CC0 PBR materials and models.
FREEWEB - Texture Ninja – Thousands of CC0 photographic textures, no signup.
FREEWEB - textures.com – Huge library of photographic textures with a free daily quota.
FREEMIUMWEB
- Flaticon – Huge icon library with attribution-based free usage.
FREEMIUMWEB - Font Awesome – Classic icon font and SVG set with a free tier.
FREEMIUMWEB - Game-icons.net – 4000+ free, consistent SVG icons made for games.
OSSFREEWEB - Heroicons – Hand-drawn SVG icons from the Tailwind team.
OSSFREEWEB - IconKitchen – Generate launcher icons and adaptive icons for every platform.
FREEWEB - Icons8 – Massive icon, illustration and UI sound library with free tiers.
FREEMIUMWEB - Lucide – Clean, consistent open-source icon set with framework packages.
OSSFREEWEB - Material Symbols – Google's variable icon font, free for any use.
FREEWEB - SVG Repo – 300,000+ open-license SVGs with a built-in editor.
FREEWEB - The Noun Project – Community icons for UI and world-building diagrams.
FREEMIUMWEB
Storyboards, cutscenes, trailers — the parts players remember.
- Boords – Collaborative online storyboard builder for teams.
FREEMIUMWEB - Shot Designer – Plan camera blocking and lighting diagrams.
FREEMIUM - Storyboarder – Free storyboarding app with shot timing and animatic playback.
OSSFREE
- GDrama – Cutscene sequencer for Godot with a timeline-style editor.
OSSFREE - Godot AnimationTree – Blend, transition and drive animations from state machines.
OSSFREE - Unity Timeline – Sequence animation, audio and cameras directly in Unity.
FREE - Unreal Sequencer – Cinematic editor with cameras, tracks and rendering to video.
FREE
- Adobe Premiere Pro – Industry-standard nonlinear editor for trailers and devlogs.
PAID - Aegisub – Advanced subtitle and karaoke timing editor.
OSSFREE - Artlist – Music and SFX licensing built for creators.
PAID - CapCut – Fast, free editor for short-form social marketing clips.
FREEMIUMWEB - Cavalry – Procedural motion-design tool with a free tier.
FREEMIUM - DaVinci Resolve – Free professional editor plus Fusion compositing and Fairlight audio.
FREEMIUM - Epidemic Sound – Subscription music and SFX cleared for monetised trailers.
PAID - Jitter – Simple, fast motion design in the browser.
FREEMIUMWEB - Kdenlive – Mature open-source video editor for Linux, Windows and macOS.
OSSFREE - Motion Canvas – Programmatic animations in TypeScript for technical explainers.
OSSFREE - OBS Studio – Free recording and streaming for devlogs, demos and playtests.
OSSFREE - Remotion – Create video with React; great for automated changelogs and promos.
FREEMIUM - Shotcut – Free, cross-platform video editor with a huge format list.
OSSFREE - Spline – Browser-based 3D design and animation for site and UI motion.
FREEMIUMWEB - Subtitle Edit – Free subtitle editor with sync, translate and OCR tools.
OSSFREE
Worlds, characters, lore and the words players actually read.
Looking for narrative engines (Twine, Ink, Ren'Py)? See 1.3 Text, Interactive Fiction and Visual Novels.
- Aeon Timeline – Timeline software for complex chronological continuity.
PAID - Bibisco – Novel-writing app with structured character and scene management.
FREEMIUM - Campfire Writing – Modular writing suite for characters, timelines and magic systems.
FREEMIUM - Fantasy Name Generators – Endless name ideas for characters, places and items.
FREEWEB - Kanka – Open-source campaign and world manager for RPGs and fiction.
OSSFREEWEB - LegendKeeper – Beautiful, fast wiki-style worldbuilding for teams.
FREEMIUM - Manuskript – Open-source writing tool with outlining and snowflake method support.
OSSFREE - Notebook.ai – Intelligent notebook that tracks characters, items and locations.
FREEMIUMWEB - Notion – Flexible docs, databases and roadmaps in one workspace.
FREEMIUMWEB - Obsidian – Local-first Markdown knowledge base with graph view; perfect for lore bibles.
FREEMIUM - Plottr – Visual timeline and plot planning for stories and branching narratives.
PAID - Scrivener – Long-form writing environment with corkboard and snapshots.
PAID - World Anvil – Encyclopaedic worldbuilding with timelines, maps and family trees.
FREEMIUMWEB - yWriter – Free novel-writing software focused on scenes and chapters.
FREE
- DeepL – High-quality machine translation for localization drafts.
FREEMIUMWEB - LanguageTool – Open-source grammar and style checker with offline options.
FREEMIUMWEB - Logseq – Open-source outliner and personal knowledge base.
OSSFREE - MarkText – Free, distraction-free Markdown editor.
OSSFREE - NovelAI – Subscription AI story and image generation with a strong narrative focus.
PAIDAI - Sudowrite – AI writing partner built for fiction and description.
PAIDAI - Typora – Minimal Markdown editor with live rendering.
PAID - Zettlr – Markdown editor for researchers and long-form writers.
OSSFREE
Test the fun before you build the game.
- Bitsy – Tiny editor for tiny games about exploring small worlds.
OSSFREEWEB - Decker – HyperCard-inspired tool for playful, tactile interactive projects.
OSSFREE - Downpour – Make small games on your phone, share them as links.
FREEMIUMWEB - Flickgame – Five-minute games made only of coloured flickering screens.
FREEWEB - Google Sheets – Still the fastest tool for balance tables and economy prototyping.
FREEWEB - LibreOffice Calc – Free offline spreadsheet for tuning curves and numbers.
OSSFREE - PuzzleScript – Make and share tile-based puzzle games with a few dozen lines.
OSSFREEWEB
- ClickUp – All-in-one docs, tasks and goals.
FREEMIUMWEB - Codecks – Card-based task management with a game-dev flavour.
FREEMIUMWEB - draw.io – Free diagramming for systems, flows and UI structure.
FREEMIUMWEB - Excalidraw – Hand-drawn-style diagrams with instant sharing.
OSSFREEWEB - FigJam – Collaborative whiteboard tightly integrated with Figma.
FREEMIUMWEB - HacknPlan – Project management built specifically for game development.
FREEMIUMWEB - Jira – The heavy-duty issue tracker many studios standardise on.
FREEMIUM - Linear – Fast, opinionated issue tracking with great keyboard support.
