List Of Top Game Development Programs

Game development is complicated and so there’s a huge amount of programs out there to help you. These make the process easier and allow the results to be so much better, but they bring a problem themselves. With so many of them, how do you know which of them are the top game development programs and which ones are not so useful? These programs will have been discussed elsewhere on Game Dev Insider so here is an easy access list of all of the best ones.

Game Engines are the foundations of how a game is built and your choice of engine will shape the entirety of the development process, so it is important to pick the right one for you. The most common engines these days are Unreal Engine and Unity, but smaller and more specific engines might be better for your project, such as RPG Maker being perfect for creating 2D RPG games.

Paid For

• GameMaker
• Gamebryo
• RPG Maker

Free

• Unreal Engine*
• Unity*
• Godot
• Amazon Lumberyard
• CryEngine*
• GDevelop

*Free at the point of use, other fees apply.

Programming is key to game development and how you define how the game should play and look. For the most part, you can program however you want as it’s the language you are using more than the program you are using that is important, but there are a few programs to help out. There are also some visual scripting tools for those who find that easier.

Paid For

• Visual Studio
• Playmaker*

Free

• Notepad++
• Unreal Engine*

* Visual Scripting Tools

Video game art has become very complex and detailed and as such, more programs are needed to keep up with that quality, and many of the newer programs becoming more specialized and one generic program cannot keep up with the details needed in every area. Marvelous Designer is a great example of this as it is a program that specializes entirely in clothing whereas, in the past, a single program would be used for the entirety of character production.

Paid For

• 3DS Max
• Maya
• Photoshop
• Substance Suite
• Quixel Suite
• Marvellous Designer
• SpeedTree

Free

• Blender
• GIMP

There are some specialized sound programs for games such as Wwise, but for the most part, anyone who is working on sound design for a video game will use generic audio programs as the exported sound is the only thing that matters to the final game, and these will be exported from any audio toolset.

Paid For

• Nuendo
• Adobe Audition
• KOMPLETE

Free

• Audacity
• Wwise*
• FMod*

*Paid version required past a certain budget.