3D game development software come with design and asset creation tools. Choose the best software, build 2D & 3D models, powerful game storylines, and visuals.
Overview
The video game industry is flourishing with the passage of time. This field of development contains a long history. It has been gone through many evolutions and revolutions. Recently, this industry gained a boom as the number of gamers went sky-high. It involves two factors. Firstly, people only have indoor activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Secondly, it is very easy to install a new game due to advancements in technology. However, the number of game users has brought a huge demand for video games in the market. Now, there are new opportunities for game developers to introduce the latest trends. We published a blog post on How Global Gaming Industry Leveraging Open Source Software in the near past that talks further about the impact of open source software on the gaming industry. In this blog post, we will cover the following top 5 game development software.
GDevelop
GDevelop is an open source game engine. It offers robust prototyping features along with pre-built behaviors. This free game development tool lets users create games for almost all popular platforms such as Android, IOS, Web, and Desktop. Moreover, developers can create 2D games using intuitive workflows. It has a strong developers community that has developed so many extensions for the back and front end. Moreover, this free tool offers support for sound effects, touchscreens, multi-touch, PlayStation, and Xbox. It is secure and easy to integrate with third-party libraries. GDevelop uses Piskel for designing, AdMob for showing ads, and Jfxr for sound and This game designer provides rich animations, and visual effects such as CRT effects, glow, color map, Chromatic Aberration, and more. However, GDevelop is written in C++, JavaScript, TypeScript and all of its source code is available on Github along with documentation regarding deployment and development.
Following are the prominent features:
- Integrations
- Multi-Platform Live Preview
- Support For Xbox, PlayStation, AdMob
- Piskel For Designing
- Jfxr For Sound Effects
Godot
Godot is another open source 3D game maker. It is self-hosted, lightweight, robust, and built on a node-based architecture. It provides a RESTful interface for third-party applications. This 3D game designer offers rich animations, sound effects, and a live editor. There are nodes that users can connect according to their scene requirements. Moreover, it is developer-friendly and game developers can create plugins for the needed functionality. This free game-making software is cross-platform and runs on almost all popular platforms such as Linux, macOS, and Windows. However, Godot is written in C++, JavaScript, TypeScript and all of its source code is available on Github along with documentation regarding deployment and development.
Godot has the following key features:
- 2D,3D Support
- Export Options
- Extensible
- Visual Scripting
- Drag & drop UI
Superpowers
Superpowers is a free open source game software for creating 2D & 3D games. It is cross-platform, secure, and easy to extend. It offers license-free sprites, live error reporting, and syntax highlighting. This 3D game maker lets developers write business logic in TypeScript. Above all, this free game editor comes with an offline version too. In addition, there is a provision to invite other developers to work on shared projects. However, Godot is written in TypeScript and all of its source code is available on Github along with documentation regarding deployment and development. However, Godot is written in TypeScript and all of its source code is available on Github along with documentation regarding deployment and development.
Superpowers offers the following important features:
- Support for 3D Models
- Sound Effects, Fonts
- Live Error Reporting
- 2D, 3D Games
- Support For Shared project
Panda3D
Panda3D is another open source 3D game engine. Game developers can build real-time 3D games using rich simulations and visualizations. Moreover, it provides many powerful features such as multiple render targets, rapid prototyping, OpenGL, and flexible asset handling. It is self-hosted, cross-platform, extensible, and provides command-line tools for managing assets. However, Panda3D is written in C++, Python and all of its source code is available on Github along with documentation regarding deployment and development.
Panda3D comes up with the following key features:
- Performance Profiling
- Platform Portability
- Asset Handling
- Support For DirectX, OpenGL
- Rapid Prototyping
PlayCanvas
PlayCanvas is another open source free HTML5 game creator. It is built on WebGL and helps in managing rich media ads. Further, this web-based game engine provides support for web-based browsers by employing script concatenation, minification, deferred loading of non-essential assets, and more. However, Panda3D is written in JavaScript and all of its source code is available on Github along with documentation regarding deployment and development.
PlayCanvas offers the following key points:
- Mobile-Optimized
- Support For Mobile/Desktop Browser
- WebGL Support
- Real-Time Collaboration
- On-Device Development
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is worth going through the list of open source game development software listed above. It is high time to increase game development skills with free game development platforms. There are many types of video games such as action games, sports games, puzzle games, adventure games, and more. On the other hand, there are many game development tools available now for developers. These are open source and self-hosted. These free game builders come with a rich stack of plugins and utilities. Eventually, what you choose will depend on your skills and interest. Therefore, always make the right choice that boosts your expertise and competence.
Finally, containerize.com is writing articles on further open source products. Therefore, please stay in touch with the Game Development Software category for regular updates.
Explore
- GDevelop
- Godot
- Superpowers
- Cocos Creator
- Panda3D
- PlayCanvas
- Getting Started With Game Development Using Superpowers
- Game Development Tutorial | Player Movement In GDevelop
- HTML5 Game Development Tutorial For Video Game Programmers
- How Global Gaming Industry Leveraging Open Source Software
- GDevelop Tutorial For Beginners To Start Game Development