FREEMIUMWEB - Machinations – Visual simulation of economies, loops and progression before you code them.
FREEMIUMWEB - Mermaid – Diagrams as code, embeddable in Markdown and docs.
OSSFREE - Milanote – Visual boards for mood, references and design notes.
FREEMIUMWEB - Miro – Infinite whiteboard for design workshops and flow diagrams.
FREEMIUMWEB - PlantUML – Text-to-diagram tool for architecture and state machines.
OSSFREE - tldraw – Delightful infinite-canvas drawing for quick sketches.
FREEMIUMWEB - Trello – Simple kanban boards for small teams and jams.
FREEMIUMWEB
- Board Game Arena – Huge platform of officially licensed digital board games.
FREEMIUMWEB - BoardGameGeek Game Design – The best free feedback forum for tabletop design.
FREEWEB - Component Studio – Data-driven card and component design for prototypes.
PAIDWEB - NanDECK – Script-driven card and component generator.
FREE - PlayingCards.io – Customisable card tables for remote playtests.
FREEMIUMWEB - Screentop.gg – Free browser platform for prototyping and playing tabletop games.
FREEMIUMWEB - Tabletopia – Play and test board games in a 3D environment.
FREEMIUMWEB - Tabletop Simulator – Sandbox for playtesting board and card game ideas online.
PAID - The Game Crafter – Print-on-demand prototypes and small print runs for tabletop games.
PAIDWEB - VASSAL – Free engine for building and playing board game modules.
OSSFREE
Hard limits, tiny resolutions and a lot of creativity.
- BASIC Engine – DIY open-source console you can build yourself, programmed in BASIC.
OSSFREE - Commander X16 – Modern 8-bit-style computer with an emulator and active homebrew scene.
FREEMIUM - LIKO-12 – Open-source fantasy console inspired by PICO-8, written in LÖVE.
OSSFREE - MEGA65 – Open-source C64-compatible computer for retro development.
FREEMIUM - PICO-8 – The original fantasy console: code, sprites, map and music in one 128×128 sandbox.
PAID - Pyxel – Retro game engine for Python with a 16-colour palette and built-in editor.
OSSFREE - TIC-80 – Free and open-source fantasy console with multiple language support.
OSSFREE
- 8bitworkshop – Browser IDE for Atari, NES, Genesis, C64 and arcade development.
OSSFREEWEB - ACME – Cross-assembler for the 6502 family, popular in the C64 scene.
OSSFREE - batari Basic – BASIC-like language for Atari 2600 games.
OSSFREE - Boriel ZX Basic – BASIC compiler for the ZX Spectrum.
OSSFREE - CBM prg Studio – Windows IDE for C64 and VIC-20 BASIC and assembly.
FREE - cc65 – C compiler and toolchain targeting 6502 systems including NES and Atari.
OSSFREE - DASM – The classic Atari 2600 assembler.
OSSFREE - GB Studio – Drag-and-drop Game Boy game creator that outputs real ROMs.
OSSFREE - KickAssembler – Powerful 6502 assembler with macros and scripting.
FREE - MSXgl – Modern C game library for MSX machines.
OSSFREE - NESFab – High-level programming language for NES development.
FREEMIUM - NESmaker – No-code NES game creation toolkit with a full pipeline.
PAID - PVSnesLib – C library and toolchain for SNES homebrew.
OSSFREE - SDCC – Small-device C compiler used for many 8-bit targets.
OSSFREE - SGDK – Complete Sega Mega Drive/Genesis development kit.
OSSFREE - WLA-DX – Multi-platform assembler for 65816, Z80, 6502 and more.
OSSFREE - z88dk – C development kit for Z80-based systems including the ZX Spectrum.
OSSFREE
- Ares – Multi-system emulator focused on accuracy and preservation.
OSSFREE - BizHawk – Multi-system emulator designed for tool-assisted speedruns and debugging.
OSSFREE - DOSBox-X – DOS emulator with expanded features for developing and running old games.
OSSFREE - FCEUX – NES emulator with hex editor, debugger and Lua scripting.
OSSFREE - Mesen – Accurate NES/SNES/Game Boy emulator with debugging tools.
OSSFREE - openMSX – MSX emulator with a scriptable debugger.
OSSFREE - RetroArch – Unified front end with dozens of cores, shaders and netplay.
OSSFREE - SameBoy – Highly accurate Game Boy and Game Boy Color emulator with debugging.
OSSFREE - ScummVM – Runs classic adventure games, and an engine target for new ones.
OSSFREE - VICE – The Commodore 64/128/VIC-20 emulator suite.
OSSFREE
- AtariAge Forums – Homebrew community for every Atari platform.
FREEWEB - C64 Wiki – Everything about the Commodore 64, including programming notes.
FREEWEB - GBdev – Community hub, tools and links for Game Boy development.
FREEWEB - NESdev Wiki – The definitive NES hardware and programming reference.
FREEWEB - Pan Docs – The complete Game Boy hardware specification.
FREEWEB - SMS Power! – Sega Master System, Game Gear and SG-1000 development resource.
FREEWEB - Spectrum Computing – ZX Spectrum database, tools and developer resources.
FREEWEB
Let algorithms (or models) fill in the blanks — carefully, and with taste.
- Civitai – Community hub for models, LoRAs and styles.
FREEAIWEB - Cleanup.pictures – Browser object removal for reference and UI art.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - ComfyUI – Node-based Stable Diffusion interface with total control over the pipeline.
OSSFREEAI - Fooocus – Simplified, prompt-focused local generator that just works.
OSSFREEAI - Hugging Face – Open models, datasets and demos for every modality.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - InvokeAI – Polished local generation studio with a canvas and layers.
OSSFREEAI - Krea – Real-time AI canvas and upscaling for rapid ideation.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Layer AI – Style-consistent asset generation for live games.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Leonardo AI – Game-art oriented generator with model training and asset presets.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Midjourney – Highly aesthetic concept art generator for mood and exploration.
PAIDAIWEB - Photoroom – Fast background removal and mockup generation.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Real-ESRGAN – Practical image restoration and upscaling models.
OSSFREEAI - rembg – One-command background removal library.
OSSFREEAI - Retro Diffusion – Pixel-art-specific generation and animation models.
PAIDAIWEB - Scenario – AI asset generation built specifically for game studios.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Stable Diffusion WebUI – The popular kitchen-sink interface for local image generation.
