Game Development

Unity Learn

Free official pathways from your first scene to complete games.

learn.unity.com

Brackeys

Hugely popular, beginner-friendly game dev tutorials, now covering Godot.

youtube.com

Kenney Assets

Thousands of free, public-domain game assets.

kenney.nl

itch.io Game Jams

Join a jam, build a small game in a weekend, and get feedback.

itch.io

Game Programming Patterns

A free book on the design patterns behind game code.

gameprogrammingpatterns.com

Red Blob Games

Interactive explanations of pathfinding, hex grids and procedural generation.

redblobgames.com

LearnOpenGL

Learn modern graphics programming from the ground up.

learnopengl.com

Unreal Engine Learning

Epic's official courses and tutorials for Unreal Engine.

dev.epicgames.com

raylib

A simple C library for making games without an engine.

raylib.com

Game Developer Roadmap

The path from gameplay programming to engines and graphics.

roadmap.sh

Roadmap

Godot Engine

The free, open-source engine for 2D and 3D games, lightweight and beginner-friendly.

godotengine.org

Godot: Your First 2D Game

The official step-by-step tutorial that walks you through a complete small 2D game.

docs.godotengine.org

GDQuest

Free and paid Godot tutorials, interactive lessons and open-source demos.

gdquest.com

GDQuest on YouTube

Clear, well-produced Godot tutorials and game dev tips.

youtube.com

Unity Manual

The official reference for every Unity feature, from scenes to scripting.

docs.unity3d.com

Unreal Engine Documentation

Official Unreal Engine docs covering Blueprints, C++, rendering and more.

dev.epicgames.com

Bevy

A free, open-source data-driven game engine built in Rust around an ECS.

bevy.org

Bevy Quick Start

The official introduction to setting up Bevy and building your first app.

bevy.org

Unofficial Bevy Cheat Book

A community reference explaining Bevy concepts and common patterns.

bevy-cheatbook.github.io

GameMaker

A 2D engine famous for indie hits like Undertale, free for non-commercial use.

gamemaker.io

GameMaker Manual

The official manual for GameMaker's editor and GML scripting language.

manual.gamemaker.io

Defold

A free, source-available engine for lightweight 2D and 3D games scripted in Lua.

defold.com

SDL

The cross-platform C library for windows, input, audio and graphics used by countless games.

libsdl.org

Lazy Foo' SDL Tutorials

The classic step-by-step guide to making games with SDL and C++.

lazyfoo.net

raylib Cheatsheet

Every raylib function on one page, handy while you code.

raylib.com

Cheatsheet

LÖVE

A simple, free framework for making 2D games in Lua.

love2d.org

Pygame

The popular Python library for making 2D games, with docs and tutorials.

pygame.org

Pygame Community Edition

An actively maintained fork of Pygame with new features and faster releases.

pyga.me

Phaser

A fast, free framework for making 2D games that run in the browser.

phaser.io

MonoGame

The open-source C# framework behind Stardew Valley and Celeste.

monogame.net

PICO-8

A tiny fantasy console with built-in code, sprite and music editors. Paid, but a cult favourite.

lexaloffle.com

TIC-80

A free, open-source fantasy console for making tiny retro games.

tic80.com

Ren'Py

The free engine behind most visual novels, scripted in simple Python.

renpy.org

CS50's Introduction to Game Development

Harvard's free course recreating classics like Pong, Mario and Zelda in LÖVE and Unity.

cs50.harvard.edu

Handmade Hero

Casey Muratori's legendary series building a complete game from scratch in C, no engine.

youtube.com

Sebastian Lague

Beautiful "coding adventure" videos on procedural generation, simulation and graphics.

youtube.com

Game Maker's Toolkit

Mark Brown's acclaimed video essays on game design, and host of the yearly GMTK Game Jam.

youtube.com

Extra Credits

Animated explainers on game design concepts and industry topics.

youtube.com

Freya Holmér

Gorgeous, deep lectures on splines, shaders and math for game developers.

youtube.com

The Cherno

C++ series and a long-running game engine build from a former EA engineer.

youtube.com

Code Monkey

Hundreds of practical Unity and C# tutorials, plus free full courses.

youtube.com

Jonas Tyroller

Devlogs and honest advice on game design and finishing indie games.

