Resources
Here are a bunch of links, tools, and other useful tidbits we have found helpful in making games and playful experiences. If you have any suggestions, edits or useful feedback please get in touch.
Game Events & Opportunities for Students, Designers and Artists
This list is a work in progress and meant to showcase opportunities for indie developers, students and those working in experimental play. If you have an addition, edit or some feedback, please get in touch.
List of Events & Opportunities
TableTop Game Library
This library is for students enrolled in Game Design classes. If you want to play a game off-site, please coordinate with your GMD faculty to check availability. Games are available for one week at a time. If you need something longer, check with the program Chair beforehand.
Console/Digital Game Library
This library is for students enrolled in Game Design classes. We have a Steam PC and mix of game consoles connected to a TV in the lab. Reach out to the GMD program Chair if you want to install something. We love games!
Technical (a work in progress )
- Tutorials from Unity – the best place to start.
- Unity C# Cheatsheet – by our very own Sam Sheffield
- Tutorial Series from Alan Zucconi – shaders/rendering/animation/tips/arduino; wide range of tutorials from an award-winning developer
- Fungus for Unity: Tuts/Docs – docs for a plugin that is useful for narrative experiences/dialogue trees
- Brackeys Youtube Tutorials – various topics such as 2D, C#, multiplayer, lighting, shaders
- Holistic3d Youtube Tutorials – job systems, procedural, simulations, navmesh
- Ray Wanderlich Tutorials – C#, multiplayer, how-to’s, 2D
- Unity Execution Order of Events Functions – know the order/difference between Awake(), Start(), Update(), FixedUpdate()
- Newton VR – great physics library
- VRTK – toolkit for quick prototyping in Unity
- VR Best Practices – things to consider when developing for VR, from Oculus
- XR Articles and Samples – VR tips/best practices, Live training/sessions from Unity
- Mastering Unity VR Rendering – 1hr talk from Unity at SIGGRAPH 2017
- VR With Andrew – short tutorials about Unity + VR
- FusedVR – VR/AR channel with tutorials, example projects and live streams
- PBR Guide – from Allegorithmic, two pdf files all about understanding physically based rendering and texturing
- Getting Started in Substance Designer – great tutorials from Allegorithmic
- Substance for Unity 5 – 19 videos/5 chapters tutorial from Allegorithmic
- Minions Art – shader tutorials/examples
- Lin Reid – public and Patreon-only tutorials on topics: ice, water, x-ray and glass shaders + procedural geometry shaders
- Special Effects for Games – tutorial series on VFX in Unity 5
- The Noun Project – over 1 million royalty-free icons!
- Game Icons – thousands of free icons
- Vecteezy – free vector art, can edit before downloading
- Bensound – royalty free music with proper credit
- freesound – massive community-contributed sound collection
- sfxr – tool that creates randomized sound effects, good for placeholders or simple sounds!, under MIT free software license
- Soundimage – free music, sound effects, good at least for placeholders
- 99Sounds – free sound effects, drum samples
- PacDV – free sound effects
- SoundGator – more free sound effects
- PartnersInRhyme – free sound effects, stock video, royalty-free music, midi files
- DanOSongs – royalty-free music, free to demo, pay to use
- Playing card design using InDesign – great example of how to use data merge to create cards by Daniel Solis
- The Game Crafter – site where you can sell your game and/or order quality assets for your game
- Meeple Source – a lot of meeples, coins, game upgrade kits, game parts
- Print & Play – game parts and printing shop, shipped in 48 hours
- Mr. Chips – lots of chips, some magnetic, lots of colors
- AnyDice – dice probability calculator
- Tabletopia – online platform to play board games in your browser, opportunity to upload your own game as well, “[…]bringing analog games to the screen.”
- Hexagonal Graph Paper PDF Generator – hexagonal graph paper, change color, size, line weight, hexagon size
- KillScreen Playlist – curated list of digital and tabletop games largely from indie developers
- Shake that Button – a catalog of alternative controllers, video game installations and playful performances
- VGA Gallery – that maintains a peer reviewed journal, curated gallery and store; aiming to, ” increase cultural appreciation, education of video games and new media”
- GDC Talks/Presentations – pick a playlist from a wide range of topics, learn and be inspired!
- Games Studies 101 – archive of serious games, empathy games etc..
- Videodame – site full of writing, artwork, fiction, criticism and more with emphasis on representing women and other marginalized groups in the gaming industry
- Lexaloffle – site that has a bunch of tiny games created with PICO-8
- Larp Library – Site dedicated to free-to-run Larp games
