Top 10 Game Development Tools For 2024

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► Make your game instantly beautiful with my free workbook: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-i...
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► Wishlist Twisted Tower: store.steampowered.com/app/15...
► Learn how to make money as a KZbinr: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-i...
► What I believe: • What I Believe
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:35 Team Communication
01:03 Project Management
02:06 Annoying Ad Read
02:57 Concepting
04:11 Game Engine
05:52 Scripting Tool
06:52 2D Art Tool
08:41 3D Art Tool
10:14 3D Painting
11:26 Sound Editing
12:28 Music Composition
13:39 The Ultimate Game Dev Tool!
15:28 Conclusion

[@thomasbrush]

Thanks for watching! Hope you learned a ton. ► Learn how to become a full time game dev, free: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-in-how-to-make-six-figures ► Enroll in my 3D workshop, free!: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-in-15-minute-3D-game ► Make your game instantly beautiful with my free workbook: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-in-instant-beauty-color-workbook ► Get my 2D game kit, free: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-in-2D-game-kit ► Join my 2D character workshop, free: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-in-2d-character-art-workshop ► Wishlist Twisted Tower: store.steampowered.com/app/1575990/Twisted_Tower/ ► Learn how to make money as a KZbinr: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-in-indie-game-income-workshop

[@Anonymuuse]

I KNOW you did not just suggest to Indies to do sound design in AUDACITY??!?!?!

[@NoName-jg1ub]

hey thomas im a beginner game developer and I use unity. would you recommend me using the most updated version of unity since there's so many different versions

[@Zizaco]

It's very interesting to see a "difficulty scale" for each tool. Great list! Here are some additional recommendations: - Photopea: It's Photoshop, but for free. It also uses PSD files, so the integrations you mentioned also work with it. - Libresprite: Aseprite, but free and open-source. - DaVinci Resolve: Alternative to Adobe Premiere, but free. Movies edited in DaBinciResolve: Alien: Covenant, Avatar, Deadpool 2, Jason Bourne, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, La La Land, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi

[@TYNEPUNK]

just started on davinci! Its a bit rough (I cannot work out how to float the preview window so its always tiny) but the free version does work well. Thanks im going to check Photopea!

[@SirusStarTV]

Using photopea because photoshop just crushes everytime i open something.

[@mikeha]

@@TYNEPUNK the learning curve is steep to be an expert in Resolve, I think their manual pdf is about 7000 pages long, but it's easy to learn the basics

[@TYNEPUNK]

@@mikeha yeh, I made a trailer in one day, but im already experienced with premier and ae. Do you know a way to float the preview window so i can use it on a second screen?

[@Fafr]

But isn't Aseprite open-source too? Why not use it?

[@DataPunkStudios]

Blender can do animations, rigging, texture painting, etc, as well and as someone came from maya, it can still perform even at a AAA level. pixel art, I also recommend pyxel edit, especially for painting tilesets in pixel art, and even sprite work. texturing, I agree that substance is good if you want that material based "drag and drop" kind of feel, but if you want a hand painted experience, blender is alright if you get a brush pack and a couple of addons, I also recommend highly for hand painted models is 3dcoat, which is super great as well. Accurig is fairly new and free and its great for getting biped models rigged quickly as well. Just wanted to add to this for any early developers.

[@MatthewHarmon]

Really should add version control. Critical even for solo devs.

[@322ss]

Yeah, Git is free - many good GUI clients for it too that are free or affordable.

[@FlameOfInsanity]

Personally, I think aseprite itself is a 1-2/10 difficulty. Software itself is relatively easy to learn, it's making the pixel art/animations look good that's the hard part.

[@Zodiacman16]

Yeah, after learning both Aseprite and Photoshop I'd honestly say Aseprite is easier. Especially when you're making tile sets.

[@laughinglllama]

Thomas, I really like playing your games, but I think your greatest skill/talent is making the music. I often listen to the music from your games because it's amazing! I would love it if you could make a video where you talk about how you create music, the software you use, VSTs, samples, and all that stuff. It would be super interesting!

