Game Development Resources and Tools

[ development  git  ]
Written on February 22, 2023
Reading time: 4 min

Here are some lists of resources that you can use to learn about game development, or as a reference for your game projects.

General Game Development

  • GDC YouTube Channel - Includes videos of select presentations from the Game Developers Conference
    • Mirror - Mirror of the GDC YouTube channel
    • GDC Vault - Service providing slides and video recordings of ALL presentations from GDC
      • Presentations from GDC 2020 and older are free to view
      • Presentations from GDC 2021/2022 are only available to GDC Vault subscribers

Game Engines

A game engine is a software framework with an associated set of tools, designed to facilitate the development of video games. Game engines are often designed to be cross-platform, and provide important basic functionality such as rendering, physics, sound, scripting, and asset management.

Open Source Game Engines

These game engines are open source. They are not only free, but also provide full access to the engine’s low-level code, allowing you to modify the engine to suit your needs (or even contribute to the engine’s development).

Note that these engines often have difficulties with distribution on console platforms. This is because console platforms make their software development kits proprietary, and thus open source game engines cannot publicly publish tools for these platforms.

Godot Engine

HaxeFlixel

  • 2D game engine built with Haxe
  • Supports Windows, Linux, Mac, HTML5, Android, iOS.
    • Console support: Nintendo Switch support is available by request for licensed developers.
  • Scripting language: Haxe

Closed Source Game Engines

These game engines are closed source, and require a license to use. The license often allows free use for non-commercial projects, but requires a paid license for commercial projects. Additionally, the low-level code of these engines is kept highly proprietary, and is not accessible to the public.

Unity

  • 2D and 3D game engine
  • Supports Windows, Mac, Linux, WebGL, iOS, Android, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, VR
  • C# Coding Conventions in Unity

Unreal Engine

  • 2D and 3D game engine

GameMaker Studio 2

  • 2D game engine

Construct 3

  • 2D game engine

Assets

Here are some lists of free assets that you can use in your game projects.

Blogs and Blog Posts

Programming

Design Patterns

C++

  • CPPCon - VODS of an annual conference for C++ developers

Subreddits