Bevy
Game engines
A free, open-source, data-driven game engine built in Rust.
- Free
- Open source
Open-source game development tools
Open-source tools publish their code for anyone to read and improve. They are almost always free, they will not disappear if a company changes its mind, and many have friendly communities. Here are 35 of them, grouped by what they do.
Game engines
Bitsy
Game engines
Make tiny pixel-art exploration and story games in your browser.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
GDevelop
Game engines
An open-source, no-code engine for 2D and 3D games.
- Free + paid plans
- Open source
- Good for beginners
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
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
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
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
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
LMMS
Audio & music
A free, open-source music studio for making game soundtracks.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
ZzFX
Audio & music
A tiny JavaScript sound-effect generator for web games.
- Free
- Open source
- Good for beginners
UI & UX
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
GitLab
Version control
Git hosting with built-in CI/CD and planning tools.
- Free + paid plans
- Open source
- 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
Godot documentation
Learning
Official Godot docs with a step-by-step first-game tutorial.
- Free resource
- Open source
- Good for beginners