A Mega-List of Learning Resources for Game Creators
- About
- General
- Programming
- Technical Art
- Art
- Design
- Audio
- Writing
- Marketing and Business
- Job Hunting and Career
- Other
💜 Curated by Hazel Kennedy 💜
Got resources? Notice a broken link? Email me, shoot me a DM, or make a pull request! I like chatting too - don't be shy! ^^
For a few years now, I have been hoarding every gamedev resource I can get my grubby paws on. This is the result!
My list is mostly for learning the craft of game development at a high level and getting hired for it. For lists of tools, communities, and assets, as well as more granular lists geared towards individual tools like Unity, check out the gaming category of awesome
Nearly all resources are free, and anything with a price tag will be clearly marked. I only include paid resources if either I have personally used them or I have seen other industry professionals use and recommend them.
Suggestions and future-proofing efforts are always welcome!
These resources made my career possible. I hope they are just as helpful for you!
Disclaimer: I'm a technical artist and gameplay programmer, so most of my role-specific resources are geared towards the art and tech disciplines. However, there should be something for most disciplines, particularly in general materials and other curated lists.
🟪 Purple Resources are “most useful” links. These include highly influential courses/books, resources I've personally found invaluable, and other entire mega-lists.
🟪 My mega-playlist of great gamedev videos (conference talks, tutorials, analyses, etc)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLwMDKo-0Eku3TxVg2Ye9dgW0jtUgkWRn
🟪 A huge list of professional game developers you can contact for advice! Be courteous - these are real people! Curated by Joe Hobbs - @JLHGameArt on Twitter https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRYveFAl_GuvBo0iuy3EvgPm0fWAGci-Z8e5CZ6hoYz9n8gcoK4dgE0RML-x0pWqRNjGqte-V7phtqB/pubhtml
🟪 MIT Open Courseware - classes and materials from MIT (free to access)!
🟪 More huge lists of resources! Some of these are old, unmaintained, or poorly curated, so beware broken links and the like, but they are worth including because they have lots of resources for different purposes!
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/audio/38-great-resources-for-game-developers
https://github.com/Kavex/GameDev-Resources
https://github.com/Hengle/gamedev-resources-1
https://community.gamedev.tv/t/wiki-free-cheap-indie-gamedev-resources/1948
https://letsmakegames.info/game-dev-resources
https://www.gamesparks.com/the-ultimate-list-of-free-and-low-cost-developer-tools-and-resources/
https://www.tomlooman.com/game-development-learning-resources/
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/wiki/index/
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedesign/wiki/index/
Another mega-list of game development videos (primarily aimed at game design and programming)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g&list=PLZQDJJp3vTmB6awcmhFc9V6HG2bd9vofo&index=58
A massive list of assets, with a focus on Unity development
https://www.procedural-worlds.com/blog/best-free-unity-assets-categorised-mega-list/
A list of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for every aspect of gamedev
https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1HMtvSenYvd9SN58gTmRNs-FqiHhbnnVgkMEV5mqKKaQ/mobilebasic
A list of workshops and resources from the Video Game Development Club at the University of California, Irvine (VGDC at UCI)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yGzqp1Cq8emRasH0JHYMXE4-Z6xYxQ0GDe6ZyemctVM/edit
🟪 The Open Source University
https://github.com/ossu/computer-science
🟪 The single best way to learn Unity. Trust me when I say this is the best $12 I have ever spent, or will ever spend. Wait for it to go on sale, then go pick this up.
https://www.udemy.com/course/unitycourse2/
🟪 Same as above, but with Unreal 5. This course is invaluable - I know several full-time developers who learned from gamedev.tv, they are a gem.
https://www.udemy.com/course/unrealcourse/
🟪 How to Learn Software Design and Architecture - A list of resources
https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/software-design/
An introductory python course taught at MIT (free to access!)
🟪 A C++ Course taught at the University of California, Irvine (free to access!)
https://www.ics.uci.edu/~thornton/ics45c/Notes/
🟪 Game Programming Patterns - A free book on programming patterns for games
https://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/
🟪 A study path for game programmers - A huge collection of game programming book titles and covers organized by specialization, with fancy flow charts between each title for a recommended reading order! Note that the books are not included - a quick search should help you out with that ;]
https://github.com/miloyip/game-programmer
Interactive tutorials for math and algorithms
Introduction to Algorithms - A book on algorithms. Pricey, look for it in a library or something (wink) first
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262046305/
Math for Game Programmers - A free book on math for game programmers
https://gamemath.com/book/intro.html
Mature Optimization - A free book on structuring code for performance
https://carlos.bueno.org/optimization/
🟪 Data Oriented Design - A free book on data-oriented design, an alternative to object-oriented programming
https://www.dataorienteddesign.com/dodbook/dodmain.html
generatingfunctionology - A free book on generating functions
https://www2.math.upenn.edu/~wilf/DownldGF.html
C++ for C# Developers - An extensive tutorial series
https://www.jacksondunstan.com/articles/5530
🟪 Game Engine Architecture - A book on game engines. About $25 for the e-book, but probably worth the investment if you plan to be an engine, tools, or graphics programmer.