OSSFREEAI - Topaz Photo AI – Commercial upscaling and noise removal suite.
PAIDAI - Upscayl – Free, offline AI upscaler for textures and key art.
OSSFREEAI
- Blockade Labs Skybox – Generate 360° skyboxes and HDRIs from a prompt.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Kaedim – AI-assisted 3D asset production with human-in-the-loop QA.
PAIDAIWEB - Luma AI – NeRF and Gaussian splat capture for reference and assets.
FREEMIUMAI - Meshy – Text and image to 3D model with game-ready exports.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Polycam – Photogrammetry and Gaussian splats from phone captures.
FREEMIUMAI - Rodin – High-fidelity 3D generation from images and prompts.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Sloyd – Parametric AI 3D generation tuned for real-time assets.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Tripo – Fast text/image-to-3D with rigging options.
FREEMIUMAIWEB
- AIVA – Composing assistant with orchestral and cinematic styles.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - AudioCraft / MusicGen – Meta's open models for music and sound generation.
OSSFREEAI - Beatoven – Mood-based background music generation with licensing.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Mubert – Royalty-free generative music for streaming and games.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Riffusion – Spectrogram-based music generation you can run locally.
FREEAIWEB - Soundraw – Generate and edit royalty-free tracks by genre and mood.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Stable Audio – Text-to-audio for music and sound effects.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Suno – Full songs from a text prompt, including vocals.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Udio – High-quality AI music generation with fine control.
FREEMIUMAIWEB
- Charisma.ai – Authoring tools for AI characters in games.
FREEMIUMAI - Convai – Conversational NPC platform with Unity/Unreal plugins.
FREEMIUMAI - Inworld AI – Character engine for AI-driven NPCs with goals and memory.
FREEMIUMAI - llama.cpp – Efficient C/C++ inference for LLMs on any hardware.
OSSFREEAI - LM Studio – Desktop app for running local models with a chat UI.
FREEAI - NVIDIA ACE – Suite for AI-driven avatars, speech and animation.
FREEMIUMAI - Ollama – Run open LLMs locally with a single command.
OSSFREEAI - OpenRouter – One API for dozens of hosted models.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Unity Muse – AI assistant and asset generation inside Unity.
PAIDAI - Unity Sentis – Run neural networks inside Unity at runtime.
FREEAI
- EbSynth – Transfer a painted frame across a video for stylised animation.
FREEMIUMAI - Luma Dream Machine – Text/image-to-video with strong motion quality.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Pika – Short AI video generation with playful effects.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Runway – Video generation and editing tools for concept and previs.
FREEMIUMAIWEB - Wonder Studio – Automatically animate CG characters from live footage.
PAIDAIWEB
- DeBroglie – Production-ready WFC library for C#/.NET.
OSSFREE - FastNoise2 – SIMD-accelerated noise generation for large worlds.
OSSFREE - FastNoiseLite – Tiny, fast noise library with ports to almost every language.
OSSFREE - libnoise – Classic C++ noise library for terrain and textures.
OSSFREE - mapgen4 – Real-time procedural terrain and climate simulation.
FREEWEB - noise-rs – Procedural noise generation library for Rust.
OSSFREE - OpenSimplex2 – Improved noise alternative with fewer directional artefacts.
OSSFREE - PCG Wiki – Community knowledge base for procedural content generation techniques.
FREEWEB - Pixel Sprite Generator – Generate symmetric pixel-art spaceships, monsters and items.
OSSFREE - SpaceshipGenerator – Blender add-on that procedurally builds spaceships.
OSSFREE - Universal LPC Spritesheet Generator – Build layered RPG character sprites in the browser.
OSSFREEWEB - WaveFunctionCollapse – The algorithm that made constraint-based tile generation popular.
OSSFREE
Lobbies, rollback, leaderboards, saves — everything that happens after "single player".
- Colyseus – Authoritative multiplayer framework for Node.js with room state sync.
OSSFREE - ENet – Lightweight reliable UDP networking library.
OSSFREE - FishNet – Modern, performant Unity networking with server-authority built in.
OSSFREE - GameNetworkingSockets – Valve's reliable UDP transport used by Steam.
OSSFREE - GGPO – Rollback netcode SDK for fighting games.
OSSFREE - Godot Multiplayer – Built-in high-level multiplayer API with RPCs and spawning.
OSSFREE - LiteNetLib – Fast, reliable UDP library for .NET.
OSSFREE - Mirror – The most popular community networking solution for Unity.
OSSFREE - Netcode for GameObjects – Unity's official high-level networking layer.
OSSFREE - Photon Engine – Hosted realtime and room-based multiplayer services.
FREEMIUM - Photon Fusion – Tick-based state sync for competitive multiplayer.
FREEMIUM - Photon Quantum – Deterministic ECS with predicted rollback for fast games.
FREEMIUM - Socket.IO – Realtime event-based communication for web and mobile games.
OSSFREE - WebRTC – Peer-to-peer data and media channels in the browser.
OSSFREE
- AccelByte – Extensible backend platform for AAA and live-service games.
FREEMIUM - Beamable – Open-source game backend with Unity integration.
FREEMIUM - brainCloud – Full-service backend with a generous free tier.
FREEMIUM - Epic Online Services – Free cross-platform accounts, friends, achievements and matchmaking.
FREE - Firebase – Auth, Firestore, storage and cloud functions for quick backends.
FREEMIUM - Metaplay – Backend and LiveOps framework for mobile games.
FREEMIUM - Nakama Cloud – Managed hosting for Nakama servers.
FREEMIUM - Nakama – Open-source game server with accounts, chat, parties and matchmaking.
OSSFREE - PlayFab – Microsoft's complete backend: accounts, economy, leaderboards, matchmaking.
FREEMIUM - SpacetimeDB – Database that runs your game logic directly inside it.
OSSFREE - Steamworks Networking – Steam's matchmaking, lobbies, P2P networking and relay servers.
FREE - Supabase – Open-source Postgres backend with auth, storage and realtime.
FREEMIUM - Talo – Open-source game backend with leaderboards, stats and saves.
OSSFREE
- Agones – Open-source Kubernetes-based game server hosting.
OSSFREE - Amazon GameLift – Managed dedicated server fleets with autoscaling and matchmaking.
PAID - Edgegap – Instant global server orchestration with per-minute billing.
FREEMIUM - Hathora – Managed container hosting focused on multiplayer games.
FREEMIUM - Pragma – Backend platform for live-service games.
