Tools For The Trade
Whether you’re trying to create your own video game or teach students to, you’ve got to have a variety of tools at your disposal. Today’s tools that we are going to talk about are the one’s that will start your video game journey! They are the….. drum roll please!….. design tools!!
We, most certainly, would not be able to make to make a video game without designing our concept art/sprites! What we are going to focus on are low budget design tools for 2D games. Let’s Begin!
Affinity Photo
Affinity photo is an amazing raster graphics software available for both Mac & Windows. After using it first hand, I can say that Affinity Photo is a solid alternative to Photoshop. It can be purchased from both operating systems app store or by visiting their main website.
The one thing I should add, licenses are locked per operating system. Meaning, if you purchase Affinity Photo for Windows, you can only use it on Windows. If you wish to own it for Mac as well, you will have to purchase the Mac version.
Cost: $39.99
Affinity Designer
Belonging to the Affinity by Serif family, along with Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer is a vector graphics software very similar to Adobe Illustrator. With a tool set of amazing brushes and a beautiful interface Affinity Designer should be a game designers go to application for designing backgrounds and sprites for 2D games. I’ve been teaching most of my students to design in Affinity Designer and they actually prefer to use this over Illustrator.
Much like Affinity Photo, if you want to own Designer for both Mac & Windows, you have to purchase two separate licenses. You can find Affinity Designer in each respective app store or on the Affinity Designer website. Affinity Designer is also available on iPads!
Cost: $39.99
Aseprite
Aseprite is an enigma to me in the sense that it isn’t talked about more. Aseprite is a unique game design software in that it is an all in one tool. One can draw out their sprite, organize each sprites layer, and animate the sprite….ALL IN THE SAME PROGRAM!
The one drawback is that there is only one art style, which is a pixelated look. But if you’re into the 8–16 bit look and feel then you’re golden.
Aseprite is available for Windows, Mac and Linux for $15. You also have the option of compiling the software free.
There we have it, three awesome low budget yet high quality game design software’s.
