This is a list of tools that people use to help make their games. The point of this list is to make known some of the tools that are out there, so that newcomers can have a handy informative list to dig through. Then they can spend less time looking at engines and art programs and such, and more time making games.
Try to keep these alphabetical.
Tools[]
These are game making tools that have integrated editors that assist in making parts of the game. They usually have a smaller difficulty curve than an engine or library. However, sometimes the ease of development will cost you, because the engines sometimes have limitations on what the user can accomplish. But (in the case of 3D engines especially) it may be something you're willing to live with.
Historic[]
- Activision Gamemaker
Text or Ascii Based[]
- Inform
- Megazeux
- ZZT
General-Purpose[]
- BYOND - Official BYOND site
- Construct Classic - Official Construct Classic site
- Construct 2 - Official Construct 2 site
- Game Maker - Official Game Maker site
- Novashell - Official NovaShell site
RPGs[]
- ika
- OHRRPGCE
- RPGMaker - Official RPGMaker site
- Sphere
- Verge
Adventure Games[]
Clickteam[]
- Click & Create
- Jamagic
- Klik'n'Play
- Multimedia Fusion
- Multimedia Fusion 2
- The Games Factory
- The Games Factory 2
Flash[]
- Flashdevelop
- Flex Builder
- Flash IDE
3D[]
- Blitz3D - Official Blitz Basic site
- GameCore - Official GameCore site
- GameStart - Official GameStart site
- Unity - Official Unity site
- Unreal Development Kit - Official UDK site
- Blender Game Engine - Official Blender site
Libraries and Engines[]
These are game making tools that provide most of their flexibility through user programming. They typically don't provide everything out of the box, but allow enough flexibility to build useful things by hand-coding. Libraries tend to make everything happen through explicit user code in a particular language. Engines on the other hand, usually have hooks and callbacks and/or have a scripting language through which the user can control their game.
3D[]
- App Game Kit
- Maratis Engine
- Irrlicht Engine
- JMonkeyEngine Official JMonkeyEngine site
- OGRE Official OGRE site
- Panda3D Official Panda3D site
2D[]
- Allegro
- Box2D
- Chipmunk
- Cocos2D Official Cocos2D site
- Cocos2D-XOfficial Cocos2D-X site
- Flash
- Flashpunk
- Flixel
- LÖVE2D Official Cocos2D site
- Pygame
- Pyglet
- SDL
- SFML
Level Editors[]
These are game making tools that assist in making level formats that can be loaded in by different engines.
- Tiled
- Ogmo Editor
Drawing[]
These are tools that are utilized in make art assets for games.
Modeling[]
These are tools that are used to create 3D objects which can be used by games.
Sound Effects[]
These help with the creation of sounds in games.
Music Composition[]
These are used to make soundtracks and background music for games.
- Famitracker
- GarageBand
- Milky Tracker
- Modplug Tracker
- pxtone
- Reason
- Renoise