youtube.com

HeartBeast

Beginner-friendly 2D game tutorials in Godot and GameMaker.

youtube.com

javidx9

One Lone Coder's videos on building games and engines from scratch in C++.

youtube.com

Acerola

Entertaining deep dives into shaders, rendering and graphics techniques.

youtube.com

DaFluffyPotato

Pygame tutorials and devlogs from an indie developer who ships in Python.

youtube.com

ThinMatrix

Devlogs and OpenGL tutorials from a developer building his own 3D engine and games.

youtube.com

GameFromScratch

News and reviews covering game engines, frameworks and tools, especially open source.

gamefromscratch.com

GDC on YouTube

Hundreds of free talks from the Game Developers Conference on design, art, code and postmortems.

youtube.com

GDC Vault (Free)

Free recordings of GDC talks and classic game postmortems.

gdcvault.com

Juice It or Lose It

A famous short talk showing how small effects make a simple game feel great.

youtube.com

The Art of Screenshake

Jan Willem Nijman of Vlambeer on the tiny tricks that make action games feel punchy.

youtube.com

Noclip

Documentaries on how famous games were made, straight from the developers.

youtube.com

Ludum Dare

One of the oldest game jams, held online twice a year over a weekend.

ldjam.com

Global Game Jam

The world's largest game jam, held in-person at sites around the world each January.

globalgamejam.org

itch.io

The go-to place to publish indie games, find tools and share your jam entries.

itch.io

The Art of Game Design

Jesse Schell's classic book on game design through 100+ "lenses". Paid.

schellgames.com

A Theory of Fun for Game Design

Raph Koster's short, illustrated classic on why games are fun.

theoryoffun.com

The Level Design Book

A free, in-depth online book on designing levels for 3D games.

book.leveldesignbook.com

Game Design Concepts

Ian Schreiber's free 20-lesson course on the fundamentals of game design.

gamedesignconcepts.wordpress.com

MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design

The influential paper on mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics in games.

users.cs.northwestern.edu

Lost Garden

Daniel Cook's essays on game design, systems and prototyping.

lostgarden.com

Game Developer

The industry news site formerly known as Gamasutra, with design articles and postmortems.

gamedeveloper.com

How To Market A Game

Chris Zukowski's data-driven advice on marketing indie games on Steam.

howtomarketagame.com

Steamworks Documentation

Official docs for releasing and selling your game on Steam.

partner.steamgames.com

Game UI Database

Thousands of screenshots of menus and HUDs from real games, searchable by screen type.

gameuidatabase.com

3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development

A free online book on the vectors, matrices and rotations behind 3D games.

gamemath.com

Essence of Linear Algebra

3Blue1Brown's visual series on the vector and matrix math games rely on.

youtube.com

Easings.net

A visual cheat sheet of easing functions for smooth animation and tweens.

easings.net

Cheatsheet

The Nature of Code

Daniel Shiffman's free book on simulating forces, particles and steering behaviours in code.

natureofcode.com

Gaffer On Games

Glenn Fiedler's classic articles on game physics and multiplayer networking.

gafferongames.com

Fix Your Timestep!

The essential article on game loops and stable physics updates.

gafferongames.com

Box2D

The famous open-source 2D physics engine, used in Angry Birds and many engines.

box2d.org

Jolt Physics

The open-source 3D physics engine used in Horizon Forbidden West and Godot.

github.com

Amit's A* Pages

The classic, in-depth explanation of A* pathfinding and its variants for games.

theory.stanford.edu

Hexagonal Grids

The definitive interactive guide to coordinates and algorithms on hex grids.

redblobgames.com

Game AI Pro

Free chapters from the Game AI Pro books, written by industry AI programmers.

gameaipro.com

Procedural Content Generation in Games

A free academic book on generating levels, terrain and content with algorithms.

pcgbook.com

Game Engine Architecture

Jason Gregory's (Naughty Dog) reference on how real game engines are built. Paid.

gameenginebook.com

The Book of Shaders

A gentle, interactive guide to writing fragment shaders.

thebookofshaders.com

Shadertoy

Write and share shaders in the browser, and learn from thousands of others.

shadertoy.com

Practice

Inigo Quilez Articles

Articles on signed distance functions, noise and raymarching from Shadertoy's co-creator.

iquilezles.org

Godot Shaders

A community library of free shaders for Godot, with source to learn from.