FREEMIUM - Rivet – Open-source platform for dedicated game servers at scale.
OSSFREE
- Discord Game SDK – Rich presence, invites and overlay integration.
FREE - Dissonance – Voice chat for Unity with positional audio.
PAID - Photon Voice – Voice chat integrated with Photon rooms.
FREEMIUM - Vivox – Cross-platform positional voice and text chat.
FREEMIUM
Understand players, tune the economy, and keep the lights on.
- Amplitude – Behavioural analytics focused on retention and experimentation.
FREEMIUM - AppMagic – Mobile market data with a free tier for indies.
FREEMIUMWEB - Firebase Analytics – Free, unlimited event logging with audience segmentation.
FREE - Gamalytic – Market data and forecasting for indie titles.
FREEMIUMWEB - GameAnalytics – Free analytics built for games: funnels, retention and custom events.
FREEMIUM - Mixpanel – Product analytics with powerful funnels and cohort analysis.
FREEMIUM - PostHog – Open-source product analytics, session replay and feature flags.
FREEMIUM - Sensor Tower – Mobile market intelligence and download/revenue estimates.
PAIDWEB - SteamDB – Deep public data on Steam releases, pricing and player counts.
FREEMIUMWEB - SteamSpy – Free rough ownership estimates and tag analytics.
FREEWEB - Steamworks Statistics – Built-in stats, achievements and leaderboards for Steam.
FREE - Unity Analytics – Built-in Unity telemetry and dashboards.
FREE - VG Insights – Estimated sales and revenue for Steam games.
FREEMIUMWEB
- Balancy – LiveOps and game-balance platform with spreadsheet-driven configs.
FREEMIUM - Firebase Remote Config – Change values and features without shipping a build.
FREE - Unity Remote Config – Unity's hosted remote settings service.
FREEMIUM
- Backtrace – Crash and error aggregation built for games and consoles.
FREEMIUM - Bugsnag – Error monitoring with release health and stability scores.
FREEMIUM - BugSplat – Crash reporting specialised for desktop games.
FREEMIUM - Firebase Crashlytics – Free crash reporting for mobile games.
FREE - Sentry – Error tracking with stack traces, releases and performance monitoring.
FREEMIUM - Unity Cloud Diagnostics – Unity's built-in crash and exception collection.
FREEMIUM
- AppLovin MAX – Mediation platform with strong eCPM optimisation.
FREEMIUM - Appodeal – Ad mediation and monetisation analytics.
FREEMIUM - Google AdMob – The default ad network for mobile games.
FREEMIUM - Google Play Billing – Native in-app purchases and subscriptions for Android.
FREE - Paddle – Merchant of record handling tax and compliance for digital sales.
PAID - RevenueCat – Cross-platform in-app purchase and subscription management.
FREEMIUM - StoreKit – Apple's in-app purchase and subscription framework.
FREE - Stripe – Payment infrastructure for web stores and direct sales.
PAID - Unity LevelPlay – ironSource-based mediation and ad monetisation for Unity.
FREEMIUM - Xsolla – Payments, storefronts and payouts for games worldwide.
PAID
The game exists. Now somebody has to find it.
- Amazon Appstore – Android distribution for Fire devices and Amazon tablets.
FREE - App Store – iOS, iPadOS and macOS distribution via App Store Connect.
FREE - Armor Games – Long-running web game portal with sponsorship deals.
FREE - CrazyGames – Web game portal with SDKs and developer dashboard.
FREEMIUM - Epic Games Store – Storefront with regular exclusivity and freebie programmes.
FREE - GameDistribution – Distribution network for HTML5 games.
FREEMIUM - GameJolt – Community-driven storefront popular with horror and experimental games.
FREE - GameMonetize – HTML5 game distribution and monetisation network.
FREEMIUM - GOG – DRM-free storefront with a curated submission process.
FREE - Google Play Console – Android publishing, testing tracks and store listings.
FREE - ID@Xbox – Xbox indie programme with dev kits and support.
FREE - itch.io – Indie-friendly storefront with pay-what-you-want and instant uploads.
FREE - Kongregate – Web game portal and community.
FREE - Microsoft Store – Windows and Xbox PC distribution channel.
FREE - Newgrounds – Legendary web game portal with an enthusiastic audience.
FREE - Nintendo Developer Portal – Official path to Switch development and publishing.
FREE - PlayStation Partners – PlayStation development and certification portal.
FREE - Poki – Large web game platform with revenue share and SDK.
FREEMIUM - Steam – The largest PC storefront, with wishlists that actually predict sales.
FREE - Steamworks – The developer portal: builds, achievements, workshop and pricing.
FREE - Y8 – High-traffic casual web game portal.
FREE
- Canva – Fast capsule art variants, banners and social posts.
FREEMIUMWEB - Day of the Devs – Curated showcase with global visibility.
FREEWEB - How To Market A Game – Chris Zukowski's blog; the single best free resource on Steam marketing.
FREEWEB - IGF – Independent Games Festival — the most prestigious indie award entry.
PAIDWEB - Indie MEGABOOTH – Collective booth presence at major conventions.
PAIDWEB - Keymailer – Distribute keys to verified content creators.
FREEMIUMWEB - presskit() – Free, proven structure for a press kit that journalists actually use.
FREEWEB - Steam Next Fest – Valve's demo festival; the biggest wishlist driver for indies.
FREEWEB - Wholesome Games – Showcase and community for cozy, wholesome titles.
FREEWEB - Woovit – Connect with streamers and YouTubers for coverage.
FREEMIUMWEB
Find the crash, find the frame spike, ship with confidence.
- agent-qa – Plain-language AI UI tests for web, Android and iOS, with screenshot evidence and persistent app memory.
OSSAI - AltTester – Open-source UI test automation for Unity games.
FREEMIUM - AWS Device Farm – Cloud device farm for mobile and web app testing.
PAID - BrowserStack – Cross-browser and device testing for web games.
PAID - Firebase Test Lab – Run your build on real devices in Google's data centres.
FREEMIUM - GameBench – Measure FPS, battery and stability on real devices.
FREEMIUM - GameDriver – Automated functional testing for Unity and Unreal.
PAID - PlaytestCloud – Remote playtesting with real players and session videos.
PAID - TestFlight – Apple's beta distribution for iOS and macOS builds.
FREE - Unity Test Framework – Edit-mode and play-mode tests inside Unity.
FREE - Unreal Automation – Built-in automation and functional test framework.
