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This is a regularly updated list of game design tools, sounds and graphics. Everything on this list is primarily free, or has a free trial period. If you need some inspiration for ideas try here, or if you've never made a game before and want some help, look here.

Adventure Creator

A paid plugin for Unity which helps you make adventure games without any coding.

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Adventure Game Studio

A great way to make point and click ‘LucasArts / Monkey Island’ style adventure games all wrapped up in one package.

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Affinity Photo

A cheaper competitor to Adobe Photoshop, this software can be useful for editing your game art.

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Asana

One of the most popular tools used by game developers, Asana has a number of features that make it lightweight and great for game development planning and production.

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Audacity

A multitrack sound program. Record, edit and add effects to your sounds before exporting them for your game.

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BFXR

Online or downloadable tool which allows you to easily (with one button press!) create and edit sound effects for your game.

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BandLab

Powerful free in-browser tool allowing you to create, record, synthesize, mix and share music.

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BeepBox

An online tool in your browser tool to help you easily sketch and share music ideas for your game.

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Bitsy

Free online in-browser game engine, which allows you to create simple games and worlds around exploring and narrative.

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Blender

Powerful 3D modeling tool allowing you to create 3D assets for your games.

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Buildbox

Create and publish 2D or 3D mobile games without the need to write any code.

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Clickteam Fusion

No code required, and very easy to get started. Make a 2D physics based game similar to Angry Birds in under an hour.

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CoDecks

A playful project management/planning tool designed specifically with game development in mind

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Construct

Powerful game engine which runs in a browser with no coding required, using an innovative ‘block-based’ approach for logic.

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Core games

Make multiplayer games harnessing the power of Unreal Engine without having to write a line of code.

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Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a type of copyright license that can help you find free art and audio for your game.

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Cry Engine

Fully featured game engine allowing you to make AAA quality games for any platform.

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Defold

Game engine, allowing you to make 2D and 3D games in the Lua programming language.

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Dreams

A playful space to create games, art, films and music, and play thousands of creations made by others.

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Dulst

Create an online multiplayer card game that can be played in your browser.

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Dungeonscript

An open source game engine, allowing you to make simple 3D puzzle games in your browser.

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Emotica

A game-maker that allows you to make small games using only emojis.

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Flickgame

A ‘tiny game engine’ which lets you make small web games in the style of MS Paint.

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Freesound.org

A library of various sounds that are free to download and use.

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Fungus

Free plugin for Unity which can help you make games with no coding.

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GB Studio

Create 2D JRPG retro style games without any coding, that can be played on an emulator or console.

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Gamemaker Studio 2

A powerful drag-and-drop game engine for making 2D games.

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Gimp

Free and open source powerful cross platform image editor.

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Godot

A free game engine for making 2D and 3D games, with extra features to support programmers.

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Google Docs

A free selection of online tools that allow you to collaborate with other team members through word documents and spreadsheets. It's the simplest digital tool you can use to organise yourself.

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Graphics Gale

A pixel art tool for making game art and animations that you can easily put in your game.

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Hack 'n' Plan

Used by lots of indie development studios, Hack'n'Plan has been designed from the ground up for team based game development.

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HacknPlan

Project management and planning tool made specifically with game design teams in mind.

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Hopscotch

Mobile creative development for younger folks (on iOS devices) (8-14) without writing code.

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INK Script

A powerful natural mark-up language to create interactive fiction.

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Inform

A system to create interactive fiction using natural language syntax

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JSFXR

Jsfxr is a website that generates free sound effects for your game.

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Kenney

A huge free library of game assets, including sounds, effects, and 2D and 3D art.

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Lumberyard

Amazon's 2D and 3D game engine, using Lua and C++.

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LÖVE

A tool for building 2D games in the Lua programming language.

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Monogame

A free C# framework for building games for any platform.

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Notion

A shared workspace to help youi collaborate with teammates while you develop your game together.

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Open Game Art

A large library of video game art, including sprites, models and backgrounds.

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Openclipart

A huge library of free clip art images to use in your game.

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Paint.net

A free image and photo editor tool, with many of the same editing functions as Photoshop, but completely free.

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Paradise

A game where you can shape the enviroment you play in, by interacting with the world.

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Pico-8

A cute game engine for making 2D games with visual art and audio editors, and a Lua editor for programming game elements.

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Piskel

A free online editor for pixel art and animated sprites

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Pling Pling

PlingPling is a fun in-browser tool for making HTML pinball games.

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PuzzleScript

An open source game engine, allowing you to make simple 2D puzzle games in your browser.

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Quest

Let's you create text adventure games and interactive choose your own adventure game books

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RPG Maker MV

RPG Maker is a program for making role-playing games (RPGs) that requires no coding experience.

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Reaper

Reaper is a multitrack audio production application that you could use to record, edit, process, and mix your game audio.

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Ren'Py

Ren’Py is a free visual novel engine that helps you use words, images, and sounds to tell interactive stories.

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Roblox

An online platform for making a variety of game types and for playing games made by other users.

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SFX Buzz

SFX Buzz is a library of free sound effects including instrumentals.

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Scratch

Scratch is a free online game-making tool primarily aimed at teaching young people how to make games.

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Scratch

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Sketchup

SketchUp is a 3D modeling program that you can use to make objects for your game.

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Solar2D

Open source game engine based on Lua, with foundation on the Corona SDK game engine.

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Stencyl

Stencyl is a game-maker that lets you create Flash games for free or desktop/mobile games with a paid account.

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Substance Painter

Designed with one specific job in mind, to professionally texture your 3D assets.

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Super Game Asset

Super Game Asset is a library of free and paid assets you could download and use in your games.

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Tinychoice

Tinychoice is a simple tool for making small text games in HTML.

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Tracery

Tracery is a simple tool and language to generate text for bots, games, and stories.

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Trello

A free to use online tool that allows the organisation of individual or team task lists. It is easy to get started and seen as a benchmark organisational tool. Good for first-time developers and indie studios looking to get more organised.

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