![]() Advertisement Do you have an idea for a game that’s been brewing in your mind for years? What if I told you that you could make that idea come to life, even if you have no game development experience? These days, anyone can make a video game with a. Of course, that doesn’t mean game development is easy. Not by a long shot. Even something as simplistic as Flappy Bird or Tetris can take a lot of time and effort to make it look and feel good. ![]() But thanks to free game development software tools, a game that might’ve required one year can now be made in six months or faster —! Note that this list is ordered by least complex to most complex. The simpler free game development tools are easier to pick up but have limitations. As you go down the list, you gain more flexibility at the cost of a greater learning curve. GameGuru Free Download latest version for windows XP/7/8. Get offline installer setup direct high speed download link of Gameguru game maker software for windows 32/64 bit PC. Create your own games with gameguru 3d gaming software. FREE Download. Gameguru free download for windows. Top 10 Game Design Software Programs: Getting started on. By the fact that making games is a. In the way of game design software. A lot of them are free. Unity is the ultimate game development platform. Use Unity to build high-quality 3D and 2D games, deploy them across mobile, desktop, VR/AR, consoles or the Web, and connect with loyal and enthusiastic players and customers. No programming needed. Construct 2 is the best option if you’ve never written a line of code in your life. This game development tool is completely GUI-driven, meaning everything is drag-and-drop. Game logic and variables are implemented using the design features provided by the app itself. Unfortunately, coding is unavailable even if you want to write code. Create once, publish everywhere. The beauty of Construct 2 is that it can export to dozens of different platforms and formats, and you don’t have to change a single thing in you game to accommodate these various options. Once your game is done, you can export to HTML5, Windows Store, Chrome Web Store, or Facebook. ![]() ![]() With a paid copy, you can also export to Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, and more. Most programmers have no skills in art, music, or animations. But that’s fine with Construct 2 because you can always browse and purchase ready-made assets from the Scirra Store. Most asset packs are just a few dollars, but the professional-grade stuff can price at $30 or beyond. You can also buy sample games with source, which can be helpful for studying and learning new tips and tricks. The free version has all of the core features but is limited to 100 events, 4 object layers, 2 simultaneous special effects, access to only a small portion of the included sample assets, and no permission to sell your games. The Personal license is $130 and lifts all of these restrictions. Download — 2. Game Maker: Studio. Create once, publish everywhere. Once your game is done, you can export to any number of platforms and formats without having to adjust your code. The free version only allows Windows export while the Professional version can export to other platforms (like Android, iOS, and HTML5) using modules that must be purchased separately. ![]() Long history. GM:S has been around since 1999, and it’s still more active than most other free game development engines out there. New versions with feature updates are released at regular intervals, and there’s even a brand new version called Game Maker Studio 2 in the works, which is being rewritte from scratch with even more power in mind. Built-in advanced features. GM:S is great because it supports a lot of interesting quality-of-life features right out of the box, such as the ability to add in-app purchases to your game, real-time analytics on how users play your game, source control, multiplayer networking, and extensibility through third-party extensions. It also has built-in editors for images, animations, and shaders. The free version can be used indefinitely, but GM:S is a bit pricey otherwise. The Professional version costs $150 with export modules for Mac, Ubuntu, Android, iOS, and HTML costing $100, $100, $300, $300, and $200, respectively. Or you can get the Master version, which comes with ALL export modules for $800 (a savings of at least $350). Supports 2D and 3D. Unity started off as a 3D engine, but eventually added official 2D support in 2013. Although it’s perfectly capable of creating 2D games, you may run into the occasional bug or glitch because Unity’s 2D system is actually tacked onto its core 3D system. This also means that Unity adds a lot of unnecessary bloat to 2D games, which could affect performance. Component-based design. Unity didn’t come up with component-entity design, but it had a huge hand in popularizing it. In short, everything in the game is an object and you can attach various components to each object, where each component controls some aspect of the object’s behavior and logic. Widespread usage and documentation. To make the most of Unity, you’ll want to use C#. The good news is that Unity is so widely used — among hobbyists and industry veterans alike — that you’ll find thousands of tutorials all across the web to get you started. Unity itself also has an in-depth video series for newbies, and the provided documentation is excellent. Create once, publish everywhere. Unity has the widest export support of any game engine: Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, WebGL, Facebook, all kinds of VR systems like Oculus Rift and Steam VR, as well as several gaming consoles like PS4, XB1, Wii