A curated collection of game development learning resources
This page lists names, links and short descriptions. The original list on GitHub is the source and belongs to its authors.
💠🟪 - A one-sentence summary of most major roles in a large studio, and a bigger explanation of a game designer's job
🟪 - Conference talks, tutorials, analyses, etc
🟪 - 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.
💠🟪 - classes and materials from MIT (free to access)!
Another mega-list of game development videos (primarily aimed at game design and programming)
A list of Free and Open Source Software for every aspect of gamedev
A list of workshops and resources from the Video Game Development Club at the University of California, Irvine ()
A wonderful list of Game Development resources.
🟪 - A complete study plan for a computer science education.
🟪 - Another complete study plan aimed at software engineers.
🟪 - An expansive list of resources and other lists of resources intended to make you a more proficient programmer at a professional level.
💠 - A blog and video explaining the game engine, or a tool/framework used to create games.
💠🟪 - A fantastic way to learn Godot, a free and open source game engine. Gamedev.tv are an invaluable resource for learning game engines and tools, and I cannot recommend their courses enough. They are more than worth the $15.
💠🟪 - Same as above, but with Unreal 5, a popular and powerful game engine. This course is invaluable - I know several full-time developers who learned from gamedev.tv, they are a gem. Wait for it to go on sale, then go pick this up.
Unity has been a long-standing champion in the industry, particularly in the mobile/AR/VR space. Despite this, I would be cautious recommending it over other options, in part because of technical details such as its closed source and slow development, and in part due to poor business practices on…
💠 - An introductory python course taught at MIT (free to access!)
🟪 - Lecture notes, assignments, and materials from a course on C++ taught at the University of California, Irvine (free to access!)
🟪 - Lecture notes, assignments, and materials from a course on data structures and algorithms taught at the University of California, Irvine (free to access!)
🟪 - A free book on programming patterns for games.
🟪 - 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 ;]
🟪 - A list of resources for software architecture.
Interactive tutorials for math and algorithms.
A book on algorithms. Pricey, look for it in a library or "something" (wink) first.
🟪 - Another awesome list for mathematics, useful generally but often applicable to programming.
A free book on math for game programmers.
🟪 - Solid introductory advice for making code run fast. See also: How to Build an Optimization Toolbox, an introduction to profiling tools, broken down by categories of purpose.
A free book on structuring code for performance, as well as testing large systems.
🟪 - A free book on data-oriented design, an alternative to object-oriented programming
A free book on generating functions.
💠 - An extensive tutorial series.
🟪 - A book on game engines. About $25 for the e-book, probably worth the investment if you plan to be an engine, tools, or graphics programmer.
A free book with very pretty illustrations.
An interesting criticism of the above book. I believe there is a response to this on the design patterns site.
For the engine programmers and the insane: save yourself some trouble and watch this instead of making yet another game engine ^^
A free book on C#
💠🟪 - An introduction to tool development (or creating tools to make game development more productive) and editor scripting in Unity by Freya Holmér.
A free textbook on computer systems and C programming.
A collection of books, tutorials, articles, and a community to boot.
A blog with lots and lots of programming, graphics, and math tutorials and breakdowns.
A blog on mathy-programmer things with some tutorials and breakdowns.
A primer on math geared towards game development by Freya Holmér.
A video series meant as a supplement for a class on Linear Algebra, made by 3Blue1Brown.
A comprehensive tutorial series on developing games for the Gameboy. Also includes links to other relevant tutorial series, such as one on C programming.
A blog post about Entity Component System design and implementation.
A very extensive catalogue of live-streamed coding tutorials.
A (slightly outdated) list of programming tutorials from the VGDC at UCI.
Some tips from Unity about optimizing their games.
A collection of retro video game programming tutorials. Learn to make Game Boy or Game Boy Advance games from scratch. In the future, tutorials for additional consoles will added.
🟪 - Perfect for intermediate programmers looking to shore up their technical knowledge to prep for an interview.
🟪 - Three (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.
An AI development community with lots of resources. It only exists on the internet archive, so be wary of outdated knowledge and broken links.
💠🟪 - Another awesome list specifically tailored to this topic, albeit not games-focused.
💠🟪 - A Megalist of Graphics Programming and Tech Art resources.
💠🟪 - An overview of graphics programming and a collection of resources tailored to beginners learning graphics programming.
💠🟪 - An introduction to WebGL, a web-based rasterization engine. WebGL is a good tool to use when learning the fundamentals before diving into more complex frameworks such as Vulkan or DirectX 12.