[@wiispeed03]

Yes this'd be awesome!

[@FelipeKana1]

PLEASE

[@Fuller_Fundamentals]

FL Studio is a bit easier to learn and offers many stock sounds and tools as well. The new version has alot of quality of life changes that makes it more user friendly to beginners because it can be overwhelming at first. You also have more control in my opinion

[@nateroo1486]

For 2D art I'll throw out Clip Studio Paint as a more affordable long term alternative to Photoshop. It's a one time purchase if you don't care about their optional subscription stuff, a lot of the tools from photoshop are there and/or are compatable with it, and it has .psd export options. Krita is also a good free option with only a mildly more intense learning curve. Way better than Gimp imo.

[@OrangeAceGaming]

Personally recommend Davinci Resolve. It’s free (industry standard for Hollywood), the workflow is so much smoother and easier than Premier, and it’s great for sound editing as well as video. I’m a part of an up-and-coming narrative podcast, and that’s what our editor uses. 3/10 difficulty for the most part, unless you want to get really fancy with color-grading (which is why it’s Hollywood standard).

[@mpbMKE]

I'd be careful throwing out terms like "industry standard," when most edit houses still use Avid Media Composer, and a distant second place is still Premiere with Resolve closing in. That said, I would not recommend *anyone* learn Avid, "industry standard" or not, because it's not an enjoyable experience, and Resolve is just sitting there charging $0 to use with all the features of a modern NLE you need.

[@exoZelia]

its industry standard JUST for colour grading

[@deviantstudio]

@@mpbMKEedit houses? you mean like 1% of the market? novadays most of the video content is being edited by individuals at home. and yes, it mostly davinci and premiere

[@mpbMKE]

@deviantstudio Orange Ace said "Hollywood films," and no, no one is just cutting together studio films by themselves at home, lmao.

[@OrangeAceGaming]

@@exoZelia Yes. Which I stated

[@frankgwarman]

As an Audio Engineer, I would recommend everyone use Reaper for their audio needs. Music or SFX! Easy to learn, highly customizable, and tons of reaources! Starts as free, and when your trial ends you lose no features and can still use as is. Eventually you will pay for the full license because it is so worth it!

[@jonathanjblair]

Hadn't heard of Reaper. I'll have to check it out thanks.

[@EyvindurKarlssonOfficial]

I'm a professional musician and do the occasional voiceover and things, and I couldn't agree more! Reaper was a life-changer, after using Pro Tools and Reason and other DAWs for years. Never going back.

[@Inf4mousKidGames]

I actually know about Reaper because it's the tool used by the rock band devs to test and add songs to their game

[@frankgwarman]

@@Inf4mousKidGames had no idea! That's a cool factoid to know. Thanks for sharing :)

[@322ss]

11:08 FYI - Substance Painter is also available in Steam as a one time purchase, with some limitations compared to subscription version. And you'll eventually have to buy the next year's version if and when Adobe updates it, as you can keep the software, but you don't get endless free updates.

[@Strixkrieg]

For making music, Reaper by far is the best affordable option. It is insanely powerful, and is really cheap. Technically, it can be free because its demo is the full package with guiltware. But it is an amazing DAW. Its only drawback is its UI is very intimidating for beginners to learn, but it uses the same music/sound design rules as any other DAW.

[@GarrethDean1]

On the texture painting as well. Free to use is quixel mixer. An par with Substance painter but free. (free last time I checked )

[@codymccarty9327]

130 comments, not one mentions quixel mixer. I like mixer

[@MoldyGeese]

i love how ive used programs like photoshop, gimp and audacity that are ranked so low in the difficulty scale and i absolutely could not figure them out. Gimp was a nightmare :'>

[@AfzaalAhmadZeeshan]

The support for 2D art tools (Photoshop) is from Unity/Unreal for Photoshop, not the other way around. If it was Photoshop providing support, that'd mean Photoshop being able to read Unity or Unreal projects. This resonates, because Unity and Unreal don't support Gimp so we don't see the support to load the updated assets from those files.