FREE
- apitrace – Trace and replay OpenGL, Vulkan and Direct3D calls.
OSSFREE - Arm Performance Studio – Profiling tools for mobile GPUs.
FREE - Chrome DevTools – Performance, memory and WebGL debugging in the browser.
FREEWEB - NVIDIA Nsight Graphics – Deep GPU debugging and frame profiling.
FREE - NVIDIA Nsight Systems – System-wide CPU/GPU timeline profiling.
FREE - PIX – Microsoft's DirectX 12 capture and analysis tool.
FREE - Radeon GPU Profiler – AMD's low-level GPU performance tool.
FREE - Radeon Memory Visualizer – Inspect and understand GPU memory usage.
FREE - RenderDoc – The free frame-capture debugger every graphics programmer needs.
OSSFREE - Snapdragon Profiler – Profile CPU, GPU and power on Adreno devices.
FREE - Spector.js – Frame capture and inspection for WebGL games.
OSSFREEWEB
- AddressSanitizer – Compiler-based memory error detector.
OSSFREE - Clang-Tidy – Static analysis and modernisation checks for C++.
OSSFREE - Clumsy – Simulate lag, packet loss and dropped connections while testing multiplayer.
OSSFREE - Cppcheck – Static analysis for C and C++ with low false-positive rates.
OSSFREE - Godot Profiler – Script, physics and rendering performance breakdown.
OSSFREE - Intel VTune – Deep CPU and threading analysis.
FREEMIUM - Optick – Lightweight C++ profiling with an in-game overlay.
OSSFREE - Perfetto – System tracing for Android, Linux and Chrome.
OSSFREE - PVS-Studio – Commercial static analyser with strong game-code detection.
FREEMIUM - Superluminal – Superb sampling profiler for Windows and console titles.
PAID - Tracy – Real-time, nanosecond-resolution frame profiler with a slick UI.
OSSFREE - Unity Profiler – Built-in CPU, memory, rendering and audio profiling.
FREE - Unreal Insights – Unreal's tracing and analysis suite.
FREE - Valgrind – Memcheck, cachegrind and more for native code on Linux.
OSSFREE - Very Sleepy – Free, simple sampling profiler for Windows.
OSSFREE
Art and code get big. These tools keep both from exploding.
- DVC – Data and model versioning that layers on top of Git.
OSSFREE - Fork – Fast, clean Git client for Windows and macOS.
FREEMIUM - Git – The universal distributed version control system.
OSSFREE - GitHub Desktop – Simple Git client for people who don't want a terminal.
FREE - GitKraken – Polished cross-platform Git GUI with merge tooling.
FREEMIUM - Git LFS – Store large binary assets outside the main repository history.
OSSFREE - lazygit – Terminal UI for Git that makes staging painless.
OSSFREE - Mercurial – Fast distributed VCS favoured by some large studios.
OSSFREE - Perforce Helix Core – The AAA standard for huge binary repositories.
FREEMIUM - Sourcetree – Free Atlassian Git and Mercurial client.
FREE - Subversion – Centralised VCS still common in studios with big asset trees.
OSSFREE - Tower – Mature Git client with excellent diff and conflict tools.
PAID - Unity Version Control – Enterprise VCS (formerly Plastic SCM) with large-file support.
FREEMIUM
- Buildkite – Hybrid CI that runs on your own hardware.
FREEMIUM - CircleCI – Fast cloud CI with Docker and macOS executors.
FREEMIUM - Docker – Reproducible build environments for your toolchain.
FREEMIUM - Fastlane – Automate screenshots, signing and store uploads for mobile.
OSSFREE - GameCI – Ready-made Docker images and actions to build Unity and Unreal in CI.
OSSFREE - GitHub Actions – Hosted CI/CD with a huge marketplace of actions.
FREEMIUM - GitLab CI – Integrated pipelines with self-hosted runners.
FREEMIUM - Jenkins – The flexible, self-hosted automation server.
OSSFREE - TeamCity – JetBrains' CI with strong build-chain support.
FREEMIUM - Unity Build Automation – Cloud builds and CI for every platform Unity supports.
FREEMIUM - Unreal Horde – Epic's open build and test orchestration system.
OSSFREE
- Bazel – Hermetic, scalable builds for very large monorepos.
OSSFREE - CMake – The de-facto C/C++ build configuration system.
OSSFREE - Conan – C/C++ package manager for complex native dependency graphs.
OSSFREE - Meson – Fast, user-friendly build system with Ninja integration.
OSSFREE - Ninja – Extremely fast build executor.
OSSFREE - Premake – Lua-based project generator for C/C++ builds.
OSSFREE - SCons – Python-based build system often used in engine and modding projects.
OSSFREE - vcpkg – Microsoft's C/C++ package manager with excellent Windows support.
OSSFREE - xmake – Modern Lua-scripted build tool with package management built in.
OSSFREE
- butler – Command-line uploader for itch.io with delta patching.
OSSFREE - electron-builder – Package Electron games and tools for every desktop OS.
OSSFREE - Electron – Chromium-based desktop shell used by many web games.
OSSFREE - Facepunch.Steamworks – Modern, well-maintained C# Steamworks wrapper.
OSSFREE - GodotSteam – Steamworks integration for Godot.
OSSFREE - Inno Setup – Free, scriptable Windows installer builder.
OSSFREE - NSIS – Classic, tiny Windows installer system.
OSSFREE - NW.js – Chromium plus Node.js for shipping web games as desktop apps.
OSSFREE - SteamCMD – Command-line Steam client for uploading builds and dedicated servers.
FREE - steamworks.js – Steamworks bindings for Node.js and Electron games.
OSSFREE - Steamworks.NET – C# wrapper for the Steamworks API.
OSSFREE - Tauri – Tiny native shells for web-tech desktop games and launchers.
OSSFREE - WiX Toolset – MSI and MSIX installer authoring for Windows.
OSSFREE
Your hands are on the keyboard most of the day — make that pleasant.
- Android Studio – Official Android IDE with profiling and emulators.
FREE - Cursor – VS Code fork built around AI pair-programming.
FREEMIUMAI - GNU Emacs – Infinitely customisable editor and environment.
OSSFREE - JetBrains CLion – C/C++ IDE with CMake and unit-test integration.
FREEMIUM - JetBrains Rider – The best C#/Unity IDE, with deep Unity and Unreal support.
FREEMIUM - Neovim – Hyper-extensible terminal editor; a favourite of engine programmers.
