List of useful Game designing tools

Thanks, this may be just what I'm looking for. I'm in Zimbabwe so I need to stay up on ways to work remotely with people.

 

Really interesting thread. Thanks for taking the time to put this up together!

For file sharing, we use Copy.com, it's easy as dropbox but free and you start with 15GB. The good thing, is when you invite people you both get (the inviter and invitee) a 5GB bonus.

For managing Tasks and Team, we like to use planbox.com. Though this solution is far from cheap.

One note, can also be a nice alternative for Text collaboration.

 

I've used Asana (www.asana.com) for collaboration/project management
OmniGraffle (https://www.omnigroup.com/omnigraffle) is a great graphing chart app alternative to MS Visio for Mac People.

I honestly can't believe MS Excel isn't on that list now, probably the most important design tool in my toolbox.

Google Docs / Google Spreadsheets also for a free version and also collaborative doc sharing / editing

 

For me, an invaluable tool is OneNote. It comes pre-installed with Windows 8 (though I think you can download it from somewhere aswell), and it's free. You can make interactive to do-lists, game design documents, plans and text documents in general. The only thing it might lack is support for images, but if you needed images, I'd say use MS Word

Also, fantastic thread!

 

So many tools, good!

 

I've started designing mechanisms with UMLet, an open-source UML sketching programme, and I heartily recommend it. It's aimed at making quick UML sketches, so it doesn't allow you to generate code from any diagrams, but it's very lightweight and easy to use.

 

Cacoo is another collaborative diagram program. It has some handy templates and chat.

 

all suggestion are good. i recommend MS visio is good for desiging.

 

That may sound weird, but Twine can be a good tool to produce stories with multiple choices/endings.

 

A screen capturing software that people forget about is QuickTime player. File > new screen recording, full screen at a decent frame rate with no water mark.

Unfortunately, I pretty sure its Mac only.

 

What about Sculptris it's free program for sculpting, and Simplygon for making LOD

 

Another neat resource is The Game Design Forum.

While it's not interactive at all, and hasn't been updated since 2013, it has some great dissections of classic games like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, and Super Mario World. The ideas contained in said articles are themselves a wealth of knowledge, and provide some good principles for your own designs (the idea of mutations on a base challenge, NPC sociology, and metonymic time are all exceptionally useful.)

 

MakeHuman : http://www.makehuman.org/ is a great tool for small teams or single individuals like myself that are still fresh to 3d modeling and need human characters.

Linux Multi Media Studios is also nice for sound and music even if you are a noob like me, it comes with a pretty good library of sound clips and beats you can make for games.

Beside that like others I can't stress Pen or Pencil and Paper enough, my 3d modeling teacher grilled in our heads to always draw it on paper before trying to put it in the computer.

 

Thank you for this big list of great programs.

 

Machinations is pretty useful to test out mechanics. Found out about it in the book "Game Mechanics - Advanced Game Design", which I also recommend.

 

I use https://www.websequencediagrams.com/ a lot, unbelievably easy sequence diagram creator.

 

if you re in free Tools :
pixologic SCULPTRIS , too bad there won't be a new version

and FWIW : adobe CS2 is totally free (abandonware) ans makes 99% of the job..

 

https://clara.io/ is something very promising

 

It'd make things easier if you describe what the products are to save people following links to stuff they may have no interest in. Maybe edit your posts giving some indication of what they are.

 

ok, then, sculptris is a free sculp tool edited by pixologic (zbrush), i gues it was a test bench to try some new techniques for sculpting (dynamic tessallation).
is is very simple to handle, very user friendly and if you know how to make custom brushes you can really achieve nice things.
btw, it has a simple paint tool very useful when you want to paint or sketch colors on a model..BTW is allows to paint ob bump map witch is very useful to refine some détails....

Clara IO is an online modeling and rendering tool very close of 3dsMax easy to handle.

 

Thanks - I meant no negativity at all in my comment. I was just trying to aid all readers.. I'm being picky again, but it'd be much better if you edited your original posts and added the info there - context with content (yes I'm an annoying arse ) - of course you're within every right to just ignore me... That's what my wife does!

 

no pb i've put my magic shield on

 

Not sure if anyone has pushed this link on here or not, but this guy gives away a few awesome assets that are noteworthy:

https://github.com/prime31

I use his 2D character controller a lot

 

We started using Twine (www.twinery.org) at college to work out story flow since it is used to help make choose-your-own adventure type stories but I found it was also useful for plotting simple logic flows for coding as well. I.e instead of just having "do you go left", "do you go right", you can also include stuff like "do they have the red key (y)" "do they have the red key (n)". People also used it to help map out environments & flow through structures so that each new Twine page was a new room & where they linked to indicated where there were doors/thoroughfares.

 

My company has been using Phabricator for project management, since it is free to install on your own server (we host it in an AWS EC2 instance), and they also seem to be spinning up hosting here, although it may be pricy for some: http://phacility.com/pricing/. Integrated wiki, task tracking, can host or monitor source control, and has support for code review, design mockups, (memes and image macros) and seems to be constantly updated. Was spun out from Facebook's project management system, so there's pedigree there.

It's also nice the documentation has a since of humor.

