18 Free Game Development tools for every game developer!

Game engines give developers the tools required to pull the several elements of a game together into one unit. With mobile gaming picking up, more developers are paying attention to Android and iOS platforms. Game development is an ever expanding universe with various free tools to get the job done.

 

1.PuzzleScript

PuzzleScript is a puzzle game engine created by Stephen Lavelle. Games are written in the PuzzleScript scripting language and can be compiled to a standalone HTML5 application.

2.GameMaker

GameMaker allows users to create a cross-platform video game using drag and drop or a scripting language known as Game Maker Language, which can be used to develop more advanced games that could not be created just by using the drag and drop features. GameMaker was designed to allow novice computer programmers to be able to make computer games without much programming knowledge by use of these actions.

3.Construct 2

Construct 2 is a powerful ground breaking HTML5 game creator designed specifically for 2D games. It allows anyone to build games— no coding required!

4.Stencyl

Stencyl is a game creation platform that allows users to create 2D video games for computers, mobile devices, and the web. The software is available for free, with select publishing options available for purchase.

5.Twine

Twine is a tool for making hypertext games in the form of webpages created by Chris Klimas.Twine is available as a free software download for Mac OS X and Windows, and there is also a command-line interface called twee.

6.Inform 7

Inform is a programming language and design system for interactive fiction originally created in 1993 by Graham Nelson. Inform can generate programs designed for the Z-code or Glulx virtual machines.

7.Ren’Py

Ren’Py is a visual novel engine that helps you use words, images, and sounds to tell stories with the computer. These can be both visual novels and life simulation games. The easy to learn script language allows you to efficiently write large visual novels, while its Python scripting is enough for complex simulation games.

8.Adventure Game Studio

Adventure Game Studio is an open source development tool that is primarily used to create graphic adventure games. It is aimed at intermediate-level game designers, and combines an Integrated development environment (IDE) for setting up most aspects of the game with a scripting language based on the C language to process the game logic.

9.FlashPunk

FlashPunk is a free ActionScript 3 library designed for developing 2D Flash games. It provides you with a fast, clean framework to prototype and develop your games in. This means that most of the dirty work is already done, letting you concentrate on the design and testing of your game.

10.Unity

Unity is a cross-platform game engine with a built-in IDE developed by Unity Technologies. It is used to develop video games for web plugins, desktop platforms, consoles and mobile devices.

11.RPG Maker XP

RPG Maker XP gives you the power to create your own original RPG on Windows. Its popular and user-friendly interface has been carried over from RPG MAKER 2000, and its graphic capabilities, battle screen layout, and data packaging features are better than ever.

12.Blender

Blender is a free and open source 3D animation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation. Advanced users employ Blender’s API for Python scripting to customise the application and write specialized tools; often these are included in Blender’s future releases.

13.Tiled

Tile map editor (TileME) is for design tile maps with a single tiled image and export map data as an array. this is a very good tool for J2ME game prgrammers and with a very little changes you can use it for any other languages.

14.Gamesalad

GameSalad Creator is an authoring tool developed by GameSalad, Inc aimed primarily at non-programmers for composing games in a drag-and-drop fashion, using visual editors and a behavior-based logic system.

15.Pygame

Pygame is a cross-platform set of Python modules designed for writing video games. It includes computer graphics and sound libraries designed to be used with the Python programming language. It is built over the Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) library, with the intention of allowing real-time computer game development without the low-level mechanics of the C programming language and its derivatives.

16.Corona

Corona lets developers use integrated Lua, layered on top of C++/OpenGL, to build graphic applications. The SDK does not charge per-app royalty or impose any branding requirement, and has a subscription-based purchase model.

17.GL Basic

GLBasic is a commercial BASIC programming language, that can compile to various platforms, including Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, as well as some handheld devices. The language is designed to be simple and intuitive.

18.RPG Maker VX

RPG Maker VX allows you to make the roleplaying games you’ve always dreamed of by being one of the easiest game engine software ever developed. With its enhanced autotile capabilities, quick event creation, and dungeon generator, you can have a game ready to play faster than ever before.

 

If you have some suggestions of your own please let us know in comments!

 

 

Microsoft may unveil virtual reality headset at E3

Facebook acquired one, Sony created one itself, Google made one out of cardboard, and now Microsoft is rumored to be preparing to launch one. What am I talking about? Virtual reality headsets.

 

 

There is an enormous amount of hype surrounding virtual reality this year, mainly due to the experiences being shown off for use with the Oculus Rift. A lot of them look very promising, and could kickstart a new era of immersive gaming. It has yet to be proven whether virtual reality will become a mass market consumer product, though, but with Facebook now funding Oculus, and Sony’sProject Morpheus looking likely to see a release, Microsoft could be left at a disadvantage in the gaming space if it didn’t join in.

With that in mind, Microsoft’s hardware team is thought to be working on its own virtual reality device. The source of the rumor is the supply chain, through which Microsoft would source the required components to make a headset prototype. The big unveiling of this product is expected to be E3 2015 being held in June next year.

Microsoft entering the virtual reality market was actually inevitable if you think about it, and the company does have an advantages over its rivals in the form of Kinect. It has become clear that being able to see your own arms (or even your whole body) during a virtual reality experience makes a lot of difference to how immersive (and interactive) it can be. Kinect is perfect for tracking body part movement, so it seems likely any Microsoft VR headset would incorporate Kinect tech as standard.