Every week, I run into interesting tools and resources that seem (at least tangentially) related or useful for game developers. For a long while, I’ve just kept a rolling list of bookmarked posts on Mastodon and stuff, hoping I don’t lose the links, but hang on
Maybe I should use the blog to keep these in one place. Isn’t that a good use of a blog?
Anyways, here’s some of the tools, sites, and resources I’ve run across lately that I think are worth keeping an eye on!
For Programmers #
📃 Haystack Code Editor #
This is a fork of Visual Studio Code where code files are opened as resizable nodes on a 2D canvas instead of full-window tabs. Like the unholy child of Unreal’s Blueprints and Regular Code. It supports everything VS Code does: plugins, themes, and settings can be imported from your current VS Code install.
💾 Ark Version Control System #
Over the last 10+ years, game developers have been locked into a choice between Git and Perforce, where both have their strengths and weaknesses over the other.
- Perforce’s workflow can be simple and it handles large files well, but lacks branching and can be expensive.
- Git can be efficient (especially for engineers) but oops, an artist committed gigs of lightbake data with a weird file extension we didn’t tell Git LFS about, so GitHub locked our repo due to blowing past the storage limit.
And yes, Plastic SCM is out there ah wait, I forgot,
Unity acquired that.
Also Subversion said they were leaving an hour ago but I can still see them hiding behind a houseplant.
Ark isn’t quite ready for prime time, but it looks so, so promising. Made for games, handles large files easily, supports branching, and the workflow looks pretty easy to learn! I’m keeping a close eye on how this develops.
For Designers #
🐭 Narrat #
A game engine built on Node.js to create narrative games with a similar dialogue interface to Disco Elysium. Right now, it looks like it’s mostly geared towards making visual novels out of the box, but the developer does seem to have a solution for using it as an integration into other engines (if you consult with them).
Game shown above is Lovely Lady RPG.
🏗️ Level Design Toolkit (LDtk) #
I’m a big fan of stand-alone, general-use mapping/design tools in this era of game engines with centralized do-everything-okay editors. This looks like a really terrific, robust 2D level editor, built by one of the key developers behind Dead Cells.
I haven’t had a reason to delve into this, but darn I want to.
🕹️ PromptFont #
A custom-made font with glyphs and icons of gamepad buttons, analog sticks, keyboard keys, storefront and platform icons, and symbols for waypoints, priorities, and achievements. Could be very, very handy for game developers to use in their games! I’m pretty sure these could pass cert…
🪛 Schraubenkiste Font #
Here’s a font for displaying the exact shape of screw heads and bodies, as well as measurements. Handy for making labels, diagrams, or maybe even as alpha masks.
(Hint: Press the green button on the left side to download)
For Artists #
🌐 The Base Mesh #
This site has a giant library of free-to-use-and-modify base models for various objects, furniture, and miscellanea that are UV-unwrapped and sized properly to their real-world scale. What made this stand out to me is that these are actually modeled with games in mind, so the geometry and edge loops are clean and easy to build from! Do you realize how rare that is?
📐 Dimensions.com #
What are the dimensions and measurements of a typical photo frame, door, iMac, IKEA Billy Bookcase, Suzuki Alto micro-car, or (why not) Admiral Ackbar? Provides minimalistic model sheets, measurement info, descriptions, and sometimes 3D models and variations. Super great reference when you’re trying to get scales right in a scene.
For Fun #
🖼️ GifCities #
A simple search engine that combs through the Internet Archive for animated gifs. The web of the late 90’s and early 00’s was a wild place. Maybe some of it belongs in your game? I don’t know. Truly, gaze upon what they took from us. We used to be a society, etc.
👆️ Wii Pointer Cursors #
Give yourself a constant reminder throughout the day that you work on games, which are supposed to be fun. Supports Windows, macOS, and Linux. Wii menu sounds not included.