[@hermanusjohannesbesselaar2499]

Some great recommendations in your video and in the comments. Just want to mention here that I do my art creation in Krita or Gimp ( depending on what I want to do) and they both export to psd format which now smoothly imports to Unity. Used to be that Unity psd importer actually only worked on psb files by default, but a quick extention rename solved this . Unity has since fixed this issue any way. As a one man studio saving on costs is important, so paying a monthly sub for photoshop is not a great option.

[@caedmonkehler7312]

Started your Game Dev course a couple days ago. IT IS FIIIIRE

[@thomasbrush]

Woooo hoooooo! That makes me happy.

[@Kennephus]

As a Gimp/Unity user, I'm very satisfied with the workflow. Rather than expect the xcf to work in Unity, I export to png and therefore the xcf is a staging file before the png commit. Once you export to png once, you can re-export to the same png with a single click. Very simple.

[@CharleyThePostman]

Have you ever heard of Krita? It's better I think for drawing

[@ingridelferink7119]

You can also export it as a psd , rename the extension to psb and if you import it in Unity (you need a free package for psd import) the layers will be converted to separate game objects automatically

[@hermanusjohannesbesselaar2499]

@@ingridelferink7119 Actually they fixed this too. As of 2022.03 lts (I think, could be earlier ) unity fixed this after listening to the community. You can now just drag in your psd and then in the inspector at the top there is a dropdown where you can choose which importer you use, just switch from texture importer to psd importer. Texture importer is still the default though.

[@Hietakissa]

Something to keep in mind is that as of Blender 4.0 the automatic FBX export Unity does when directly using the .blend files is broken and throws an error.

[@RioTFF]

I don't know why, but for me these videos at the end of the year are always the best to watch.

[@pontussennerstam]

Hey Thomas! Thank you for all your insights and videos you create. I’m new to Game Development, currently I’m a fullstack web developer, but want to learn more about these stuff. And you have really inspired me to go on with this. One question, when coding, is there a reason you’re not using Visual Studio code? That is way more lightweight than Visual Studio? Just curious as I’m jumping into this. Keep the good work! Thank you!

[@Bylov6812]

You absolutely missed out on Reaper! Not only is it great for game development to replace Audition, but it's an extremely powerful DAW for music as well! It's just incredibly hard to learn, but once you do, it's like C++ - you will be able to create ANYTHING.

[@davidchoy8746]

Thank you so much for this Thomas, I am currently working on a game on unreal engine but realised now that there is so many more softwares to learn as well. Totally relate to you about hating to do marketing material but yeah its the reality of game development so thank you for that! Sending much love to your candid knowledge!

[@NadjibBait]

I disagree about Rider's integration with Unity being not on par with VS's. Rider's Unity integration is simply (far) BETTER than Visual Studio's (for eg. it can shows you how much and which assets use your MonoBehavior/SO, it shows hot paths, it can outputs Unity logs directly, debugging is better...). It's also faster, a lot more stable (VS hangs and crashes quite often, debugger fails to attach to Unity, sometimes you get stuck in Solution reloading if you edit a script file outside VS...) and its refactoring tools are just miles ahead of VS (thanks to the native integration of ReSharper). Once you start using Rider with Unity, and after few days of familiarization, you'll never want to go back to Visual Studio... Its only "downside" I can think of is that it's not free unlike Visual Studio (Community edition), but it's not that expensive too.

[@AntiSilence]

I was going to say the same thing - while I like Visual Studio (I use it at work in my day job, with ReSharper as well) I use Rider for my Unity projects as it's so well integrated, showing information like the values set in the inspector of the serialised/public fields etc.

[@LaurelPearce]

I would say that I got substance painter after working in other programs a lot and as long as you know your 3d fundamentals from Maya or Blender it’s very easy and intuitive to use. Except for smart materials, haven’t tried crafting any of those yet. And substance designer is its own beast

[@CoderDev6545]

This helped so much! Thank you Thomas!

[@MMonis-ge6lh]

How can I be a game Programmer who can put his thoughts into code ? I am at intermediate level in coding and made 3 games also but still i get confused when its starting on putting into code without a tutorial.