U, and Switch. Want a minimap system in your game? Or how about a commercial-grade networking solution? Maybe you need 3D models, HUD graphics, and environmental textures? Or even a dialog system for your action-adventure RPG? You can buy all of this and more on the Unity Asset Store, many of which are available for free. The free version has no engine restrictions and can be used royalty-free as long as your revenues stay under $100,000 per year. A Plus plan ($35 per month) unlocks some advanced editor features and increases the revenue limit to $200,000 per year. A Pro plan ($125 per month) grants access to the Unity source code and allows unlimited revenue. Download — 4. Godot Engine. Supports 2D and 3D. Like Unity, Godot supports the creation of both 2D and 3D games. Unlike Unity, however, Godot’s support is far better. The 2D aspect of the engine was carefully designed from the start, which means better performance, fewer bugs, and a cleaner overall workflow. Scene-based design. Godot’s approach to game architecture is unique in that everything is divided into scenes — but not the kind of scene you’re thinking of. A scene is a collection of elements like sprites, sounds, and/or scripts. You can then combine multiple scenes into a bigger scene, and then those scenes into even bigger scenes. This hierarchical design approach makes it very easy to stay organized and modify individual elements whenever you want. Custom scripting language. Godot uses a drag-and-drop system for maintaining scene elements, but each of those elements can be extended through the built-in scripting system, which uses a custom Python-like language called GDScript. It’s easy to learn and fun to use, so you should give it a try even if you have no coding experience. Create once, publish everywhere. Godot can deploy to multiple platforms right out of the box, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, and HTML5. No extra purchases or licenses necessary, though some restrictions may apply (like needing to be on a Mac system to deploy a Mac binary). Built-in advanced features. Godot iterates surprisingly quickly for a game engine. There is at least one major release every year, which explains how it has so many great features already: physics, post-processing, networking, all kinds of built-in editors, live debugging and hot reload, source control, and more. Free and open source. Godot is the only tool on this list that’s actually free through and through. Because it’s, you can use it however you want and sell the games you make without any restrictions. You can even download the engine’s source code and if you so wish. (The engine is coded in C++.) Download — 5. Unreal Engine 4. Developed by industry masters. Of all the tools on this list, UE4 is the most professional. It was created from scratch by the geniuses behind the Unreal franchise — people who know what’s needed in a top-shelf engine and what it takes to deliver next-generation features. Suffice it to say, they know exactly what they’re doing. Cutting-edge engine features. One of UE4’s driving principles is allowing you to iterate and develop as quickly as you can, so you get features like live debugging, hot reloading, a streamlined asset pipeline, instant game previews, plus hundreds of included assets and systems like artificial intelligence, terrain, cinematic tools, post-processing effects, and more. No code necessary. The unique selling point of UE4 is its Blueprint system, which lets you create game logic without touching any code. It’s advanced enough that you can create entire games, even complex ones, without ever opening a source editor. But if you want to code your own Blueprints, you can do that too. The best tutorials on the planet. The UE4 YouTube Channel has over 800 videos that take you through every inch of the engine, and most of those videos are between 20 and 60 minutes long. That’s more content than you’d get from a semester-long course at university. If you need step-by-step guidance, UE4 has you covered. Create once, publish everywhere. Starting to see a pattern here? All of the best engines allow seamless exporting to multiple platforms, and UE4 is no exception: Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, HTML5, PS4, XB1, and more. As a free user, you get access to the entire engine (including source code). Once you earn more than $3,000 in a quarter, you pay a 5% royalty on gross revenue beyond the threshold. You only start paying when your game succeeds. How awesome is that? Download — Other Notable Free Game Development Software There are a handful of other game development tools that didn’t quite make the cut for Top 5 but are still worth checking out, especially if the ones listed above are too complex or simply aren’t what you’re looking for. Three that come to mind are (very similar to Construct 2 in that it’s drag-and-drop only), (also drag-and-drop but not quite matured yet), (almost like a lightweight version of Unity except focusing on JavaScript rather than C#). Which free game development software tool is most appealing to you? Are there any others that we missed? What kind of games are you itching to make? Share with us down in the comments! Image Credit: Radachynskyi Serhii via Shutterstock.com. With all of the tools on the market in today’s gaming industry, it’s easier than ever to get into game development without any formal education. That isn’t to say that it’s easy to become a successful game developer, or that it’s easy to make a good game that people would want to play, just that it’s easy to get started. If you want to make an actual run at game development as a serious career, you should probably pursue more