There is far more to building a game then just writing code, especially for a good game. So here are the apps I just can’t live without and would highly recommend for anyone else thinking of writing a game. Best of all it’s all free (so that dodgy copy of Photoshop you’ve got installed doesn’t count).
Some of these are similar, but just like how I own both a large and a small screwdriver it’s good to have multiple pieces of software for achieving tasks. Sometimes you want something heavy (to do the job right), sometimes you want something light (to do the job fast). Here is my selection.
Audio
Audacity
I’ve used plenty of audio file converters that do a really bad job at converting audio. Audacity is the only one that I’ve never been disappointed with, and that is what I use this for; converting .MP3s to much smaller .OGGs to save on file size.
sfxr
Tiny simple app for quickly generating cheap and cheerful 8-bit like sound effects. Just awesome to be able to make some random power up sounds within a few minutes. I’ve used it recently for some pickup and death sounds in Space Snake Galaxies (which is nearing completion). Best of all I love it’s funky interface:
Art
Paint.NET
My favourite of all the apps on this list, a really nice simple graphics editor. There are plenty which are more powerful, but every part of Paint.NET is very, very, very nicely implemented. I find myself doing lots of resizing, cropping and conversions between image types and this app beats all others (I’d argue even the big guy Photoshop) at those jobs. Not because it does more, but because what it does do it does to an excellent standard.
I used it to paste, crop and save all of the screenshots dotted around this page, and all of the screenshots on each of my games pages. It’s built for those quick-edit jobs.
Gimp
It is no Photoshop, but it is good. I’m also not suggesting this as an alternative to Paint.NET, I’m recommending it to be used alongside it. It’s more advanced and more powerful, but also more fiddly, so end up only using this for any proper artwork.
Recently I’ve started going through the GTuts gimp tutorials. Above is the result of following their planet tutorial, and only took about an hour.
ColorPic
One of the must have tools on my list, it can grab colours from anything open on your desktop. It was dead useful whilst implementing the StudioFortress site for getting the hex values of the various colours in my designs. It’s just a tiny dead useful app.
Blender
I’ve only recently started using this, but one alternative to drawing 2D sprites is to render them from a 3D object. This is very common in many triple A 2D titles such as Age of Empires 2 (and probably AoE 1 too). This is something I’d love to do myself in a future project when I get more experience using it, so it’s currently more of a wannabe tool then one I actually use.
One thing to mention are the excellent Blender tutorials on the official site, especially the videos. Following them saved me hours of learning.
Programming
Ok, so I do have some programming tools here. But they aren’t for coding the game itself. These are programming tools I use to help me program and build games. Both are terminals…
Powershell
Microsoft’s answer to BASH, but fully object-oriented and with access to .NET. Comes with Windows 7, but you can get it for other Windows OSs too. Essentially just a good terminal, and a damn useful calculator. I often find myself using this whilst drawing with vector image apps in order to work out some of the precise locations to place things.
Ruby/IRB
When I want to use Powershell for something more than just one-line terminal commands, I tend to write it in Ruby. Especially if it involves lots of strings and file IO like converting text files from one format to another. IRB stands for ‘Interactive Ruby’ and allows you to write and run Ruby code as you type (although similar exists for Python, Java and many other languages). Dead handy for working out formulas and the values you should use with them, as you can test and alter your ideas as you type.
After Completion
So your massively multiplayer RTS meets FPS game with RPG elements is finally complete. What next? There are some tools I use for helping with getting the final content done.
7-Zip
.jar archives are just zip files with some metadata inside. Sometimes you need to edit the content of these, just want to confirm what is inside or need to extract the classes for dumping into a classpath. Any zip decompression application will work, but I prefer 7-zip because unlike WinRAR it’s free for commercial use. For an indie developer this means you can save money (or avoid using software illegally)
JSmooth
If you program in Java (like me) and want to distribute desktop apps on Windows (like me) then this is the app you need. It won’t compile your Java app to native code (a JVM is still required on the users machine) but it will make it look like a .exe, just like a regular native Windows app.
NSIS
Installers might be annoying, and might also be unwanted, but if used well they make your app or game look more professional and makes a lot of novice PC users feel more comfortable (that something is handling the whole installation process for you). Nullsoft Scriptable Install System is essentially the best free creator of install wizards. It does the job and it does it well.
A quick look at Wikipedia will also reveal a long list of professional apps using NSIS; including the Intel C compilers, DivX, FileZilla, Winamp, FireFox and more! That’s a very impressive client list to have for an open source project which alone is a sign of quality.
FileZilla
Some people reading this might recommend FireBug FireFTP instead and rave about how awesome it is. I’m sure they are right, but when I have a slow and dodgy connection I find FireBug unusable. FileZilla is just as good but is also better at handling re-connecting and that’s why I use it. The file transfer and folder windows are perfect for me, end of.
Is that it?
Well no. I also use some commercial software. I don’t think these are as necessary as those above, but I’ll mention them.
Expression Design 2
Another art package, but this is specifically for vector graphics. I was given a free copy by Microsoft and have loved it since. Most of the graphics in Planetoids, the GUI in Pip the Pea, the logo for ColdWar Chaos, and all of the graphics for Twilight and Circles were all made using this.
Microsoft Office
… or more particularly I use PowerPoint for building quick mock-ups and specifications of game ideas and then detail them further in a Word document. This allows me to get the ideas down quickly, and then show them to other game developers and programmers I know to get their opinion. Getting the game design right before you start can save a lot of hard work later down the road.
Lately I’ve also spent a lot of time documenting potential projects I’d like to work on in the future. The idea is to help gauge a general direction of development that I could take over the coming year rather than darting from one random project to the next. For example I have some game tools thought up which would be very useful for some separate game ideas I’ve had. Documenting this allows you to regain your thoughts when you finally get around to working on those projects.