Three (3) free books by Nvidia about GPU programming and architecture.
🟪 - An overview of graphics and everything rendering for programmers. Covers an overview, with lots of references to books and other resources for deeper reading.
A free master's level course on ray tracing, photorealistic rendering, and global illumination taught at the Technical University of Vienna.
🟪 - A somewhat-dated dive into a typical graphics pipeline, intended for those with some exposure to graphics APIs such as OpenGL or Direct3D 11.
A YouTube series about a very technical art form.
How GPU memory works in Direct3D 12.
A blog post comparing graphics APIs (namely, Vulkan, DirectX, Metal, WebGPU, and OpenGL).
A bachelor thesis on 3D file formats.
A blog post on signed distance fields.
An article on SDFs and ray marching with references to further reading.
A blog exploring various rendering implementations such as SDF rendering.
Technical explorations of the rendering pipelines behind games like Detroit: Become Human, Death Stranding, and God of War.
💠🟪 - A course on multiplayer and networking in Unreal. Wait for it to go on sale, then go pick this up.
💠🟪 - A course on multiplayer and networking in Unity. Wait for it to go on sale, then go pick this up.
🟪 - A bunch of articles on netcode for games.
Technical documentation from Valve about the netcode of source games.
Technical documentation from Valve about accounting for latency.
| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 - A four-part series on replication (that is, ensuring all players have consistent game state).
A blog post about ensuring consistency across game clients, given the same initial state and inputs.
A particularly notable paper on the networking model developed for Starsiege TRIBES.
| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Live Demo - A four-part series on networking for games, along with a sample implementation of some concepts described.
. Advice. Repeated. Ad nauseum - Swallow your pride, and optimize out busywork.
A very interesting breakdown of a particularly tricky bug in Destiny and how it was found and fixed.
An article on why C is not a low-level language, and performance as a result of that.
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).
A community of tech artists.
Materials from a tech art course (many are unexplained, since the class was delivered in-person, but they're still useful).
A blog post series from a developer of Crash Bandicoot discussing its rendering tech and the hardware limitations of the PS1.
| Part 2 - An extended breakdown of the procedural art tools of Hyper Light Breaker.
Slightly mind-blowing writeup on the physics of the color blue.
💠🟪 - An introduction to HLSL Shaders using Unity by Freya Holmér.
🟪 - A book on GLSL pixel shaders.
🟪 - Unity and HLSL Shader Tutorials.
🟪 - 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.
Tutorials and shader breakdowns (same blog as above).
A guide series from a blog about tech art.
A catalogue of live-streamed lectures coupled with rig creation. Sorry in advance for the cult theme.
A course on creating rigs that behave well for animators. Fair warning: this has an up-front cost of around $105-120.
A course on creating python tools to procedurally rig characters in Maya. Note: has a 10 day free trial, but gets quite expensive after that.
A book on facial modeling, animation, and rigging. Fair warning: this is $80 new. I would recommend getting it used, if possible.
A course from Gnomon, a well-known art university. Fair warning: first 2 hours of content within 7 days are free, but then a subscription costs $54 per month.
💠🟪 - Also check out the rest of this website (realtimevfx.com) to find a thriving community filled with useful knowledge and amazing people.
🟪 - A playlist of VFX talks at GDC (the linked video is about Diablo, and is very insightful).
💠🟪 - A full 2D FX animation course (completely free!)
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 playlist of a Houdini tutorial series.
💠🟪 - A Megalist of Art Resources!
💠🟪 | Articles | Patreon - Fantastic pixel art animation tutorials and articles on pixel art. Note that most patreon posts are free.
A tutorial series covering the basics of art aimed at pixel artists.
A marketplace for art resources, with tutorials, assets, brushes, tools, etc.
A blog on art direction and leadership from a senior art director.
Extremely professional-looking art, animation, and VFX courses. Seems aimed at film with a large overlap in games. Beware of hefty price tag.
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!
If you want to open yourself up for commission work, this is a godsend.
An extension that adds advanced file previews and conversion tools to Windows Explorer (including, notably, .psd). For artists who frequently use many Adobe programs or file formats, RAW files, and PDFs, this will save you time.
I personally recommend Pureref. Archived PDF.
💠🟪 - An webcomic on how to draw, and much more importantly, how to learn to draw.
🟪 - A curriculum for self-teaching art. If you want to really hone your skills, this will undoubtedly be worth your time.
💠🟪 - An exhaustive course for the art fundamentals (completely free!)
