Bevy
Game engines
A free, open-source, data-driven game engine built in Rust.
- Free
- Open source
Free game development resources
70 engines, tools, asset libraries and tutorials you can use without paying. “Free” here means free to use; for assets, still check whether you need to credit the creator.
Game engines
Bitsy
Game engines
Make tiny pixel-art exploration and story games in your browser.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Defold
Game engines
A free, lightweight engine for 2D games on mobile and web.
- Free
Godot Engine
Game engines
A free, open-source engine for 2D and 3D games.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
LÖVE
Game engines
A small, free framework for making 2D games in Lua.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Phaser
Game engines
A popular open-source framework for 2D browser games in JavaScript.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Scratch
Game engines
Snap code blocks together to make your very first games.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
TIC-80
Game engines
A free, open-source fantasy computer for small retro games.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Unreal Engine
Game engines
A high-end engine for realistic 3D games, with visual scripting.
- Free
Code & programming
libGDX
Code & programming
A Java framework for 2D and 3D games on desktop, Android and web.
- Free
- Open source
MonoGame
Code & programming
An open-source C# framework for 2D and 3D games.
- Free
- Open source
Pygame
Code & programming
A beginner-friendly library for making 2D games in Python.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
raylib
Code & programming
A simple, free C library for learning game programming.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Visual Studio Code
Code & programming
A free code editor that works with almost every game language.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Planning & teamwork
Gamedoora
Planning & teamwork
Free game-development production and collaboration platform.
- Free
- Good for beginners
GitHub Projects
Planning & teamwork
Task boards and roadmaps built into GitHub.
- Free
- Good for beginners
Art & graphics
Blender
Art & graphics
A free, open-source suite for 3D modelling, animation and more.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
GIMP
Art & graphics
A free, open-source image editor.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Inkscape
Art & graphics
A free, open-source vector drawing program.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Krita
Art & graphics
A free, open-source painting program for concept art and sprites.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
2D & pixel art
LibreSprite
2D & pixel art
A free, open-source sprite editor and animation tool.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Lospec
2D & pixel art
Palettes, tutorials and tools for pixel artists.
- Free resource
- Good for beginners
Piskel
2D & pixel art
A simple, free online editor for animated sprites.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Pixelorama
2D & pixel art
A free, open-source pixel-art editor, made with Godot.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
3D models & textures
ambientCG
3D models & textures
Free CC0 PBR materials, textures and HDRIs.
- Free
- Good for beginners
MagicaVoxel
3D models & textures
A free editor for building 3D art out of voxels (3D pixels).
- Free
- Good for beginners
Mixamo
3D models & textures
Auto-rig 3D characters and add free animations.
- Free
- Good for beginners
Poly Haven
3D models & textures
Free CC0 HDRIs, textures and 3D models.
- Free
- Good for beginners
Poly Pizza
3D models & textures
Thousands of free low-poly 3D models.
- Free
- Good for beginners
Quaternius
3D models & textures
Free CC0 low-poly 3D model packs.
- Free
- Good for beginners
Audio & music
Audacity
Audio & music
A free, open-source audio editor for recording and cleaning up sound.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
BeepBox
Audio & music
Make chiptune music in your browser in minutes.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Bfxr
Audio & music
Generate retro sound effects with a click.
- Free
- Good for beginners
Freesound
Audio & music
A huge collaborative library of sound recordings.
- Free resource
- Good for beginners
Incompetech
Audio & music
Royalty-free music by Kevin MacLeod, free with credit.
- Free
- Good for beginners
LMMS
Audio & music
A free, open-source music studio for making game soundtracks.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Sonniss GDC audio bundle
Audio & music
Free, royalty-free sound-effect bundles released every year.
- Free
- Good for beginners
ZzFX
Audio & music
A tiny JavaScript sound-effect generator for web games.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Game assets
Kenney
Game assets
Thousands of free, CC0 game assets for 2D, 3D, UI and audio.
- Free
- Good for beginners
OpenGameArt
Game assets
A community library of free art, music and sound for games.
- Free resource
- Good for beginners
UI & UX
Game-icons.net
UI & UX
Thousands of free game icons you can recolour and download.
- Free
- Good for beginners
Google Fonts
UI & UX
Free fonts, including many pixel and game-style typefaces.
- Free
- Good for beginners
Penpot
UI & UX
An open-source design and prototyping tool.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Level design
Story & game design
ink
Story & game design
A scripting language for branching dialogue, from inkle.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Twine
Story & game design
Write interactive, branching stories without code.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Yarn Spinner
Story & game design
A friendly dialogue system for Unity and Godot.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Version control
GitHub Desktop
Version control
The easiest way to start using Git, with no command line needed.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Sourcetree
Version control
A free visual Git client for Windows and macOS.
- Free
- Good for beginners
Testing & feedback
Google Forms
Testing & feedback
Free surveys for collecting playtest feedback.
- Free
- Good for beginners
Publishing
Game Jolt
Publishing
A community site for sharing indie games and devlogs.
- Free
- Good for beginners
GitHub Pages
Publishing
Free hosting for HTML5 games straight from a GitHub repository.
- Free
- Good for beginners
itch.io
Publishing
The easiest place to publish and share indie and jam games.
- Free
- Good for beginners
Newgrounds
Publishing
A classic community portal for browser games and animation.
- Free
- Good for beginners
Marketing & community
OBS Studio
Marketing & community
Free, open-source software for recording and streaming gameplay.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
ScreenToGif
Marketing & community
Record short GIFs of your game to share online.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
Learning
Brackeys
Learning
Beginner-friendly video tutorials for Unity and Godot.
- Free resource
- Good for beginners
A free Harvard course that rebuilds classic games step by step.
- Free resource
- Good for beginners
Game Maker's Toolkit
Learning
Video essays about why great game design works.
- Free resource
- Good for beginners
Game Programming Patterns
Learning
A free online book about structuring game code.
- Free resource
- Good for beginners
Godot documentation
Learning
Official Godot docs with a step-by-step first-game tutorial.
- Free resource
- Open source
- Good for beginners
r/gamedev
Learning
A large community for questions, feedback and discussion.
- Free resource
- Good for beginners
The Book of Shaders
Learning
A gentle, interactive introduction to writing shaders.
- Free resource
- Good for beginners
Unity Learn
Learning
Free official courses and pathways for learning Unity.
- Free resource
- Good for beginners
Game jams
Awesome Game Jam
Game jams
A community-curated list of tools and assets for game jams.
- Free resource
- Good for beginners
Game Jam Resources
Game jams
A curated hub of resources so jammers spend more time creating.
- Free resource
- Good for beginners
Global Game Jam
Game jams
The world's largest in-person game jam, held every year.
- Free
- Good for beginners
itch.io game jams
Game jams
A calendar of upcoming and ongoing online game jams.
- Free
- Good for beginners
Ludum Dare
Game jams
A long-running online jam with solo and team tracks.
- Free
- Good for beginners