godotshaders.com

Catlike Coding

Thorough Unity tutorials on rendering, procedural meshes and custom render pipelines.

catlikecoding.com

Scratchapixel

Free lessons teaching computer graphics and rendering from first principles.

scratchapixel.com

Ray Tracing in One Weekend

The famous free book series where you write your own ray tracer.

raytracing.github.io

Vulkan Tutorial

The standard tutorial for drawing your first triangle and beyond with Vulkan.

vulkan-tutorial.com

Learn Wgpu

Learn modern graphics programming in Rust with wgpu.

sotrh.github.io

Real-Time Rendering Resources

The companion site to the famous rendering book, with links to free graphics resources.

realtimerendering.com

OpenGameArt

A huge library of free sprites, tiles, music and sound effects.

opengameart.org

Free Assets on itch.io

Thousands of free sprites, tilesets, fonts and sounds from indie artists.

itch.io

Quaternius

Free low-poly 3D model packs, often rigged and animated.

quaternius.com

Poly Haven

Free CC0 HDRIs, textures and 3D models of high quality.

polyhaven.com

ambientCG

Free public-domain PBR materials and textures.

ambientcg.com

Mixamo

Adobe's free auto-rigger and library of character animations.

mixamo.com

Game-icons.net

Thousands of free game icons you can recolour and download as SVG.

game-icons.net

Freesound

A collaborative database of Creative Commons sound effects and recordings.

freesound.org

Sonniss GDC Audio Bundle

Gigabytes of royalty-free professional sound effects released free every year.

sonniss.com

Incompetech

Kevin MacLeod's library of royalty-free music used in thousands of games and videos.

incompetech.com

Audacity

The free, open-source audio editor for recording and cleaning up sounds.

audacityteam.org

jsfxr

Generate retro sound effects like jumps and explosions in your browser.

sfxr.me

Bfxr

An expanded sfxr for quickly making game sound effects.

bfxr.net

ChipTone

A free tool from SFB Games for generating chiptune sound effects.

sfbgames.itch.io

BeepBox

Make chiptune music in your browser, no installs needed.

beepbox.co

LMMS

A free, open-source music production app for composing game soundtracks.

lmms.io

FMOD

Industry-standard adaptive audio middleware, free for small indie projects.

fmod.com

Aseprite

The most popular pixel art and animation editor. Paid, or compile it yourself for free.

aseprite.org

LibreSprite

A free, open-source fork of Aseprite for pixel art and animation.

libresprite.github.io

Piskel

A free online editor for pixel art sprites and animations.

piskelapp.com

Pixelorama

A free, open-source pixel art editor built with Godot.

orama-interactive.itch.io

Lospec

Pixel art palettes, tutorials and tools in one place.

lospec.com

Saint11 Pixel Art Tutorials

Bite-sized animated pixel art tips from Celeste's artist, Pedro Medeiros.

saint11.art

MortMort

Friendly pixel art tutorials and critiques for beginners.

youtube.com

Krita

A free, open-source painting app for concept art, textures and sprites.

krita.org

Blender

The free, open-source 3D suite for modeling, rigging and animating game assets.

blender.org

Blender Guru

Home of the famous Blender donut tutorial for absolute beginners.

youtube.com

Tiled

A free, flexible tile map editor that works with most engines.

mapeditor.org

LDtk

A modern, free 2D level editor from the director of Dead Cells.

ldtk.io

Magic Tools

A huge curated list of game development resources, tools and assets.

github.com

Awesome Godot

A curated list of Godot plugins, projects, demos and tutorials.

github.com

GameDev Resources

A big categorized list of free game dev tools, assets and learning material.

github.com

r/gamedev

The largest game dev community for questions, devlogs and feedback.

reddit.com

r/godot

An active, friendly community for Godot help and showcase.

reddit.com

Godot Forum

The official Godot forum for questions and discussion.

forum.godotengine.org

Unity Discussions

Unity's official forums for help with scripting, rendering and more.

discussions.unity.com

GameDev.net

A long-running community of game developers with forums, articles and blogs.

gamedev.net

Handmade Network

A community of programmers building software and games from scratch, inspired by Handmade Hero.

handmade.network

80 Level

Articles and breakdowns of how game artists create environments, characters and effects.

80.lv