https://www.gameenginebook.com/
Design Patterns - A free book with very pretty illustrations (and also, an interesting criticism of said book - I believe there is a response to this on the design patterns site)
https://refactoring.guru/design-patterns/
https://blog.codinghorror.com/rethinking-design-patterns/
Making a Game Engine (for the engine programmers and the insane: save yourself some trouble and watch this instead of making yet another game engine ^^)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlrATfBNZ98dC-V-N3m0Go4deliWHPFwT
C# for beginners - A free book
https://www.robmiles.com/c-yellow-book
Gamedev in Rust for beginners - a collection of books, tutorials, articles, and a community to boot
https://arewegameyet.rs/#resources
A blog with lots and lots of programming, graphics, and math tutorials and breakdowns
Essence of Linear Algebra - A video series meant as a supplement for a class on Linear Algebra, made by 3Blue1Brown
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?app=desktop&list=PLZHQObOWTQDPD3MizzM2xVFitgF8hE_ab
A (slightly outdated) list of programming tutorials from the VGDC at UCI https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VxoJGdBmRrsYLx9MnaVmZ0iFc9Vcx4xGSqOuW2bisVM/edit#gid=2006991768
Optimization tips for Unity (I fully expect this link to break lol - if it does, ask me for the pdf!)
🟪 A study reference sheet for gameplay engineers - perfect for intermediate programmers looking to shore up their technical knowledge to get hired (note: this is currently being migrated. It is incomplete at time of writing, but I have also included the future-proof link)
https://www.mrventures.net/get-into-gamedev.html
🟪 Game AI Pro - 3 free books, or more accurately volumes of short papers on game AI. Notable authors include Steve Rabin, a DigiPen professor who teaches AI for games.
AI Game Dev.com - An AI development community with lots of resources. It only exists on the internet archive - be wary of outdated knowledge and broken links.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190107192021/http://aigamedev.com/page/free-features/page/3/
🟪 A Megalist of Graphics Programming and Tech Art resources
https://guerilla-tactics.com/hats/graphics/
GPU Gems - Three (3) free books by Nvidia about GPU programming and architecture
https://developer.nvidia.com/gpugems/gpugems/contributors
🟪 An overview of graphics and everything rendering for programmers. Has lots of references to books and other resources, letting you dig as far as you would like into the nitty gritty or stick to an overview
http://simonschreibt.de/gat/renderhell/
How GPU memory works in D3D12
https://therealmjp.github.io/posts/gpu-memory-pool/
A comparison of modern graphics APIs (namely, Vulkan, DirectX, Metal, WebGPU, and OpenGL)
https://alain.xyz/blog/comparison-of-modern-graphics-apis
A comparison of 3D file formats
http://liu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:462098/FULLTEXT01.pdf
How SDFs work
https://jasmcole.com/2019/10/03/signed-distance-fields/
🟪 A bunch of articles on netcode for games
Deterministic Netcode
https://yal.cc/preparing-your-game-for-deterministic-netcode/
Music for Programming
https://musicforprogramming.net/latest/
Good advice repeated ad nauseum: swallow your pride, and optimize out busywork
https://www.techwell.com/techwell-insights/2013/12/why-best-programmers-are-lazy-and-act-dumb
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2005-08-24-n14.html
https://kilon.org/why-good-programmers-are-lazy-and-dumb/
https://blog.codinghorror.com/how-to-be-lazy-dumb-and-successful/
A very interesting breakdown of a particularly tricky bug in Destiny and how it was found and fixed
https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/50140
An article on why C is not a low-level language, and performance as a result of that
https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3212479
Pore over this for a good laugh :P
🟪 A list of tech art resources, communities, and professionals, curated by Heart Machine (the studio that made Hyper Light Drifter and now Hyper Light Breaker)
