Finding A Free Game Creator Free Of Royalties

Indie game developers and designers are very passionate about making games, but barely have the cash for all their needs when starting out. If you’re looking to cut costs, well then you are in luck because there happens to be completely free software available for development. Below are a 5 free software tools to help you save some cash.

Love2D

Love2D or Love is an open-source game engine that extends the Lua programming language. Because this is a framework without a UI, it is purely meant for programmers. So if you are a programmer that can write in Lua, then this might be a perfect way to save money.

Currently, Love2D is best for desktop and mobile games, but as the community grows more export options may become more viable.

Love2D takes no royalties and you are free to modify the code, but you cannot redistribute the edited library as your own.

GDevelop

This is a great option for beginners getting into game development that do not know how to code. GDevelop is an open-source 2D game engine that develops JavaScript-based games under the hood.

GDevelop gives you many starter templates to work with. This eliminates much of the initial work that is needed to create the base form of a specific game type such as a “Shooter” for example. GDevelop also lets you add JavaScript code blocks or plugins to tweak in-game events.

GDevelop is primarily a 2D game engine for non-programmers, but if you are an advanced programmer, the possibilities are really endless with open-source. For example, Super Billard is a 3D game that was developed by adding some tweaks to GDevelop.

GDevelop allows you to publish to HTML5, mobile, and desktop.

MonoGame

MonoGame is a free open-source fork of Microsoft XNA. XNA is what arguably, helped launch the Indie game industry. MonoGame is a low level game framework, in other words, it lacks the convenience that most engines offer. This is good for more experienced game developers that want to fine tune a more custom engine by adding layers of your own libraries or functions on top of it.

Like Love2D, MonoGame lacks a UI and therefore is made for programmers. You can develop both 2D or 3D games and it is cross-platform supported with many popular games having been developed with it such as Stardew Valley.

MonoGame supports C# development as well as any of the other .NET languages.

Godot

Godot is a free, open-source tool that has a large active community and is rising in popularity. It supports C++, C# as well as the community developed language: GDScript. Various other languages such as Python are supported with help from the community. 

Godot does have UI with a visual scripting editor for non-programmers as well as a built-in scripting editor for programmers. It is surprisingly lightweight as compared to some of the other more popular commercial engines that come with similar features.

Godot allows you to publish to the Web, desktop, and mobile for both 2D and 3D games and does not take any royalties.

LibGDX

LibGDX is a free open-source Java-based framework. Similar to MonoGame, LibGDX acts as a middleware to add libraries of your choice to create the custom game engine you prefer. LibGDX also includes extended libraries that you can choose to download upon initialization of each project.

LibGDX lets you write 2D or 3D games in Java, Scala, Kotlin, Clojure, and Groovy and can publish to desktop, mobile, and HTML5. It has an active community with forums, documentation, and many libraries built to extend LibGDX so you don’t have to.

Defold

Defold is a 2D game engine that is powered by the Lua scripting language. This engine is currently owned and used by the company King, but keeps it free for everyone to use. 

Defold gives you the option of using their Lua Code Editor or Visual Editor so it is welcoming to both programmers and non-programmers alike. 

There are plenty of resources available to help you get started, including a manual, tutorials, a forum, and more. Defold also has popular assets free to download for your game.

 You can publish your game to desktop, mobile, and HTML5. Defold does not take any royalties.

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