OSSFREE - ReSharper – Refactoring and analysis extension for Visual Studio.
PAID - Sublime Text – Fast, lightweight editor with a great command palette.
PAID - Vim – The original modal editor, still everywhere.
OSSFREE - Visual Studio Code – Free, extensible editor with excellent C#, Lua and web support.
FREE - Visual Studio – Full Windows IDE with strong C++ and C# debugging.
FREEMIUM - Windsurf – Agentic AI editor with codebase-aware workflows.
FREEMIUMAI - Xcode – Apple's IDE for iOS, macOS and Metal development.
FREE - Zed – Blazing-fast collaborative editor written in Rust.
FREEMIUM
- Aider – Pair-programming in the terminal with automatic Git commits.
OSSFREEAI - Claude Code – Terminal-based agent that edits, runs and tests your code.
PAIDAI - Cline – Agentic coding assistant with explicit tool approvals.
OSSFREEAI - Continue – Open-source assistant you can wire to any model.
OSSFREEAI - GitHub Copilot – Inline completions and chat across popular IDEs.
PAIDAI - Tabnine – Privacy-focused completion with on-prem options.
FREEMIUMAI
- bat –
catwith syntax highlighting and Git integration.OSSFREE - Bruno – Offline-first, Git-friendly API client.
OSSFREE - Compiler Explorer – See the assembly your C++ actually compiles to.
OSSFREEWEB - CyberChef – The "cyber Swiss army knife" for encoding and data transforms.
OSSFREEWEB - DB Browser for SQLite – Inspect and edit local SQLite save files.
OSSFREE - DBeaver – Universal database GUI for backend and save-data debugging.
FREEMIUM - delta – A viewer for Git diffs that makes review readable.
OSSFREE - DevDocs – One fast interface for hundreds of API docs.
OSSFREEWEB - fd – Simple, fast alternative to
find.OSSFREE - fzf – Fuzzy finder for files, history and everything else.
OSSFREE - GitHub CLI – Manage issues, PRs and releases from the terminal.
OSSFREE - HTTPie – Human-friendly HTTP client for the command line.
FREEMIUM - Insomnia – Clean REST/GraphQL client for testing services.
FREEMIUM - jq – Slice, filter and transform JSON from the shell.
OSSFREE - JSON Crack – Visualise JSON as an interactive graph.
OSSFREEWEB - Postman – API testing and documentation for your game backend.
FREEMIUM - regex101 – Build and debug regular expressions with explanations.
FREEWEB - RegExr – Friendly regex tester with a large community library.
FREEWEB - ripgrep – Extremely fast recursive search across huge codebases.
OSSFREE - Wireshark – Packet analysis for debugging multiplayer protocols.
OSSFREE - yq – The same idea, for YAML, XML and INI.
OSSFREE
The low-level building blocks you link against instead of writing yourself.
- ammo.js – Bullet physics compiled to WebAssembly.
OSSFREEWEB - Box2D – The reference 2D physics engine behind countless games.
OSSFREE - Bullet Physics – 3D collision, rigid bodies and soft bodies used in games and film.
OSSFREE - cannon-es – 3D physics for Three.js and other web engines.
OSSFREEWEB - Chipmunk2D – Fast, lightweight 2D physics with a clean C API.
OSSFREE - Havok – AAA physics and destruction middleware.
PAID - Jolt Physics – Modern, multithreaded 3D physics engine (Horizon Forbidden West).
OSSFREE - Matter.js – 2D physics for the web with a great demo page.
OSSFREEWEB - Newton Dynamics – Deterministic physics engine favoured for its stability.
OSSFREE - NVIDIA PhysX – Production-proven 3D physics, now open source.
OSSFREE - Open Dynamics Engine – Veteran open-source rigid body dynamics library.
OSSFREE - PathFinding.js – Visual playground for grid pathfinding algorithms.
OSSFREEWEB - Planck.js – JavaScript port of Box2D for browser games.
OSSFREEWEB - Rapier – Fast Rust physics engine with JS and Python bindings.
OSSFREE - Recast Navigation – The industry-standard navmesh generation and pathfinding.
OSSFREE
- cglm – Highly optimised C math library with SIMD support.
OSSFREE - cgmath – Idiomatic Rust linear algebra and geometric types.
OSSFREE - DirectXMath – Microsoft's SIMD math library for games.
OSSFREE - Eigen – Powerful C++ linear algebra for simulation and rendering research.
OSSFREE - GLM – Header-only C++ math library designed to mirror GLSL.
OSSFREE - Handmade Math – Single-header C math library in the Handmade style.
OSSFREE
- cereal – Header-only C++ serialization for JSON, XML and binary.
OSSFREE - cgltf – Single-header glTF loader written in C.
OSSFREE - FlatBuffers – Zero-copy serialization, perfect for loading game data fast.
OSSFREE - MessagePack – Compact binary format with implementations in every language.
OSSFREE - nlohmann/json – The friendliest JSON library for modern C++.
OSSFREE - Protocol Buffers – Language-neutral, schema-based serialization for game services.
OSSFREE - RapidJSON – Very fast SAX/DOM JSON parser for C++.
OSSFREE - stb – Single-file libraries for images, fonts, audio and more.
OSSFREE - tinyobjloader – Tiny, fast OBJ loader for C++.
OSSFREE - toml++ – Header-only TOML parser that feels like modern C++.
OSSFREE - yaml-cpp – YAML parsing and emitting for C++.
OSSFREE
- Dawn – Google's WebGPU implementation used in Chrome.
OSSFREE - DirectX – Microsoft's graphics and audio API family for Windows and Xbox.
FREE - glslang – Khronos GLSL/HLSL front end and SPIR-V generator.
OSSFREE - Metal – Apple's low-level GPU API for iOS and macOS.
FREE - OpenGL – The classic cross-platform graphics API.
FREE - SPIRV-Cross – Translate SPIR-V shaders to other shader languages.
OSSFREE - Vulkan – Low-overhead, high-performance graphics and compute API.
FREE - WebGPU – Modern GPU API for the web.
FREEWEB - wgpu – Rust implementation of WebGPU for native and web targets.
OSSFREE
- FreeType – The standard font rasterisation library.
OSSFREE - HarfBuzz – Professional text shaping for complex scripts.
OSSFREE - Nuklear – Single-header immediate-mode GUI in pure C.
OSSFREE - RmlUi – HTML/CSS-based UI library for C++ games.