🟪 - A Pixel Art gold mine (Job Board, Pallette Database, Tutorials, Resources, and more).
🟪 - An exhaustive series on drawing people from a reputable channel.
💠🟪 - A guide to digital painting for beginners and intermediate painters. See other tutorials by Sinix for guides aimed at more advanced artists.
A searchable repository of extremely diverse reference images for humans, with filters for easy search (IE "1 woman age 20-40 with dog from the front" or "3 people sitting in a home")
A book on figure construction by Andrew Loomis. Free in the public domain!
A book on figure drawing by Andrew Loomis. Free in the public domain!
A good guide to sharpening your technical skills.
A lesson on human anatomy for artists, breaking down the head.
A neat style guide for using edges and lines effectively.
Need a quick confidence boost? Watch this :3
💠🟪 - The best resource for thinking about 3D art, possibly ever.
🟪 - A short, free course on sculpting in Blender.
🟪 - An explanation of photorealism and how it is achieved in CG.
A course delving into a hair pipeline for characters.
[$] : is a website that offers digital pictures of all sorts of materials. Sign up for free and download 15 free images every day!
Tons of 8K PBR Materials under CC0 License.
Public CC0 3D Asset Library (Textures, Models, HDRI)
🟪 - 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.
💠 - A visual tutorial series on a fundamental part of animation.
A humanoid rig for Maya, free for non-commercial use.
A generic humanoid body and face rig by Chris Jones, with many advanced features. $200 license, but would be very worth it for serious animators looking to animate for realism.
Free, legal art for open source game projects (includes models, sprites, textures, sounds, music).
copyright: A growing collection of SVG icons aimed mostly at video games.
, Xfree3D, Gumroad/free-3d-model, Artstation Marketplace/free, Cubebrush/freebies, Daz3D/freebies, 3dsky.org/free, C4DDownload.com, 3DModelsCC0.com, CadNav, Archive 3D, ThePixelLab/freebies, Models-Resource.com.
A post and thread with lots of free art assets and tools.
💠🟪 - An essential book on game design, basically mandatory reading for designers. Has a price tag, but is well worth the money.
💠🟪 - A book on design in everything, basically mandatory reading for designers.
🟪 - A list of accessibility features, organized by implementation difficulty. Also includes testimonials for each feature and the impact it makes on people, as well as best practice examples and implementation resources (tools, guides, etc) where available.
💠🟪 - A Game Design class taught at MIT (free to access!)
A tutorial on writing Game Design Documents (GDDs).
💠🟪 - A database of common design patterns presented as problem solutions, compiled from the book Pattern Language for Game Design. Also contains work from students and designers completing excercises from the book.
💠🟪 - An interactive walkthrough of some game theory. Would probably be mandatory reading in a game design class.
💠🟪 - A channel on game design that was far ahead of its time. Their backlog is filled with invaluable advice, though their more recent content has a controversial reputation, and they've largely pivoted away from games into history and literature. Start with their career video(s) - dig through…
💠🟪 - A playable video essay/game, giving an overview on platforming mechanics, game feel, and tuning by Mark Brown from GMTK.
💠 - Short descriptions of many major design topics and concepts, categorized neatly in an approachable wheel interface.
A collection of articles and tools created by Nico, a senior game designer.
A list of strategies for coming up with puzzles, and links to the talks that inspired them.
Mechanics -> Design -> Aesthetics, or a formal approach to game design and research.
An interactive article on the psychology of gambling and addiction.
A talk on why minute tuning matters.
A breakdown of the design thinking and solutions that went into an extremely specific 3D camera
💠 - A gentle introduction to level design.
💠🟪 - A free book on level design. The book is still being written, but contains many useful insights as it stands.
🟪 - The user guide for Trenchbroom, an enduring level editor. Though designed for the Quake engine, it finds use in other engines through tools such as Qodot and Qnity
Tips and tricks for Trenchbroom and Quake mapping.
💠🟪 - A huge list of UI/UX resources!
💠🟪 - A searchable repository of UI designs from many different games to use as reference.
Best practices of UX design.
A 100-day daily UI design challenge.
A collection of design documents from completed games - links have been ripped and placed below.
A collection of UI/UX documentation from Destiny (a game that won awards for its UI) by David Candland.
The design document for Sam and Max Hit the Road.
The pitch deck for Mythos.
The original vision document for Wasteland 2.
The design document and art book for Dirty Bomb. Archived pdf links: Design | Art
Concept document for What Remains of Edith Finch.
A repository of maps and top-down views of levels.