https://heartmachine.notion.site/Tech-Art-Learning-Resources-d2eb63aeca624cf59faab5a19b4a732d
A blog by a developer for Crash Bandicoot discussing its rendering tech and the hardware limitations of the PS1
https://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/04/making-crash-bandicoot-part-3/
An extended breakdown of the procedural art tools of Hyper Light Breaker
https://heartmachinez.tumblr.com/post/690221520736387072/proc-gen-hyperdec-part-1
https://heartmachinez.tumblr.com/post/690221567668568064/proc-gen-hyperdec-part-2
🟪 An Introduction to HLSL Shaders using Unity by Freya Holmer
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfM-yu0iQBk
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL8U8tIiRRg
Part 3:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4PHFnvMzFc
🟪 The Book of Shaders
https://thebookofshaders.com/00/
🟪 Catlike Coding - Unity and HLSL Tutorials
https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/
Shadertoy - An online shader editor and hosting/sharing site
🟪 Render Doc - A program that breaks down a frame rendered from a game and allows you to analyze processes that created it
A Detailed Introduction to Shader Graph in Unity
https://www.cyanilux.com/tutorials/intro-to-shader-graph/
Lots of shader breakdowns and great tutorials (same blog as above)
https://www.cyanilux.com/contents/
Shaderquest (a guide series from a blog about tech art)
https://halisavakis.com/category/shaderquest/
🟪 Getting Started in Real Time VFX - Also check out the rest of this website (realtimevfx.com) to find a thriving community filled with useful knowledge and amazing people
https://realtimevfx.com/t/getting-started-in-real-time-vfx-start-here/3415
🟪 A fantastic list of VFX talks at GDC (this one is about Diablo, and is very insightful)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPy2hytwDLM&list=PLdiateg_U8PFnlScGDJDQeHUX9qmYvsxv
🟪 A full 2D FX animation course (completely free!)
https://chluaid.gumroad.com/l/bcafx
Several VFX courses geared towards developing a professional portfolio. Very pricey, but may be worth your while if you are serious about VFX - it is a hell of a lot cheaper than art school.
A Houdini tutorial series
Houdini Isnt Scary - Part 1: Basics
Unity VFX Tutorial
🟪 A Megalist of Art Resources!
https://www.notion.so/Art-Industry-Resources-86e6733162f24c26829aa65961f461e3
🟪 Fantastic pixel art animation tutorials by Saint11
https://www.patreon.com/saint11
https://saint11.org/blog/pixel-art-tutorials/
https://saint11.org/pixel_articles/
More art resources
Extremely professional-looking art, animation, and VFX courses - seems aimed at film with a large overlap in games. Beware of hefty price tag
https://www.thegnomonworkshop.com
Smithsonian Open Access - A massive repository of 3D and 2D digital resources from the Smithsonian Institute archives, such as photos and 3D scans of historical objects. Perfect for reference and creative commons reuse!
Resources for Commissions
https://www.nadiaxel.com/post/free-ressources-for-commission-artists
🟪 A curriculum for self-teaching art. If you want to really hone your skills, this will undoubtedly be worth your time.
https://www.brendanmeachen.com/soloartist
🟪 An exhaustive course for the art fundamentals (completely free!)
🟪 A Pixel Art gold mine (Job Board, Pallette Database, Tutorials, Resources, and more)
🟪 Figure Drawing Fundamentals
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLR2KBLDDnZz3Ec8LZ66IDS--P9g3TdwOM
A fantastic guide to digital painting, for beginners and intermediate painters (also, check out this entire channel! Sinix tutorials are best in class)
How to Learn Digital Painting (Beginners)
A list of art resources, primarily human figure reference material
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DLccwkSK1B8fJ3TV4X1-8ktiDmzgnelkNMamZfz3hYE/edit
Drawing the Head and Hands - A book on figure construction by Andrew Loomis. Free in the public domain!
https://www.alexhays.com/loomis/Andrew%20Loomis%20-%20Drawing%20the%20Head%20and%20Hands.pdf
And a backup link to the above
Figure Drawing for All its Worth - A book on figure drawing by Andrew Loomis. Free in the public domain!