traditional means, but recent success stories do prove that it’s entirely possible to do without. Whether you’re moonlighting as a developer after you get home from working your day job, or going all-in on a long-shot Kickstarter to make your dream game a reality, this list is constructed to give you the resources that you need to get started. Keep in mind though, this list is not necessarily organized in order of the easiest programs to use, or the most powerful programs to use, but rather which ones are the overall best for beginners. As the list goes on, the programs chosen are a nice balance of user-friendliness, power, and flexibility. I am by no-means a successful game developer, so feel free to give shout-outs to your preferred choices down in the comments. Quest, A Text Game Maker 10) Quest Price: Completely Free Publishing Platform: Browser Website: It’s easy to forget that, before we had fancy HD graphics and several gigs of storage space for games, words on a screen sufficed. In the early days, before graphical games, you would have text-based adventures that unfolded similar to a choose-your-own-adventure story. In fact, making a text-based game is an advisable first game project undertake. Since you don’t have to worry about graphics and lots of programming, you can focus in on creating a believable narrative with in-depth dialogue trees and choices. As a result, Quest is a surprisingly intuitive and simple text-game creator to use. The interface is free of clutter and it’s designed in a way that makes sense from a game-creation point of view. If you’d like to create story for others to get involved with and want to keep things as basic as possible. Quest is a great place to start, and it can even be used entirely in your browser. Canabalt – Created in Flixel 9) Flixel Price: Completely Free Publishing Platform: Flash Website: Out of all the entries on this list, Flixel is one of the most flexible, but the nature of the program is relatively dated. Since Flixel is designed for making 2D Flash games, its use isn’t quite as flexible. For example, iOS devices don’t support Flash at all and it can be a pain to get everything working on some platforms. In fact, the image shown above is of a game called Canabalt, a very popular endless runner that was made in just about 5 days with the program. In regards to the program itself, it’s actually quite easy-to-use and learn. Within a few weeks you could have a working game up and running and within a few more weeks, you could have something truly great. Experience in any type of C programming language and prior object-based programming knowledge will go a long way, but isn’t absolutely necessary. There are a good number of tutorials out there and a decently sized community, so learning the program could be worth your time. Ben There Dan That – Created in Adventure Game Studio 8) Adventure Game Studio Price: Completely Free Publishing Platform: PC Website: Funny enough, other than retro-style games, adventure games are one of the other big genres that have seen a big comeback in recent years. Off the heels of efforts from TellTale Studios, it’s opened the door drastically for indie developers to tap back into the pulse of the Myst faithful. It’s a smart evolution as well, since most games in the Adventure genre could be summarized as Text-based adventure games with graphical presentations. Adventure Game Studio is designed to be not only simple to use, but totally free. There haven’t been a lot of blockbusters made with the program, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been any successes either. Above is an image of Ben There, Dan That, a great little indie adventure game that you can buy right now on Steam. Ghost Song – Created in Stencyl 7) Stencyl Price: Tiered Subscription Model – $0 – $200/year Platform: iPhone, Android, Flash, Windows, Mac, and Linux Website: Now we can move into the programs designed with more versatile game design in mind. Stencyl is a nifty little program that’s geared mostly towards mobile gaming and offers a lot of functionality for those that just want to quickly get started making games for mobile devices. It supports exporting to other platforms, but it’s definitely designed with mobile in mind. What’s really great about Stencyl, is that they’ve done a great job of taking the process and fitting as much of it as possible into menus and buttons that make the interface super easy to navigate. With a built in “Education” section of the website and program as well, it’s a solid choice for starters. If you start to get some traction, you an even upgrade to the Studio version to support full publishing without a splash screen. Airscape – Created in Construct 2 6) Construct 2 Price: Tiered One-Time Payment Model – $0 – $430 Publishing Platform: HTML5, Windows 8, iOS, Android, Mac, and Linux Website: Now we’re moving into the parts of the list that have well-known and successful games attached to them. That isn’t to say that it’s easy to make a game that would be popular, but rather that these are the programs of choice for some successful developers. Construct 2 supports a lot of platforms, but is geared mostly towards HTML5 development. The big caveat with this one is that, if you’re an individual, you’ll pay a lot less than if you were using this as part of a team or studio. Their tiered model has a lot of stipulations and restrictions, but even the free version has enough functionality for you to get your feet wet. The Scirra Store also has a nice selection of items, from music packs all the way to games that other community members have made. To the Moon – Created in RPG Maker 5) RPG Maker VX Ace Price: Free Trial, $70 Full