OSSFREE - Slint – Declarative UI toolkit for Rust, C++ and JavaScript.
FREEMIUM
A game more people can actually play is a better game.
- Crowdin – Collaborative translation platform with game-engine integrations.
FREEMIUM - Godot Internationalization – Built-in translation keys, CSV import and RTL support.
OSSFREE - I2 Localization – Battle-tested localization system for Unity with Google Sheets sync.
PAID - Lokalise – Translation management with automation and QA checks.
PAID - POEditor – Simple, affordable string management with an API.
FREEMIUM - Ren'Py Translation – Built-in tooling for translating visual novels.
OSSFREE - Smartling – Enterprise translation management with visual context.
PAID - Transifex – Localization platform with continuous delivery workflows.
FREEMIUM - Unity Localization – Official Unity package for localized strings, assets and smart formatting.
FREE - Weblate – Open-source translation platform with tight Git integration.
OSSFREE
- AbleGamers – Charity with player panels and accessibility consulting.
FREEWEB - Accessibility Insights – Microsoft's free testing tools for UI accessibility.
OSSFREE - Can I Play That? – Accessibility reviews and news from disabled players.
FREEWEB - Color Oracle – Free colour-blindness simulator for your whole desktop.
OSSFREE - Game Accessibility Guidelines – Practical, prioritised checklist of accessibility features.
FREEWEB - Inclusive Design Toolkit – Microsoft's methodology for designing for more people.
FREEWEB - NVDA – Free screen reader for testing voice and UI navigation.
OSSFREE - SpecialEffect – Custom controller and accessibility resources.
FREEWEB - Xbox Accessibility Guidelines – Detailed, well-researched requirements from Microsoft.
FREEWEB
Tutorials that actually teach, and tools that make your docs readable.
- Acerola – Graphics programming and rendering breakdowns.
FREEWEB - Brackeys – Classic beginner-friendly game development tutorials.
FREEWEB - Catlike Coding – Deep Unity tutorials on rendering, math and procedural meshes.
FREEWEB - Coursera – University-level courses, many auditable for free.
FREEMIUMWEB - CS50 Introduction to Game Development – Harvard's free course on building games in Lua and Unity.
FREEWEB - edX – Academic computer science and graphics courses.
FREEMIUMWEB - Freya Holmér – The best explanations of game math and shader concepts.
FREEWEB - GameDev Academy – Large tutorial library spanning engines and languages.
FREEMIUMWEB - GameDev.tv – Popular paid courses on Unity, Unreal and Godot.
PAID - Game Engine Architecture – Jason Gregory's definitive book on how engines are built.
PAID - Game Maker's Toolkit – The best game-design analysis channel on YouTube.
FREEWEB - Game Programming Patterns – Free, excellent book on the patterns behind game code.
FREEWEB - GDC Vault – Thousands of talks from working developers; many are free.
FREEMIUMWEB - GDC YouTube – Free recordings of GDC talks, added every year.
FREEWEB - GDQuest – Godot tutorials and free courses with high production quality.
FREEMIUM - Godot Documentation – Comprehensive, well-written engine docs with examples.
FREEWEB - Godot Recipes – Short, practical recipes for common Godot tasks.
FREEWEB - Handmade Hero – Build a complete game from scratch in C, no libraries.
FREEWEB - Learn OpenGL – The best structured introduction to modern OpenGL.
FREEWEB - MDN Games – Solid grounding in browser game development.
FREEWEB - MIT OpenCourseWare – Free MIT course materials, including graphics and algorithms.
FREEWEB - Physically Based Rendering – Free online edition of the classic rendering textbook.
FREEWEB - Ray Tracing in One Weekend – Build a path tracer from scratch in a weekend.
FREEWEB - Real-Time Rendering – The reference for modern real-time graphics.
PAID - Red Blob Games – Interactive articles on pathfinding, hex grids and procedural maps.
FREEWEB - Sebastian Lague – Beautifully explained procedural generation and simulation.
FREEWEB - The Cherno – C++, engine architecture and graphics from the inside.
FREEWEB - The Coding Train – Playful creative-coding challenges in JavaScript.
FREEWEB - Unity Learn – Official courses, projects and pathways.
FREEWEB - Unreal Engine Learning – Official learning portal with samples and courses.
FREEWEB - Vulkan Tutorial – Step-by-step Vulkan from first window to lighting.
FREEWEB - Zenva Academy – Structured game dev and programming courses.
PAID
- Docusaurus – Documentation sites with versioning and search.
OSSFREE - Doxygen – Generate API docs from C++ comments.
OSSFREE - GitBook – Collaborative docs with a nice editor and Git sync.
FREEMIUM - mdBook – Markdown books in the style of the Rust Book.
OSSFREE - MkDocs – Markdown-based static documentation sites.
OSSFREE - MkDocs Material – The polished, feature-rich theme for MkDocs.
OSSFREE - Read the Docs – Free hosting and versioned builds for documentation.
FREEMIUM - Sphinx – Python documentation generator with a huge extension ecosystem.
OSSFREE - VitePress – Fast Markdown docs built on Vite and Vue.
OSSFREE
- awesome-creative-coding – Generative art and creative-coding resources.
OSSFREE - awesome-gamedev – Curated free software and resources for gamedev.
OSSFREE - awesome-game-engine-dev – Huge index of engine development libraries and learning material.
OSSFREE - awesome-gamemaker – GameMaker libraries, extensions and projects.
OSSFREE - awesome-godot – Plugins, projects and tools for Godot.
OSSFREE - awesome-unity – Curated Unity assets, libraries and tools.
OSSFREE - awesome-unreal – Unreal Engine plugins, samples and resources.
OSSFREE - magictools – The classic list of game development resources.
OSSFREE
Where to ask questions, show your work and get feedback that stings usefully.
- ArtStation – Portfolio hub and inspiration for game artists.
FREEWEB - GameDev.net – Articles, forums and blogs from working developers.
FREEWEB - Godot Forum – Official community forum for Godot questions.
FREEWEB - PixelJoint – Pixel art gallery and forum with weekly challenges.
FREEWEB - Polycount – The 3D art community for critique and technique.
FREEWEB - r/gamedev – The largest general game development community.
FREEWEB - r/godot – Active Godot community with daily help threads.
FREEWEB - r/GraphicsProgramming – Deep discussions on renderers and GPU work.
FREEWEB - r/IndieDev – Indie-focused discussion, showcases and postmortems.
