Week 2: Choosing My Toolset

Richmond Y -

Welcome back to the second week of my blog!

This week, I spent time researching the main tools I’ll be using to create my game. The tools used in game development often change how the game is made due to the differences in their design philosophies. The main components I had to decide on was the game engine, the art software, and miscellaneous tools to help with the process.

A game engine is the main platform through which the game is made. Games often need to combine code, art, and music in a predictable way, and game engines provide the framework through which we combine them. They provide existing ways to render images to the screen, attach code to objects, and basic physics and movement. The most popular engines are Unreal Engine, Unity, and Godot. Out of these choices, I ended up settling on Godot. It is the only open-source engine out of the three and comes with much more barebones, allowing me to have greater freedom in creating fundamental systems and generally gives more control over modifying not only the game, but the engine itself.

Godot Game Engine

Since I want to create a 3D game, the de facto modeling tool has been Blender. It offers virtually the same performance as other industry standards such as Maya while remaining free and open source. Having 3D modeled before using Blender, it is the software I’m most comfortable with.

Other software that most people don’t think about before creating a game are version control and supporting software. Version control is basically a log of all changes made to a project so that you can return to any point in development in case you need to revert to a previous point or if something goes wrong down the line. I’ll be using GitHub for the project as it is the most accessible option. Other software that I’ll use are PureRef for photo reference while creating art and Notion for organizing my schedule and keeping track of tasks.

In my next blog, I’ll talk about the process of starting to make the game and creating a minimum viable project. See you next week!

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Comments:

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    adam_d
    Its interesting how you choose how you are going to make the foundation of your game as each of the software's you mentioned probably have their own advantages compared to the others. Also how will PureRef and Notion be helpful in developing your game.
    March 2, 2025 at 8:03 pm - Reply
    tate_d
    Richmond, I would consider myself "most people" because I would have never thought about saving game versions in a program, but it makes so much sense in case stuff goes wrong. I also think its really smart to use blender because its free but is one of the most advanced programs out there; props for already having experience using it. I cant wait for how the game design turns out!
    March 2, 2025 at 8:15 pm - Reply
    Avy Gagneja
    Hey that's a nice throwback to our 3D Modeling club! Since you’re using Godot for a 3D game, how do you feel about its current 3D capabilities because I know it's less advanced in that aspect compared to Unity or Unreal Engine? Are there any limitations you anticipate having to work around?
    March 3, 2025 at 5:50 pm - Reply
    adam_p
    It was interesting to see why you chose your tools. I've never heard of Version Control and PureRef, but they sound like very smart choices when undertaking a project like this.
    March 4, 2025 at 12:01 am - Reply

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