You’re here! Good to have you.
Before we start making games, let’s get you up and running real quick. There are three tools needed for our journey and thankfully – they are all free to use for beginners and beyond.

Unity – Your Game Engine

There are several game engines that can you can choose from – most of them work great with 2D. My personal pick is Unity. It’s powerful when necessary, flexible and comes with a massive community for support. Although I am starting with a 2D pixel-art platformer, maybe in the future I will want to make a 3D RPG – Unity provides the framework to bring both of the ideas to life, while my skills will still remain relevant.

  • Why Unity? Free to start, cross-platform capabilities, and a lot of side services that might come in handy in the future.
  • Bonus Tip: Beginner friendly – there are lots of tutorials and courses out there for Unity.
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Don’t worry about the hardware requirements.
Entry treshold for making 2D pixel games is set low enough to run smoothly on most PC’s.

Aseprite – Games with Style

If pixel art is your style – like mine *wink* – Aseprite is a must-have. This lightweight yet powerful tool is a one-stop-shop for sprite creation and animation, offering features like onion skinning, color palettes, and an intuitive timeline for smooth animations.

  • Why Aseprite? Free, easy to use, and packed with pixel-art-specific features.
  • Bonus Tip: Master keyboard shortcuts to speed up your workflow.
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Aseprite is distributed for free on GitHub if you compile it yourself.
If you prefer out of the box product – visit creator’s website.

Discord – Your Dev Hub

Game development is better with a community, and Discord is where devs connect, collaborate, and can get feedback. Whether you’re networking, sharing progress, or troubleshooting code, join the Darn Good Discord server I hope it will be a game-changer for all of us.

  • Why Discord? Direct access to game dev community, playtesters, and industry veterans.
  • Bonus Tip: Join game jams and showcase your work in dev-focused servers.

You Made the First Step – What Next?

Great job. You are all geared up and ready for an adventure. Let’s go – proceed with Step Two.

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