FREEWEB - r/pixelart – Feedback on pixel art and animation.
FREEWEB - r/roguelikedev – Roguelike development with annual tutorial series.
FREEWEB - r/Unity3D – Unity help, showcases and tech discussions.
FREEWEB - r/unrealengine – Unreal questions, marketplace news and showcases.
FREEWEB - TIGSource – Long-running indie dev blog and forum full of devlogs.
FREEWEB - Unity Discussions – Official Unity community Q&A and announcements.
FREEWEB - Unreal Engine Forums – Official Unreal community forums.
FREEWEB - Way of the Pixel – Pixel art criticism and technique discussions.
FREEWEB
- 80.lv – Daily art breakdowns, tools and industry interviews.
FREEWEB - Game Developer – Formerly Gamasutra: postmortems, business and design articles.
FREEWEB - GamesIndustry.biz – Industry news, market data and business analysis.
FREEWEB - IndieDB – Indie game profiles, devlogs and release tracking.
FREEWEB - Indie Games Plus – Coverage of small, strange and beautiful indie games.
FREEWEB
- 7DRL Challenge – Seven days to build a complete roguelike.
FREEWEB - Alakajam – Friendly community jams with feedback rounds.
FREEWEB - GitHub Game Off – GitHub's annual month-long game jam.
FREEWEB - Global Game Jam – Worldwide in-person jam held every January.
FREEWEB - GMTK Game Jam – Massive annual jam hosted by Game Maker's Toolkit.
FREEWEB - itch.io Jams – The biggest calendar of game jams, big and small.
FREEWEB - js13kGames – Build a JavaScript game in 13 kilobytes.
FREEWEB - Ludum Dare – The legendary 48-hour game jam, running since 2002.
FREEWEB - Nordic Game Jam – One of the largest game jams in the world.
FREEWEB - ProcJam – Jam about generating things: worlds, music, creatures.
FREEWEB
Not game-specific, but you will use them every single day.
- 7-Zip – Free archiver with the best compression ratios.
OSSFREE - Advanced Renamer – Powerful, friendly batch renaming with previews.
FREEMIUM - Bulk Rename Utility – Batch renaming with regex and numbering.
FREE - croc – Send files between two computers with one command.
OSSFREE - Everything – Instant filename search across every drive.
FREE - ExifTool – Read and write metadata in any media file.
OSSFREE - IrfanView – Lightweight, ridiculously fast image viewer.
FREE - LocalSend – Share files across devices over your local network.
OSSFREE - PeaZip – Open-source archiver supporting 200+ formats.
OSSFREE - rclone – Sync and mount 70+ cloud storage providers from the CLI.
OSSFREE - Syncthing – Peer-to-peer folder sync without a cloud account.
OSSFREE - XnConvert – Batch image conversion, resizing and watermarking.
FREE
- Beyond Compare – The professional diff tool for huge asset trees.
PAID - Flameshot – Annotation-heavy screenshot tool for Linux and Windows.
OSSFREE - GifCam – Simple GIF recorder with frame-level editing.
FREE - HandBrake – Convert and compress video for trailers and devlogs.
OSSFREE - LICEcap – Tiny, ancient, unbeatable GIF screen recorder.
OSSFREE - ScreenToGif – Record a screen region and edit frames before export.
OSSFREE - ShareX – Screenshots, GIFs and automated uploads on Windows.
OSSFREE - Snipaste – Pin screenshots on screen for reference and comparison.
FREE - VLC – Plays literally anything, including odd engine captures.
OSSFREE - WinMerge – Visual diff for folders of scripts and configs.
OSSFREE
- AutoHotkey – Script any Windows action; beloved for build shortcuts.
OSSFREE - Bun – All-in-one JavaScript runtime, bundler and package manager.
OSSFREE - Chocolatey – Package manager for Windows software.
OSSFREE - Ghostty – Fast, native terminal with sane defaults.
OSSFREE - Homebrew – The package manager for macOS and Linux.
OSSFREE - iTerm2 – The power-user terminal for macOS.
OSSFREE - mise – One tool for runtimes, environments and tasks.
OSSFREE - Notepad++ – The dependable Windows text editor for quick edits.
OSSFREE - nvm – The classic Node version manager.
OSSFREE - pnpm – Fast, disk-efficient Node package manager.
OSSFREE - PowerToys – Microsoft's power-user toolkit: FancyZones, PowerRename, ColorPicker.
OSSFREE - Scoop – Command-line installer for Windows dev tools.
OSSFREE - uv – Extremely fast Python package and project manager.
OSSFREE - Volta – Painless Node version management per project.
OSSFREE - WezTerm – GPU-accelerated, highly configurable terminal.
OSSFREE - Windows Terminal – Modern tabbed terminal for Windows.
OSSFREE - winget – Microsoft's official Windows package manager.
FREE - WSL – Run Linux toolchains natively on Windows.
FREE
This list is only as good as the community behind it. Found a missing tool? A better alternative? A dead link?
No issue needed — just open a pull request. One line is enough, and CI checks your link for you.
- Open README.md and click the ✏️ pencil icon — GitHub forks the repo for you.
- Add your entry in alphabetical order inside the right subsection.
- Keep the format:
- **[Name](https://link)** – What it does, in one sentence. \TAG`` - Commit and open a pull request. If the formatting is slightly off, we will fix it in review.
More detail, if you want it: CONTRIBUTING.md.
Please don't add affiliate links, link shorteners or tools you haven't actually used or verified.
Every link in this repository is verified automatically:
- On every push and pull request (
.github/workflows/link-check.yml) - Weekly, on a schedule, to catch sites that quietly disappeared
Run the same check locally:
python3 scripts/check_links.py # check every Markdown file
python3 scripts/check_links.py README.md # check a single file
python3 scripts/check_links.py --report report.md --json report.json
python3 scripts/check_links.py --fail-on-blocked # stricter CI behaviourResults are grouped as broken (404, 410, DNS failure, bad TLS certificate), blocked (the site is alive but refuses bots) and unverified (no answer twice — usually a slow host or a network blip). Every failure is re-checked before it is reported, so one sleepy server can't turn the badge red.
The script needs Python 3.9+ and nothing else — no dependencies to install. Links that are alive but unverifiable by robots are skipped via rules in .linksignore, where every exception must include a short reason.
Released under CC0 1.0 Universal — public domain. Use it, fork it, remix it, no attribution required.