Free Resources for Making Your Own Games, Textures, Models, Music, and More

Alight, I‘ve been promising to make a list o’ linky for y’all for some time now. Time to get started! If you’ve been following along with The Brick Dead Project, a chronicle of first foray into video game creation, you know I’m pretty far from an expert with only a couple months under my belt. Still, the resources provided from open source projects, retail demos, and generous artists have enabled me to create some pretty spectacular results. Now, I’d like to pass on some of my favorite places for software and inspiration to you.

Being a noob in the scene, this is far from an exhaustive list. Feel free to add your favorites in the comments.

A word of warning: If you’re looking to move beyond the hobbyist level and create something you can sell, pay careful attention to the licensing agreements for your software/assets. Terms of use on this stuff can range from public domain, to requiring a nod in the credits, to a percentage of your revenue.

Game Development Environments/Engines

Retail “Demo” Style GDE/SDKs

Cry Engine – Complete and free for non-commercial use

Unity – Free “Indie” version available, but missing “Pro” features *Update: Unity 5 is now feature complete for Personal Edition (free) users.

Unreal – Unreal 4 has just gone free for personal use. Royalties are owed if you make over a certain income.

Free, Open Source GDE/SDKs

Irrlicht

Maratis

Ogre

Art Creation/Editing Tools (Textures, Models, Etc.)

123D – A series of apps from Autodesk focusing on modeling

Blender – Modeling, animation

GIMP – 2D art, photo editing

Krita – Digital painting

MakeHuman – Modeling

MaP Zone – Textures

Sculptris – Modeling

SketchUp Make – Modeling

Wings 3D – Modeling

NeoTextureEdit – Procedural texture creation

Audio Creation/Editing Tools (Music, Sound Effects, Etc.)

Audacity – Sound editing

LMMS – Linux MultiMedia Studio (Windows version available). Music recording, mixing, editing

FamiTracker – Music creator from 8/16bit console generations

BFXE – 8-bit sound generator

as3sfxr – 8-bit sound generator

clker – Drawing, “Vector” conversions, and a wealth of public domain icons/clip-art

Assets

So, maybe you lack the skills or ability to create every, little sound or picture you need. These sites can help. Some of these locations only offer a taste of their content to the monetarily impaired. Everybody likes to eat, ya know? Still, the content freely available, either by virtue of quality or quantity, warrants a look.