Like many game developers, I often get questions about what tools I use in my work. So here’s my current set:
Game Engines
- Unity
- Defold
I’m learning Defold and I am trying to move to that, at least for some projects. I’ve been impressed with Defold for how clean and fast it is, and with great results for web games.
Unity is good and has a wealth of available learning resources and assets. But the editor can be pretty slow. And since Unity Technologies is a public company, the game developers that are using the engine will not be their first priority. The company has sometimes acted in a volatile way and has been inconsistent with their user terms.
I’ve used many other engines in the past and I’ve released games using Flash, Construct, and GameMaker. They all had their own unique pros and cons.
Art
- Illustrator
- Affinity Photo
- Aseprite
- Blender
Adobe is another giant I’m trying to move away from. I think their subscription models are way too inflexible. And when they launch new features, they rarely appeal to me. They also keep pushing AI tools and cloud services to the front, and I’ve got no interest in any of that. I’ve managed to shed everything apart from Illustrator, which I’ve had a hard time replacing.
Affinity Photo works pretty well for me as a Photoshop alternative, and Aseprite is great for pixel art. It is rare that I do any 3D, but if I do it will be in Blender.
Animation
- Spine
- Blender
- Aseprite
Spine is fantastic for skeletal animations, and so is Aseprite for pixel art frame-by-frame animation.
Music / Audio
- Renoise
- Audacity
I’ve been using trackers for a long time, so Renoise works really well for me. I also like Plogue‘s soft synths.
Other
- Tiled
- Obsidian
- LibreOffice
I keep coming back to Tiled for level editing, LibreOffice for writing, and Obsidian has been great for project management and notes.