💠🟪 - A megalist of game audio learning resources!
🟪 - A book on everything sound effects.
🟪 - Archived PDF.
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.
Royalty free music from Pixabay.
💠🟪 - A collection of books, tools, talks, resources, job listings, and more for writing, as well as related disciplines where relevant to narrative.
🟪 - A writing tool for games (free and integrates well with Unity!)
A simple cross-platform dialogue graph editor (free with MIT license!)
A workshop on dialogue writing from a series on game writing.
A template sheet for an exercise to write "Barks" or simple dialogue lines - good for emphasizing character variety and attention-to-detail personalization.
Neat blog on storytelling in games and interactive media.
💠 - An explanation of the production role, and resources on how to become a producer.
🟪 - A collection of resources for producers, categorized by purpose. Targets soft skills such as entrepreneurship, management, and marketing.
A collection of books, tools, conference talks, and other resources for producers.
An interview with Merric Shank, a senior producer, on the role, with hiring advice for entry-level producers.
🟪 - An Awesome list, focused on project and product management in game development.
💠🟪 - A blog/newsletter by Rami Ismail with advice on business, marketing, skill development, and various topics needed to run an indie studio. Past newsletters are archived here. I personally recommend "Budget Viability" as a starting point.
💠🟪 - A blog and a collection of resources by Chris Zukowski with advice on marketing and sales. I personally recommend his GDC talks "Empathizing with Steam: How People Shop for Your Game" and "What to Write So People Buy: Selling Your Game Without Feeling Sleazy" as starting points.
💠🟪 - A blog and a newsletter by Victoria Tran with advice on community management, social media, and marketing. Past newsletters are archived here. I personally recommend "Failure Marketing" and "Charm your Communities" as starting points.
🟪 - A blog by Derek Lieu with advice on game trailers. I personally recommend "Show the Dream, Not the Job" and "Video Game Trailer Specifications" as starting points.
🟪 - An introduction to games contract law by René Otto, written primarily for developers seeking to work with publishers.
A newsletter by Simon Carless and associates on "how people discover and buy video games" and related marketing/industry topics.
A newsletter on the business of making and marketing video games.
🟪 - 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 relocation advice.
🟪 - Another huge list of career documents and resources!
🟪 - Yet another list of resources and communities!
🟪 - A template useful for interview prep. Archived Image.
🟪 - A comprehensive list of gaming jobs and specialties (includes both game development and esports).
A big list of portfolios from industry professionals.
A megalist of studio career pages and job posting sites.
Advice on writing resumes and cover letters. Primarily written for producers and entry-level job seekers, but generally applicable.
🟪 - A list of questions for you to ask a potential employer in an interview.
Another list for you to ask a potential employer (created for non-games tech, but most questions apply to games, and some apply to all disciplines).
🟪 - A guide to game art portfolios and job hunting.
🟪 - A massive collection of career resources for game audio.
Tips on getting an internship for college students.
Career advice for those seeking a job in production.
A map of game development studios
Archived PDF.
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. Archived Thread and Sub-Thread
💠🟪 - 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…
🟪 - One of my favorite articles ever written. A philosophical analysis of the culture of games as an industry and the importance of gamedev as a hobby, not just a business.
💠🟪 - A collection of resources for creating a TTRPG. Paper prototyping, anyone?
A site filled with post-mortems, gamedev news, blog posts, and other articles with a focus on game developers and their communities.
Posts from the development of Papers Please.
A cautionary tale on crunch. For all of our sakes, don't let the industry return to this.
A must-read for aspiring independent game developers. Making money from the art is hard, even for industry veterans, but there are other things that are valuable.
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 for specific disciplines (particularly programming and business) and for life, from Paul Graham (founder of YCombinator).
A dyslexia-friendly, accessible font!
A friendly guide to not borking Arabic script.
Useful as reference for what a great pitch can look like, albeit in the context of film rather than games.
ellisonleao/magictools
:video_game: :pencil: A list of Game Development resources to make magic happen.
Calinou/awesome-godot
A curated list of free/libre plugins, scripts and add-ons for Godot
love2d-community/awesome-love2d
A curated list of amazingly awesome LÖVE libraries, resources and shiny things.
michelpereira/awesome-open-source-games
Collection of Games that have the source code available on GitHub
gbdev/awesome-gbdev
A curated list of Game Boy development resources such as tools, docs, emulators, related projects and open-source ROMs.
michelpereira/awesome-games-of-coding
A curated list of games that can teach you how to learn a programming language.