[@mpbMKE]

Put Rive on your watchlist, especially for building UIs in Unity (and I think Unreal integration is coming in 2024). Doing UI in-engine sucks, Rive makes it fun, with a very After Effects-like interface coupled with a built-in state machine. The downloadable app is very lightweight, and the web app runs beautifully.

[@shotoutgames8823]

Great list covering all aspects.. I'll just disagree on the Rider integration with unity being more difficult.

[@visual_chris]

Honestly regarding the mangament I would say Notion is going to be a much better option when it comes to modlarity and templates

[@nixantcreatives]

Really helpful video!

[@SharifSourour]

My fave DAW is Presonus Studio One (other than FL which I also use for preliminary beats and midi).

[@JSAbbott]

Some other alternatives: Affinity Photo Photopea 3D Coat Marmoset Toolbag Ocenaudio LMMS

[@mikeluna2026]

KZbin really isn't the place to talk about stuff to use for dev (even if free). If I give a list of free stuff I like it just deletes my posts (maybe it thinks it's an "ad")... Will try one at a time... such a pain.

Instead of Premier and/or Final cut, I'd advice Davinci Resolve, it has a completely free version and it already has ALOT of features :D

[@iamoneabe]

Another brilliant alternative for Photoshop IMO is Affinity Photo. It can save (export) and open psd. Don't know how the integration with Unity works, though, but definetly worth a look.

[@SharifSourour]

Audition was originally a reskin of Cool Edit Pro after Adobe bought it.

[@bassemb]

Texture painting: Quixel Mixer, free, and integrated with Megascans. Video editing: Davinci Resolve, free.

[@LuxCorStudios777]

#1 top game dev tool. Going to the gym with that Thumbnail tank top.

[@rohitshinde5966]

Which one is best for editing premier Pro vs After effect...D.

[@dreamisover9813]

Awesome topic for a video!

[@danieltv123]

On the music production you missed pretty much all other softwares like ProTools, Ableton Live, StudioOne, Reaper, Bitwig, etc etc

[@swanne22]

Hey. Awesome list, thank you. You advised the use of Discord, could you please recommend the best channels to get involved with?

[@Nefarious_Bread]

There are many more DAWs for making music. Lets not forget about Ableton Live and Reason. Personally I prefer Reason. I've used Logic Pro, FL Studio, Ableton and Reason. I ended up sticking with Reason. It sounds the best out of the box, but there is quite a learning curve. A lot of people tend to use FL Studio and Rewire to use Reason as the sound library.

[@AnsuTalrei]

Worth also Mentioning things like Houdini for VFX, as Houdini is still the industry standards for VFX.Things like Niagra that's built into Unreal, are fine for most projects, but to gain much higher fidelity, Houdini is kind of hard to beat as there isn't really anything that can com close to rivaling it. As well as ZBrush being the Industry Standard for Sculpting for 3D over Blender, It's definitely more frustrating than Blending in that regards but it's more robust, and handles higher fidelity content a lot better, not to mention unlike with Blender where you need a plugin, it supports layering within the sculpting..

[@hunterxhunter6182]

WHAT'S YOUR MAGIC BUTTON TO SWITCH FORM MAC TO PC LOL. I'm a music producer (logic pro x) wanting to get into game dev sound design so will buying a PC soon but it has been my biggest fear on the mac to pc workflow, especially bc i make my all music and sounds in Logic Pro X.

[@markcooke4866]

I feel like I just watched an advert for Adobe

[@Jesus-kg4xe]

With the M3 MAX Chip on Apple, do you still bealive that its a MUST to have a Windows? Please don't hate, it's just that I come from a design background and all my equipment is from Apple. But I'd love to become a game dev. so I really need help :( with it. I've read a lot of comments that now 2024 apple is gonna be more focused on 3D projects etc

[@glabousky9676]

For texturing I thing Blender has also its own tools, but I do not know if it is powerful enough

[@andrewdoesit.]

