Free Tools

[C.Y. Reid]

Hi guys, this is a list of free tools you can use to help you make
your game during the Game Journo Game Jam.

Design/Development:

Stencyl (www.stencyl.com) - an incredible drag-and-drop game design
tool that allows you to go as easily as basic logic and as deep as the
code, with a built-in level editor, Stencyl is incredible. It can
release games in Flash, for Google Chrome, and for iOS, with Android
and HTML5 currently in the works. Stencyl 2.0 has just been released,
so it's worth grabbing it to work with.

GameMaker Lite (http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/windows) - this is
an industry staple tool for indie developers, used by everyone from
just-starting-out devs to Vlambeer for rapid prototyping. A little
less glamorous looking but just as efficient, the free version will
allow you to save and use various features, but for a full comparison
list, head to the aforementioned link. This one is Windows only, but
there's a paid Mac version on the App Store.

Flixel (www.flixel.org) - this is a full Flash game library, made by
Adam Atomic (Kanabalt, etc). If you're familiar with Actionscript,
this is an ideal tool to use, as you can, I'd imagine (I'm a nub) do a
hell of a lot with it. Flashpunk (www.flashpunk.net) is another
similar tool.

RPG Maker (http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/store): Does what it says on the
tin - allows you to make an RPG relatively simply, with a database
system etc in-built. There's four different versions, but outside a
trial, none of them are free. Booo. BUT! The 30-day trial version is
free. Yep. So as long as you install it at the start of the jam and
work quickly, you should be fine.

Graphics:

GIMP (www.gimp.org) - this is basically a free, not-as-amazing version
of Photoshop. Decent, though, and allows you to create art reasonably
quickly.

mtPaint (http://mtpaint.en.softonic.com/) - a free tool with a high
zoom, pixel art is pretty easy using this.

Pixen (http://pixenapp.com) - if you're on OSX, this app is a goddamn
godsend. Really incredible pixel art editor, can't fault it although
if you merge two layers, one gets darker, for some reason. Might be a
bug in an older version. Pixia (http://www.ne.jp/asahi/mighty/knight/)
seems like a reasonable alternative for Windows users.

Music:

Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) - Worth a punt if you're
looking for a way to put multiple audio tracks together, but it's not
got a lot, if anything, to offer in the way of actually creating new
sounds.

Ableton (www.ableton.com) - This is a 30-day trial, but of Ableton. If
you're not aware of it, it's a professional, industry-standard music
production suite, and it's seriously goddamn advanced from what I can
tell, having poked about in it briefly. Worth it for the jam!

Acid Xpress (http://www.acidplanet.com/downloads/xpress/) - Sony's
loop-based music-making program, Acid Xpress, seems a reasonable tool
to use if you want to knock together a few tunes without delving in
too deep.

That's what I could find thus far in a small space of time, hope this
helps. If you're willing to actually spend money on this, then the
sky's the limit, guys, but some free stuff never hurts.

CY