Some Resources for Making Games
Below are some links to resources for making games.
For those new to Games Design and programming
Here are some other people’s tips / opinions on those that are new to games programming. Don’t get discouraged and take some opinions with a grain of salt.
- Game Design 101
- Programming Guide and Careers in gaming
- Starting Advice and Coding
- Games from Scratch – where to start (video)
- Games from Scratch – what games you should make starting out
- Game Development – how to start (video)
- Game Art and Development from people working in Riot Games (follow all the video episodes)
For those new to coding concepts, some fun ways to learn via games:
- Beginners Guide to Coding
- Becoming a Code Genius: Coding Games for Beginners (with some cool resources to get started)
- Apple Mac / iPad Swift Playgrounds
- Vocabulary for coding and programming – some coding resources as well
- Microstudio – fun way to learn coding whilst building games and assets
- Beginner’s Glossary of Coding – contains some useful definitions and some good resources on coding
- AI Coding and Programming Tools – use AI tools to help you with coding
- About HTML and CMS
Games Research and History
Sometimes it’s useful to research and play games in order to figure out what type of game you would like to make. Some links to this effect are below.
- Video games chart – tells you the most popular games that people bought (similar to the top music charts but for games)
- History of video games
- Museum of video games (and other items)
Programming Languages and Compilers
- Apple OSX using Xcode – Swift language and also Objective C
- Microsoft Windows using Visual Studio – variety of languages, including C / C++, Visual Basic, Java
- Linux or Unix GCC compiler – C/C++, Java
Game Engines / Game APIs
- Microsoft game development using Direct X
- DirectX12 Tool Kit from Microsoft
- Apple Reality Kit
- Apple Metal
- Apple SpriteKit (for 2D graphics)
- Torque Games Engine – very good and cost effective. Can build games for multiple platforms.
- OpenGL (for graphics)
- Unity (good for 2D and mobile games, can do 3D games)
- Unreal (good for 3D games)
- Ogre
- GameMaker
- PyGame (for 2D games)
- Microdev – free online game engine
Sample Game Source Code & Games Created
- Doom and Quake – idSoftware has made the source code available as OpenSource under GPL
- List of commercial games with source code being released
- Video of someone making Flappy Bird from scratch using Unity
Mod Tools and Info
- Mod making tutorials – for many popular games including Half-life
- Minecraft – how to create mods
Books
- Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 12 by Frank D. Luna
- Code for the above book by Frank D. Luna is here
- Beginning DirectX 11 Game Programming by Allen Sherrod and Wendy Jones
- Tricks of the 3D Game Programming Gurus by Andre LaMothe
- Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus by Andre LaMothe
- Programming a Multiplayer FPS in DirectX by Vaughan Young
- Foley, James D., et al. Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice . Second ed. in C. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995. (the “bible” of computer graphics).
Tutorials
- David Joffe’s Tutorial – how to program games in DirectX
- DirectX.com tutorials
Games Development
- Game Developer– games related information
- GameDev – information and forums on games related information
- More retro games – Classic Retro 2D games
2D Art Software
- Gimp (Free software for 2D artwork / image manipulation – runs on Windows / Linux / Mac – can open Photoshop files)
- Adobe Photoshop (for 2D artwork / image manipulation – expensive but a very good program – runs on Mac too)
- Paintshop Pro (for 2D artwork / image manipulation)
3D Modelling Software
- Blender (Free 3D modeller – runs on Linux too)
- 3D Studio Max (3D modeller by Autodesk)
- Maya (3D modeller by Autodesk)
- Lightwave (3D modeller)
- ZBrush – fantastic for modelling characters
- Anim8tor free software
2D and 3D Artwork
- 3D models that you can download for free or buy from CG Trader – they have high and low poly models that you could use for your game
- Royalty Free Photos from Fotosearch
- 3D Cafe contains a variety of free 3D models
- Turbosquid contains some free 3D models and textures
- Animation Factory has some free animated gifs and tiles
- Allfree-Clipart has free clipart and photos
- 3D models and textures
Music Software
- Audacity (Free sound and music editor – runs on Windows / Mac / Linux)
- Cubase – industry standard music sequencing software
- Reason – another industry standard music sequencing software
- A good article at Beginner Guitar HQ on the best music making software is here
- An article on DAW software
- A good article to read from Samplified is about comparing two DAWs and which is right for you.
Music & Sound Effects
- Partners in Rhyme has some free music and sound effects
- Free Play Music
- The Music Bakery
- Shockwave Sound has sound, music and even voice!