Great Video!!! However for those who use Linux some things can be a struggle. No Visual Studio just VS Code so debugging gets a little difficult. Also no adobe. We use to be able to use Wine but that was back in the day. Now it doesnt seem to work for 90 percent of the windows programs out there and I still have yet to learn Docker.

[@antunesvilanova]

Excelente vídeo. Thanks!

[@oliverdowning1543]

In Godot the IDE is built in and the programming language is amazingly great to learn so I'd say for coding Godot should also be listed as a tool with a slightly easier learnability.

[@AlexandreSk]

Great list

[@blackfruitcreativestudios]

Just writing this to boost the algorithm. Good video.

[@joshua42777]

What about resolve for video?

[@robvp71]

Reaper is a nice and very affordable DAW for sound editing / music composition. Highly recommended, difficulty 6/10

[@1989johno]

im truly surprised you didnt say 3dcoat ... any environment or character models i use 3dcoat to concept it ,zbrush to polish and 3dcoat to retopo ... its an amazing workflow,if you dont have 3dcoat grab it ...

[@davemorleyuk]

Ironically, Slack was originally developed as a team communication tool by Tiny Speck, during the development of their online game "Glitch". So in theory it should be the perfect tool.. but yes.. Discord leads the way now :)

[@nickkalinay5653]

Hey Thomas, do any of your courses cover the basics for creating a game trailer?

[@Zodiacman16]

Yes actually, a big selling point of his Full Time Game Dev course is that he covers marketing. This includes a section on using Premiere Pro to make a game trailer.

[@user-oj7pl7pd4p]

What about animations? I mean, for prototyping, solo developers, small projects and small teams.

[@bgoldpanda7265]

I use asesprite for my indie game I’m working on. It’s pretty easy to use, but it is seriously lacking in the UI for animation. I’m working on my main character animations and I have over 200 frames and it is just really hard to manage with that many frames. I still would recommend it though

[@MetronSM]

I've never had my vents turn on when using Visual Studio. We're working on large projects in C++ and C#. I've currently opened the C# project (27 sub-projects) and VS is sitting at 0% CPU and 3.2gb ram

[@KLOUTYN]

can you tell me what is the best engine to maka a shooter survival game

[@The_Chad_]

You can do non destructive effects in Audacity now. I'm pretty sure that was already the case when this video was published. Also, isn't DaVinci Resolve just as good as Premiere and Final Cut AND FREE

[@TheDrummingBuffoon]

For 2d art programs what are your thoughts on Krita?

[@eugene_tkachenko90]

Actually, Rider has direct support of Unity and has it's own interesting features exactly for Unity projects.

[@Yoshi889]

6:40 Weird, for me it’s the opposite (rider is the one spinning the fans)

[@CriticalKunic]

Counter point to Adobe Premiere would be Final Cut Pro X. If you're already on a Mac for Logic Pro, then it makes sense. It's UI is a little weird if you come from a traditional NLE like Premiere, but if you're a game developer with no idea how to edit videos, then I'd wager it's easier to pick-up and use. This all is coming from someone who went to school for video editing and has used pretty much every NLE under the sun.

[@taskinen1j]

Garage band is a good and free alternative to Logic Pro if you have a Mac. It’s Kind of a baby brother of Logic Pro.

[@ibarrygames8240]

but does midjourney pay royalty to the artists that they use for the training of the AI? It seems Ascendant Art does pay royalties so there is no copyright or artist stealing

[@AlbusCorax]

And how about sony vegas? Procedural effects on sound tracks and video editing in one package + a lot of plugins.

[@yousefmath_art4896]

I think that Krita is the best open source alternative to Photoshop

[@danielgraziani1780]

I started making games with Javascript using Phaser but it doesn't seem the good path, even though I tried Unity and I don't like it so much. I don't know... Advice? :)

[@SS-gu2tx]

What do you think about Discord for Project Management? Also, what do you think about Obsidian?

[@oliverdowning1543]

Another open source alternative to Photoshop and GIMP is Krita which is amazing.

[@Damiondabbles]

I've also used midjourney for concepting sometimes

[@Barbarxssa]

How's Twisted Tower looking?