And a backup link to the above
https://archive.org/details/loomis_FIGURE_draw
A good guide to sharpening your technical skills
Clean Line Art! Digital Inking Tips
Good figure references
https://www.vishopper.com/cut-out-people
Human Anatomy for the Head
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T7cDY7YDsg
A neat style guide for using edges and lines effectively
https://bryan-sturm.github.io/articles/lines-and-edges/
Need a quick confidence boost? Watch this :3
What Level Is Your Art? [Scribble Kibble #39]
🟪 The best resource for thinking about 3D art, possibly ever
World Building in Blender - Ian Hubert
🟪 Sculpting in Blender
https://www.artstation.com/learning/courses/3Va/intro-to-sculpting-in-blender/chapters/8OjR/intro
🟪 Photorealism, explained
Royalty Free Textures, Models, HDRIs, and Assets!
https://publicdomaintextures.com/
🟪 An essential resource for any animator - has a price tag, but if you want to get a job in industry, it is well worth your money.
http://www.theanimatorssurvivalkit.com
A visual tutorial series on the 12 principles of animation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haa7n3UGyDc&list=PL-bOh8btec4CXd2ya1NmSKpi92U_l6ZJd
A good (and free!) Maya humanoid rig
https://oninationsquad.gumroad.com/l/hybrid02
A great humanoid body and face rig by Chris Jones ($200 license, but would be very worth it for serious animators)
https://cjones.gumroad.com/l/JJuKG
Note that there are many, many more resources out there - these are primarily included as a way to build a polished-looking game even while learning a different discipline.
Royalty Free Game Art!
A great post/thread with lots of free art assets and tools
https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity2D/comments/3dfi5k/lets_create_a_list_of_all_100_free_2d_assets_with/
🟪 The Art of Game Design - An essential book on game design, basically mandatory reading for designers. Has a price tag, but is well worth the money
https://www.schellgames.com/art-of-game-design/
🟪 The Design of Everyday Things - A book on design in everything, basically mandatory reading for designers
🟪 Game Accessibility Guidelines
https://gameaccessibilityguidelines.com/
🟪 A database of UI from many different games
https://www.gameuidatabase.com/index.php
🟪 A Game Design class taught at MIT (free to access!)
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/cms-608-game-design-fall-2010/
A tutorial on writing Game Design Documents (GDDs)
https://www.gamedesigning.org/learn/game-design-document/
🟪 The Evolution of Trust - An interactive walkthrough of some game theory. Would probably be mandatory reading in a game design class
🟪 A huge list of UI/UX resources!
https://www.notion.so/onewithmachines/WE-CAN-FIX-IT-IN-UI-9f588869324a45e2b2d0595546ce77d1
🟪 Extra Credits - A channel on game design that was far ahead of its time, though their more recent content is more controversial. Their whole backlog is fantastic, but start with this video, and then dig into their playlist of game design videos
So You Want To Be a Game Designer - Career Advice for Making Games - Extra Credits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm8KdLPOm2c&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5BkTruCmaBBZ8z6cP9KzPiX&index=1
🟪 A playable video essay/game, giving an overview on platforming mechanics, game feel, and tuning by Mark Brown from GMTK
https://gmtk.itch.io/platformer-toolkit
GDKeys - A collection of articles and tools created by Nico, a senior game designer
MDA - Mechanics -> Design -> Aesthetics, or a formal approach to game design and research
https://users.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf
Hooked - An interactive article on the psychology of gambling and addiction
Tuning the sniper rifle in Halo
https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1012211/Design-in-Detail-Changing-the
A great level design tool
Best practices of UX design
Level Design and How To Get Into It
https://80.lv/articles/level-design-tips-tricks-and-how-to-get-into-it/
One of my favorite design and art writers - breaks down games and writes about them (check out the ones on the balance and economy of Destiny)
A breakdown of the design thinking and solutions that went into an extremely specific 3D camera
https://etodd.io/2017/11/28/poor-mans-3d-camera/
A 100-day daily UI design challenge
A repository of lots of maps and top-down views of levels
https://gridpaper-maps.tumblr.com/
🟪 A megalist of game audio learning resources!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fcuhGEesLC_PWCwY3dIwLgF774sKswOwIcZECWiH7Xo/edit#gid=0
🟪 The Sound Effects Bible - A book on sound effects
https://postproduciendoenlaeav.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/the-sound-effects-bible-ric-viers.pdf
🟪 Another list of resources!
https://twitter.com/chiragmachhar/status/1511446337639927811
Direct links to said resources, in case the above thread goes down:
The Bible of Getting a Job in Game Audio (link in career section)
Audio Reel Reviews: Power Up Audio - YouTube
Courses on audio implementation in Unreal: https://twitter.com/TheNewTeed/status/1505820433005826049
In case the tweet gets deleted, this was a few different courses from Unreal: https://learn.unrealengine.com/
A course on Wwise, an audio middleware program (there are a lot more courses from audio kinetic too! Same link, go to the home page): https://www.audiokinetic.com/education/learn-wwise/
A tutorial series on integrating Wwise in Unreal: Wwise 2019.1.4 Unreal V4.23 Game Audio Implementation Guide Series - YouTube
A great program for generating simple sound effects
A simple but fun web-based music program
A very simplistic and limited but fast, free, and fun audio program for chiptune music!
