6 Free Game Development Tools to Make Your Own Games.
As a form of entertainment, video games should supplant film and music combined as the world’s favorite pastime. All players these days. Whether they only play the fancy casual mobile game or spend hundreds of hours playing hardcore AAA games.
The video game titles that receive the most publicity are created by teams of tens or even hundreds of specialized members. These can be graphic artists, programmers, writers, designers, and others. Thus, it might seem like only those with an endless budget and a multitude of talents should worry about entering the world of game development.
Things couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s not only the best time in history for small indie game developers. Plus, it’s the easiest way to bring your vision of video games to life.
In the early days of video game development, you pretty much had to write code against metal. The coders used assembler and later moved on to high-level languages ​​such as C. You needed to be familiar with the hardware to squeeze every last drop of performance out of it.
You can buy game engines off the shelf these days, and there are a variety of game creation tools that non-professional, non-technical aspiring developers can use to bring their vision to life.
The six packages highlighted here are aimed at making game development easier in terms of both cost and technical skills. Some of them were even used to create critical hits, earning their developers huge payouts. So read on and perhaps you will find a tool that will finally bring to life the game you’ve always wanted to bring to life.
Stencil
Stencyl is a subscription-based game creation tool that makes it easy to create 2D games for multiple platforms. When your game is ready, you can publish it as an app for both Android and iOS, but all desktop platforms and browsers are also supported.
If you enjoy mobile games, chances are you’ve actually played something made with Stencyl More than a few games created with this tool have made it to the top ten in various app stores. Wrassling is one particularly interesting title that received good press coverage when it was released.
Stencyl prides itself on the fact that authors don’t have to mess with code at all. At least not raw. When it comes to game logic, they brilliantly decided to use a puzzle pieces system in which you string various boolean arguments together and then inject variables. So there is actually quite a lot of “coding”, but it’s no more difficult than building with LEGO, to be honest.
RPG Maker (various versions)
JRPGs are still a thriving genre, and now you can easily create your own game in the spirit of classic Final Fantasy games with RPG Maker Quite a lot of RPG Maker versions are released at the same time, which are supported by the developer in parallel.
It’s a good idea to double check which version of the tool best suits your needs as they have some features that are specific to certain versions only. For example, although it might be tempting to opt for RPG Maker XP as it’s the cheapest one. However, you cannot do things like character portraits next to speech bubbles. On the other hand, XP is still very popular due to the fact that some people prefer this card system.
Regardless of which version of RPG Maker you ultimately choose, they are the de facto standard in JRPG style game creation tools, and you can sell your final game with the provided license. If you want to create this particular playstyle (or something similar, with only minor changes), you absolutely need to make RPG Maker the first stop on your route.
RPG Maker has always made games for Windows, but now they can be published to other platforms like Android, albeit with a little bit of grease to get it working.
Some of the most successful RPG Maker games include To The Moon and Skyborn. Games that could easily have become critical hits during the heyday of classic JRPGs.
Twine 2.0
Twine pushes the boundaries of what should be considered a game creation tool, but still sits comfortably on the right side of the dividing line. It was originally conceived as a tool for creating a choose your own adventure experience. Twine is an open source tool that allows you to build a huge network of history nodes and then publish it as a working HTML application.
What turns Twine from an interactive narrative tool to a game creation tool is its scripting ability. This allows you to do things like adding character stats and random events. This allowed people to create simple dungeon crawlers and add gameplay to their stories.
Twine 2.0 is certainly one of the most rudimentary tools on this list, but in the right hands it can be used to produce incredibly powerful results. Interestingly, the creators of Black Mirror Bandersnatch used Twine as a production tool to keep track of all the story threads.
Game Maker Studio 2
Game Maker Studio 2 is the latest in a very long line of game development packages dating back to 1999, when it was known as Animo . It is a tool for creating 2D games and has pretty much everything you need to create a 2D style game. Some things in 3D are possible, but go beyond the generally simple and intuitive 2D creation environment.
Game Maker Studio lets you animate your 2D objects, draw original 2D primitives, and get exactly what you want. It has tons of intuitive tools for designing levels, scenarios, mechanics, and more.
Many commercially successful games have been created with Game Maker Studio, but the most famous game is undoubtedly Undertale The game that has reached cult status is sold in hundreds of thousands of copies. Not bad for an indie game made with a development tool like Game Maker Studio!
This product also has better platform support. You can publish to Windows, macOs, Ubuntu, HTML5, Android, iOS, PS4, Xbox One, and now even Switch.
Game Maker Studio is not free, but there is a Creator Edition available that restricts users to publishing on Windows and Macintosh. You can always upgrade to a Desktop license to expand the list of games available for purchase.
ClickTeam Fusion 2.5
Fusion 2.5, created by French developer Clickteam, is an interesting option for people who want to create 2D games but don’t want to spend years learning to code. Clicktean claims that the specialized programming language Fusion 2.5 uses a customized programming language so simple that, on average, users can learn it in less than an hour.
Many commercially successful indie games have been created with Fusion 2.5, but the most famous of these is probably Five Nights at Freddy’s. The developer used Fusion 2.5 to create the game along with 3ds Max to pre-render the 3D graphics. It just goes to show what you are capable of if you are creative!
Building 3
Construct 3 is the latest version of the popular subscription game development tool. Like Stencyl, you pay a monthly (or yearly) fee to access the development environment. Any games you create are your property and you can sell them for a profit.
Construct 3 is still fairly new, but there have been a few notable games made with Construct 2. Next Penelope has performed well and even got a recent Switch Port, although it took some serious work and translation to C ++. </ p>
Construct can export to JavaScript, HTML5, and several other PC and web compatible standards, so your title shouldn’t be lacking in audience. There is also native support for Android and iOS! The visual scripting system is probably Construct’s biggest selling point, and is touted as a particularly intuitive approach to game logic design. The prices are pretty reasonable too, especially considering how wealthy a popular indie game can get!
Make your own bomb
The gaming world is replete with stories of small indie developers who succeed with the one game that no one else could refuse. The game is bad because millions of dollars have been invested in it. All good games have some combination of innovative game design, sophistication, and a compelling central mechanism.
While it’s always beneficial to acquire basic programming and technical skills, these intuitive game development tools mean you don’t have to be a jack of all trades to create the game you’ve always wanted to create. All it takes is dedication and a good idea. What are you waiting for?
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