[@322ss]

VS Code works pretty well with Unity too.

[@dimitarius4137]

Wait a minute! All this must know single game developer? Is it not divided to VScode script programer/model designer or something like that ? :D Im javascript/react developer and would like to migrate to games, but I dont know where to start. If i have to learn 10 software programs, its kinda demotivation here :D

[@user-km8lz6go8z]

For Aseprite from what I have done I feel like it is easy to learn and hard to master.

[@Kinos141]

I have to say that Unreal Engine has come a long way to being an all in one tool. A lot of apps mentioned here can be done within the engine. Of course, it's not as great as a dedicated app, but being able to tweak animation, sound, static meshes, etc, in app is great.

[@alals6794]

Whoa....didn't know that, thanks for the tip.

[@Scrapped44]

What do you use to design your games Idk where to go

[@Scrapped44]

for free

[@SkySoft-xl6hk]

Thank you

[@bobby5enpai]

I wonder what he thinks of musescore with audacity to make game music.

[@Teboho-oq2mz]

If you dontimd do you know how to make quick time events like in gow

[@vcdgamer]

14:00 As someone who uses a potato PC in which premier pro and after effects crashes or turns the pc into a ticking bomb, I'll personally suggest capcut. It's lightweight, fast and user-friendly and the best part, it's the most used software for Tiktok amd other social media content. Lastly, sigh, still no gdevelop mentioned...

[@Aleagueplayer]

I'd say the best DAW for making games is Reaper. It's easy to learn and an industry standard daw. Comes with good plugins to. It can bounce different sound effects separately at the same time and is highly versatile. It can do anything if you know python and you can make your own plugins with JS. Super good support and takes up like 50 MB on your hard-drive. If you wana buy the full version like 200$. Otherwise it is free(the evaluation license is eternal)

[@SmkAslt]

Dig the braves hat!

[@WeslomPo]

Rider is simple and robust, and HAVE A GREAT SUPPORT OF UNITY. There literaly core developers of rider that make extension for unity. Only one problem with it - is not free. But cheap, with how many things it brings to you - fair price imho.

[@amatanata]

See that’s strange. With Unity I was kinda just staring at it blind, but with unreal I understand it more. Maybe because I was stuck in tutorial hell during my short time with Unity. All about personal opinions I guess

[@maximumcasey816]

You didn't mention Guilded as a form of communication. Which I think it is a better platform over Discord.

[@randuxy]

So surprised he didn't mention "DaVinci Resolve" for a video eiditing choice.

[@Belgariad87]

im a solo dev, and unless i'm specifically using the AI immorally (i.e. just type "swedish naruto" and use whatever poops out) I see absolutely no problem with using AI art, assets, anything, mostly because i have no money for pay for even cheaper assets and doing everything solo is already hard enough, hating the shortcuts while still getting a good product (which itself requires personal touches outside the AI) is just hating the game of game development itself. its nothing to do with stealing art and everything to do with accessibility.

[@TYNEPUNK]

difficulty for unity 5/10, seems low if discord is 2 :) I actually think unity is incredibly hard to learn and get good at. I would think 9 or 10 out of 10, 9 if unreal is 10 (never tried unreal but ive convinced myself it will be too hard to pick up quickly). Basically took me like 10 yrs to truly feel at ease with unity and nearly all aspects (excluding dots/shaders).

[@Its_P1GEON]

Can you use krita to make art for games?

[@JOZUWE]

I made my first game in game maker (they now dont have subscription model anymore) But i want to learn a new engine now and i go with godot (my goal is to make a game with all big 4 engines)

[@Beef8Cake]

I have to say. The hardest thing we ever did in school. Was to try to get Maya and Photoshop to network together. In a classroom full of Apple computers, without a classroom wide crash.

[@cariyaputta]

People look pass Defold real quick but it's one of most robust and light weight cross-platform engine, and it uses Lua so a plus for me.

[@RBTGamming]

audicity had a recent update, it now has Non-destructive editing i believe.

[@wixozias8236]

is there a community where i can meet freelance game dev or small game dev studio