 

Those are Mac only, but very capable, yet affordable:
Affinity Designer (alternative to Adobe Illustrator): https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/designer/
Affinity Photo (alternative to Adobe Photoshop): https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/

 

I wonder if donjon (http://donjon.bin.sh) should be added to the list. It's main purpose is content generation (prototyping), but if you think about drafting a prototype of your world it does a pretty good job.
ThomasR

 

These are all great list of game designing. It gives an advantage for use to enjoy our game which are we need the most.

 

how about MEGA as a hoster? 50gb plus syncing software. Alltime full encryption...

 

Skype and TeamViewer... anyone?

AND WHERE THE F%#K IS BLENDER?

Also Sketchup Warehouse is a great place to get 3D models.

 

Blender fits more a 3D artist rather than a game designer.

 

Oh and fix OneDrive, it comes with 5GB free now.
Really the only thing going for OneDrive is its seamless Windows integration, that's why I love using it

 

Mark for this.Thanks a lot.

 

Project management and source control (Version control or GIT)

TFS - http://www.visualstudio.com

 

OllyDebugger is one of my favourite tool. As its name, the tool's used to fix bugs of applications. I'm using it for my private MMO. In particular, OllyDebugger's discussed on many gaming forums.

 

Asana.com is a fantastic tool that hooks into Github nicely. You can schedule tasks, use gantt charts sync with google drive and dropbox etc. It allows for infinite isolated projects and infinitely nested tasks (if you so desire) and can assign owners and due dates to each one. If you use the Github hook you can add the task ID in the commit message and the appropriate task on Asana will be updated with commit details for easily discussing code reviews or just showing that you fixed a bug or something. It's what my team uses and it works incredibly well.

 

Just looked at the list and realized there is no Visual Studio! Visual Studio is very useful and should be included!

 

it was...4 posts earlier
and yes it's usefull for source control...... when you can get it installed prolerly :/

 

Check this to create low poly citys:
www.lowpolybuilder.com

 

If you use Unity Personal and you think its UI is too bright (like I do):
You can, at least, use HazeOver for dimming the background when you test your game in the Play window.
Just make sure it's not used as a tab but rather than an individual window.
Then, you can dim the remaining UI in the back and focus.

 

For building, skyscraper and city layouts for fast concept designs generated in SketchUp Make Free version or Pro:

https://skyscraperfx.wordpress.com/

Soon SKyscraperFX Game Level Designer is coming out with some larger layout scale utilities. But for now the SkyscraperFX 2D-to-3D generator works good for very interesting urban FX and skyscrapers and can use AutoCAD to port 2D layouts for quick visual concept designing and overall macro scale game level design models between SketchUp and AutoCAD.

 

Xmind : http://www.xmind.net/

Xmind let you make diagramm and brain storm easily. I use it really often to organize my idea. There is a free version which is complete enough.

 

http://xelnath.com/learning-from-my-past/

Might be a useful resource for some.

 

I was just going to say Xmind, a great free mind mapper, but the guy 2 comments up beat me to it.

 

Very useful information.

 

Going to add the few mainstays I've used over my career below. Although it's an old thread it seems many keep turning up here, so I figure its better to keep them coming!

• Moqups - UI/UX wireframing tool, free and web based
• Basecamp - Project management, chat, task tracking, designer friendly interface
• Google Docs - Easily THE most valuable tool I have in my arsenal. We shipped games running live google doc spreadsheets to handle all of our game content data for a live game servicing over 5million players. I also use their sheets for relative calculators when balancing my game economies.
  
• Playmaker - I use Playmaker to quickly evaluate ideas in Unity, it helps me communicate systems to the programmers that will eventually implement them fully.
• Construct 2 - An awesome HTML 5 engine that lets you evaluate ideas really quickly in 2D space. I've used this for quick UI mock-ups to show interactivity.
  
• Slack - While not a design specific tool, its a great chat app that our design team uses to manage our design discussions via the channel systems for project specific chats.

 

Wow! That is long list. Thank you!

 

Thanks, good links here. I'd also say, for the purposes of getting past any sort of creative block, check out Oblique Strategies by Brian Eno.

You can use it for free on this website: http://stoney.sb.org/eno/oblique.html

There are also numerous software, app, and print versions.

HOW TO USE: If you are stuck creatively, simply look at a card in the deck and try to apply it to what you're doing. It's not always going to make sense, but it should help you think of new ideas. It was originally designed for musicians, but has since been used by all types of creatives.

 

Hey all,

When I was working on my game, I had my brother send me an image swatch of colors following a gradient, and I had to use a color picker on each color to get the color code one by one. This weekend I had some free time and created this tool. Essentially, you can upload your own image or use the color palette and click anywhere on it to get the color code. The color code will show up on the right and you can just copy and paste all the codes in a line when you're done. I added a Color32 prefix for Unity developing.

https://colorpickerultra.com/

Since I've felt the pain of going one by one to get codes, I figured I'd share with y'all.

 

hi,

Please update the definition for Inkscape. Your description reads like it's just a silly Google Hangouts gimmick.
Which it is not, at all!

Inkscape is a professional vector graphics editor for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It's free and open source.
It's like illustrator. And ideal for anyone who doesnt want to pay the price of illustrator or uses linux.

You can use it to create buttons, images, backgrounds, mockups, logo's, ... any kind of 2D vector art.