Royalty free SFX samples from GDC
https://sonniss.com/gameaudiogdc#1605030813191-c5a1f3d0-8baf
Royalty free music! Just be sure to check the license
DOVA-SYNDROME YouTube Official
🟪 Inkle - a writing tool for games (that integrates well with Unity!)
https://www.inklestudios.com/ink/
A simple cross-platform dialogue graph editor (free with MIT license!)
https://github.com/etodd/dialogger
A Workshop to Write Better Dialogue
https://gutefabrik.com/craft-writing-better-dialogue-a-2-day-workshop/
A template sheet for an exercise to write "Barks" or simple dialogue lines - good for emphasizing character variety and attention-to-detail personalization
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16WoJik9w93FHNOw8GrE4L0UAwTYJMsBQ6QSxZ1MYr9A/edit#gid=0
🟪 How to Market a Game - A blog and a collection of resources (of special note, a few GDC talks) about marketing for games by Chris Zukowski - this is the only mailing list that I have ever willingly signed up for and gotten mileage out of :P
Show the Dream, Not the Job - advice for showing the selling points of your game in a trailer
https://www.derek-lieu.com/blog/2020/2/25/show-the-dream-not-the-job
Figuring out how viable your budget is for your game
https://ltpf.ramiismail.com/budget-viability/
🟪 A huge list of job-hunting resources - multiple blogs with everything from building a portfolio/resume to searching for and applying to jobs and even salary negotiation and relocating
https://www.gameindustrycareerguide.com/video-game-job-hunt-guide/
🟪 Another huge list of career documents and resources!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pGglICnig6oZ1IABXLMuwAEN1azPP5pnZUvdrYwbyGs/edit
A big list of portfolios from industry professionals
https://www.plusonewisdom.com/post/industry-portfolios
Gamedev Jobs List (2022)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H34_z043mJrLahXw7fCgwf5w4ZWyrB2GBE9XAXufjmQ/edit
🟪 The Reverse Interview - questions to ask a potential employer (aimed at tech, but most questions apply to any discipline)
https://github.com/viraptor/reverse-interview
🟪 A guide to game art portfolios and job hunting
🟪 The Bible of Getting a Job in Game Audio
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sAd8xOdngsdLJqKfcOnyL8xRhPi3Uitys6fEXU9O2X0/edit
Tips on getting an internship
https://helpful-clover-96f.notion.site/How-to-get-an-internship-v-2-d906cdbf321c4986ae46bd43282b1a84
Game Industry Portfolio Best Practices
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14jsiaFOXuBi9QsXOF2DJVFXCRP4RwqGY3xmMHlqf3y4/edit
A map of game development studios
A short thread of cover letter tips
https://twitter.com/JeanLeggett/status/1354615348071460865
Why you need to clearly label personal work as personal work and not make your developer name seem like a studio name if it is not: a thread
https://twitter.com/MemoPotato/status/1550209887401017344?s=20&t=6Kp0ZGR8XuZukP5eAz2MGA
🟪 Important productivity fuel (and what I used to hoard this list :P)
🟪 A series of game jam post-mortems - these are more valuable than they let on, because they show you the whole game-making process, start to finish. Not only will this help you avoid common pitfalls, it will help you know how to follow that process for your own game. Watch a couple before entering your first jam or starting your first project!
“PONY!” – A Ludum Dare 33 Time Lapse
Game Developer (previously known as Gamasutra) - a site filled with post-mortems, gamedev news, blog posts, and other articles with a focus on game developers and their communities.
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/
Blog by Rami Ismail (seasoned developer and consultant with sound advice)
A devlog for Papers Please
https://fguillen.github.io/PapersPleaseDevlogScrap/
Tips, Tools, and Tutorials for privacy and online self-defense
A big list of localized words across many different languages that can be used to loosely translate simple phrases such as UI buttons or tooltips.
A collection of tiny, usually fun tools for various purposes!
Good general advice, both on all disciplines (especially programming) and on life
http://paulgraham.com/articles.html
A dyslexia-friendly, accessible font!
Is This Arabic? A friendly guide to not borking Arabic script
The Stranger Things (or Montauk) pitch bible - useful as reference for what a great pitch can look like, albeit in the context of film rather than games
http://www.zen134237.zen.co.uk/Stranger_Things/Stranger_Things_-_Bible.pdf
