The Best Programs to Make Games

IMakeGamesLikeThis

Let's just have a discussion on what the best combination of programs to make games with is. In this combination, we can have sprite editors, sound editors, open-source websites and game development programs. There's so many programs to chose from. Game Salad, Game Maker, Unity, Marmalade, Blender, Photoshop, Illustrator, Inkscape, Lodepaint, Audacity, Gimp and more. What programs would be most effective?

jigglybean

I guess its whatever is best suited to your own skill set. If you have zero experience of coding then GS, if you can code, then Unity

tatiang

I like marmalade on my toast. And Illustrator in my dock. And GameSalad for game development. Photoshop comes in handy if you're good at it... I'm not. Gimp and Inkscape seem like odd choices in that list. If you can afford Illustrator or Photoshop, there's not any reason not to use them. So if you're asking for the most effective, you don't really need to include those. My 2¢.

IMakeGamesLikeThis

@jigglybean said:
I guess its whatever is best suited to your own skill set. If you have zero experience of coding then GS, if you can code, then Unity

I agree, but I mainly started this discussion to see others' opinions and hopefully get some new ideas to look into new sprite editors. I'm currently learning C#. Once I have learned it, I'll switch to Unity because it can do so much more than Game Salad. Game Salad is used to get your feet in the water. The same goes for Game Maker, it's a beginner's program, but experienced programmers use Unity or Marmalade.

gyroscope

I agree that Unity can do so much more than GameSalad, but still, some experienced programmers use GameSalad as well; and probably Game Maker, I don't know.

Experienced coders might even use GameSalad also, just without any need for their particular coding experience as such (other than programming structure/form).

Good luck in learning Csharp, and using Unity or Marmalade, and when you wave goodbye to the "beginner's programs" and all of us "inexperienced programmers".

I also use Illustrator and Photoshop mainly, also Garageband, Logic Express & Amadeus for Sound/Music/Audio editing, + a few other programs I'm not going to mention.

You've called yourself: @IMakeGamesLikeThis : games like what? Be nice to see what you've done with GameSalad (even though you've implied it's so very limited).

IMakeGamesLikeThis

@gyroscope said:
Good luck in learning Csharp, and using Unity or Marmalade, and when you wave goodbye to the "beginner's program" and all of us "inexperienced programmers".

Thanks for wishing me luck with C#. I didn't mean to offend anyone by saying "inexperienced programmers." GameSalad was made for people who don't want to code games, hence all the drag-and-drop features. A lot of people who don't want to code are people who don't know how to code, that's what I meant by "inexperienced programmers."

I also use Illustrator and Photoshop mainly, also Garageband, Logic Express & Amadeus for Sound/Music/Audio editing, + a few other programs I'm not going to mention.

I'm interested in Garageband. Mind telling me a little about it?

You've called yourself: IMakeGamesLikeThis : games like what? Be nice to see what you've done with GameSalad (even though you've implied it's so very limited).

I've actually worked on some games in GameSalad, but I then learned that it would cost me $300 to publish anything, which is what I would make them for, to make money. I then learned about Unity a while back and found that Unity doesn't charge you a penny to publish, and you can publish to any and all platforms with the free version, which you can't do in GameSalad. With the free version of GameSalad, it's free to publish to iOS, but not to Android, but what if you don't have a Mac to sign your game? Then it will cost you to publish. I'm 16 (17 in August), so I don't have much money on me, so I'm looking for things that are as free as possible, and right now, Unity is looking pretty good price-wise. So yeah, GameSalad is limited in that respect, but if I could publish without the need for a Mac and/or the pro version of GameSalad, I would be sticking with GameSalad.

gyroscope

@IMakeGamesLikeThis said:
Thanks for wishing me luck with C#. I didn't mean to offend anyone by saying "inexperienced programmers." GameSalad was made for people who don't want to code games, hence all the drag-and-drop features. A lot of people who don't want to code are people who don't know how to code, that's what I meant by "inexperienced programmers."

You didn't offend me, but I thought a few others might be... anyhow, understood what you mean now, so no worries. :-) (They say it's not what you say, it's how you say it, don't they... )

@gyroscope said:

I also use Illustrator and Photoshop mainly, also Garageband, Logic Express & Amadeus for Sound/Music/Audio editing, + a few other programs I'm not going to mention.

@IMakeGamesLikeThis said:
I'm interested in Garageband. Mind telling me a little about it?

Sure thing: although here's an article about Garageband that explains a bit of its history (up till March 2011) better than I could:

http://www.musicradar.com/tuition/tech/a-brief-history-of-garageband-400471

It's turned into a surprisingly sophisticated despite being limited in certain things when comparing to its more "professional" brothers, Logic Studio and Logic Pro X.

You can even drag in a video for adjusting/recording/reordering, etc its soundtrack, and export again.

It's great for sound effects; and tunes/tracks using loops, Apple ones in particular. It hasn't got the high end features top studios would demand but Garageband has gained more and more features over the years, & is quick and easy to learn. Can be recommended. (Oh, and it's free... I think...)

I've actually worked on some games in GameSalad, but I then learned that it would cost me $300 to publish anything, which is what I would make them for, to make money. I then learned about Unity a while back and found that Unity doesn't charge you a penny to publish, and you can publish to any and all platforms with the free version, which you can't do in GameSalad. With the free version of GameSalad, it's free to publish to iOS, but not to Android, but what if you don't have a Mac to sign your game? Then it will cost you to publish. I'm 16 (17 in August), so I don't have much money on me, so I'm looking for things that are as free as possible, and right now, Unity is looking pretty good price-wise. So yeah, GameSalad is limited in that respect, but if I could publish without the need for a Mac and/or the pro version of GameSalad, I would be sticking with GameSalad.

Sure thing, understood as well. Best of luck with whichever direction you take for your game-making.

IMakeGamesLikeThis

@gyroscope said:
Best of luck with whichever direction you take for your game-making.

Thanks. You, too.