Download Publishing Platform: PC Website: RPG Maker has been around for a very, very long time. In fact, my experiences with the program date back to the PS1 release of this program, something I must have spent hundreds of hours tinkering around with. Thankfully though, the VX Ace edition of RPG Maker has come a long way and is an incredibly powerful and flexible program in today’s industry. It may not be as well respected as a lot of other programs when it comes to making professional commercial games, but there are plenty of exceptions. The program is designed, like an RPG, with tons of menus and areas to sift through and learn, but the community is extremely vast and helpful. It’s actually quite easy to pick up and learn pretty quickly, but expect to dedicate a significant amount of time if you expect to make anything worth playing, just like everything on this list. Funnily enough, one of the most well-known projects made with RPG Maker, isn’t even a traditional RPG, it’s more of an interactive story, but it’s brilliant. That game, To the Moon, is featured in the image above. Depression Quest – Created in Twine 4) Twine Price: Completely Free Publishing Platform: HTML Website: At first glance, this program might seem out of place. It has a lot of similarities to Quest, in that it is designed to be used as a primarily text-based game creator, but Twine’s focus is much more oriented towards Interactive Fiction, rather than adventure games. One of the best and most recent examples of this is Zoe Quinn’s contentious Depression Quest, which recently released for free on Steam. Twine is great because it helps you visualize a lot of processes that are otherwise overly abstract. For example, dialogue trees. When writing a story, or especially a game, it can be tough to keep track of all the branching dialogue possibilities, so having Twine help you by literally making trees out of those elements is incredibly intuitive and helpful. Twine is available completely free over on its website, linked above, and is a great starting point. Super Spin Tanks – Created in Game Salad 3) Game Salad Price: Tiered Subscription Model – $0 – $300/year Publishing Platform: Web, Mac, iOS, Windows 8, Android, Tizen Website: Out of all the programs that are designed to be quick and easy to use (like Construct 2, Stencyl, etc) I would put Game Salad in the upper echelon of that list. With Game Salad, you can quickly and easily get up and running with all different types of games. It is once again mostly geared towards making mobile games, but actually supports a large number of export platforms. Game Salad also does a great job of promoting games made by its developers, providing education materials, and even utilizing a robust marketplace with tons of assets you can purchase and use in your games. The creator does not require any coding knowledge, but the result of that is something that is restricted in what exactly you can do. Among the Sleep – Created in Unity 2) Unity Price: Mixed Tier Payment Model – Free Trial, $1,500 One-Time, or $75/month Publishing Platform: PC, Windows Phone, Windows Apps, Mac, Linux, HTML, iOS, Android, BlackBerry Website: If you’re not an absolute beginner and already have some experience and/or programming knowledge, then Unity should definitely be your program of choice. The only reason it’s not ranked #1 on this list is because it can be extremely intimidating to learn for complete beginners. This limitation and the fact that the pro license is expensive and is actually required if you’re making a steady profit off of your creations. With that being said, Unity is easily the most flexible and powerful program on this list, with tons of support, assets to purchase, its own built-in IDE, and the ability to make all kinds of 2D and 3D games. Suffice to say that if you want to dive right in, really want to make 3D games, or have some background in a programming language, maybe Unity is the right choice for you, otherwise, continue on to the last entry. Hotline Miami – Created in Game Maker 1) Game Maker: Studio Price: Tiered One-Time Payment Model – $0 – $800 Publishing Platform: PC, Windows Phone, Windows Apps, Mac, Linux, HTML5, iOS, Android, Tizen, PS3, PS4, and Vita. Xbox One coming soon. Website: Hands-down, Game Maker: Studio is one of the most flexible, easy-to-understand, and deceptively powerful game making programs available. YoYo Games have recently opened up the full Standard license completely for free, launched their own asset marketplace, and have one of the largest and most helpful communities of all. Not to mention that the internal programming language, GML, is easy to learn and teaches you concepts you can apply to other languages, like C#. As a result, Game Maker is the perfect starting point for any budding developer. And the growing list of high-quality games made with the program (Hotline Miami, Spelunky, Risk of Rain, Gunpoint, Hyper Light Drifter, and many others) brings validation to a program that’s struggled to shed its past reputation. The programs drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to pick up and get started immediately, and lays the foundation you need to branch off into coding your own games. There is an endless wealth of information and tutorials online, so it’s an excellent program to kick start any indie developer’s career. In fact, here are two very basic games I created over the span of about 2 weeks, starting from scratch. These games were created by either making my own assets, or finding free resources online. I followed YouTube tutorials for both of them. The first one is a, and the second is a Get Started!
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