My Indie GameDev Toolbox (So Far)

GameDev tools are everywhere these days. Honestly, it’s kind of overwhelming. There’s an engine for everything, frameworks for stuff you didn’t even know you needed, art apps, animation tools… if you can think of it, someone already built it. And it’s not just “one or two” either — it’s dozens.

If you’re into 3D, there’s a whole universe of modeling software, shaders, physics engines, giant stores full of ready-made assets. If you’re sticking to 2D, like me, that’s a different rabbit hole: pixel art editors, painting apps, animation software, each with its own fanbase and “this is the right way” crowd. Everywhere you look there are pros/cons lists, YouTube tutorials, and long threads arguing why Tool A is better than Tool B. It’s great that so much exists… but honestly, it can paralyze you. You spend more time watching other people explain tools than actually using them.

At some point I realized the best choice is usually the one that takes the least effort to just start. The tool that doesn’t fight you, that lets you get something on the screen fast — that’s the winner.

A bit of context: I’ve been coding for almost 25 years now (yep, I’m that old). I’ve touched a dozen languages, done my fair share of story writing, given talks that were basically live storytelling, and for the last five years (with breaks) I’ve been into drawing. Put all that in a blender, and you get a weird mix that shaped how I chose my GameDev tools.

Development

Since coding isn’t really a blocker for me, I didn’t have to stress about language limitations or whether I could handle the tech. That part’s covered. So instead of worrying about syntax or frameworks, I could just look around and see what engines were out there. The main thing I cared about was: does it run basically everywhere?

Well, not literally everywhere. My real target was PC — that’s where I see the game living first. Maybe later I’ll branch out to tablets if it makes sense. What I really wanted was an engine that makes publishing to Steam and other popular stores as painless as possible. That trimmed the list down pretty quickly, and in the end it really came down to just two giants: Unreal Engine and Unity.

After a bit of googling around, Unity started to look way more 2D-friendly than Unreal — and since that’s exactly what I needed, it felt like the obvious deal for me.

Framework

I started by checking out Unity’s 2D plugins, trying to figure out what people usually use for adventure-style games. That search eventually led me to Adventure Creator. And honestly, the thing that convinced me right away wasn’t even the feature list — it was the showcase of games already made with it. Sally Face, Boxville, Kathy Rain - impressive set!

Adventure Creator

Once I dug into the details, it wasn’t just the finished games that impressed me — the actual feature set looked like it was built exactly for someone like me.

Technically, it gave me all the boring-but-necessary parts out of the box. NPCs, inventory, navigation, dialogues, and even visual flows. That means I can spend my time on the fun stuff — story, puzzles, and weird jokes.

And honestly, Adventure Creator deserves a full article of its own, which I’ll definitely write later.

Art

My art journey was kind of a zigzag. Started with pencils and liners, dabbled in watercolor, then jumped into digital with a Wacom + Krita. Wacom was awesome… but also super static. You’re stuck at your desk, and I’m more of a “draw wherever” type. Eventually, I ended up on the iPad with Procreate, and that changed everything.

Procreate

Procreate felt like a no-brainer. One-time and very affordable payment (bless), no subscription nonsense. And it makes full use of Apple Pencil’s tricks — pressure, tilt, all that jazz. Basically, it turned my iPad into a sketchbook I can pull out on the couch, in a cafe, or on a train. And I definitely use this ultimate ability all the time now.

The only weak point compared to my old Wacom was the “paper” feeling of the surface — Wacom just nailed that texture. Luckily, that’s something you can fix on iPad with a Paperlike screen, so problem solved.

Animation

Assuming I’m using Procreate, the first thing I tried was Procreate Dreams. And it’s as cool as Procreate itself, but frame-by-frame animation for gamedev? Way too much work for a one-person indie game. Also, the animation asset sizes balloon like crazy. Not great either.

Back in the day, I played around with skeleton animation in Moho (then known as Anime Studio). However, I wanted to keep the hand-drawn vibe, and vector graphics just felt too clean and sharp for that. So I went digging for tools that handle 2D raster animation.

I knew I needed something with skeletal animation to save time, but it also had to respect my hand-drawn art instead of forcing me into a polished vector look.

Spine

Pretty soon I came across Spine, and wow — perfect match. It does skeletal animation, works great with raster art, and still lets me keep the scrappy hand-drawn style I want. For me, it hit the sweet spot between efficiency and aesthetics.

Spine is covered really well with reviews already, but I feel like it deserves a separate article as well.

That’s where my toolbox stands right now. It’s a mix of the big mainstream stuff everyone knows and the smaller helpers that keep me sane. Together they cover most of what I need without burying me in options I’ll never touch. Next up, I’ll start sharing how I’m actually using all of this to shape the first scenes of the game — where these tools stop being checkboxes on a list and finally turn into real characters, puzzles, and environments.

At the end of the day, though, it doesn’t really matter if you’re using the “industry standard” or some quirky niche app. The best tools are always the ones that help you move forward with your game instead of wasting weeks just learning the tools themselves.

So if you’ve been stuck in research mode (like I did for a while), maybe this is your reminder: pick a tool, any tool, and just start building. The game won’t make itself — but it will come to life once you stop comparing and start creating. And honestly? That first messy prototype will teach you more than a hundred YouTube reviews ever could.