About
The aim of this game jam is not to create a perfectly polished game. Instead, this is a great opportunity to learn new skills in a playful and project-based way. Experiment with tools you may never have heard of and use your creativity to teach someone else about your chosen topic.
All of the tools we have listed on this site are free to use or at least free to try. Some will be downloadable, and some will work in your browser without the need to download anything. We have marked the ones that require a download with ⬇️ and those that require a user account with 🔑.
The list of suggested tools is ordered from easiest to learn to more complex; that said, what is classed as ‘easy’ or ‘complex’ is, of course, somewhat subjective.
IMPORTANT
We cannot offer specific tech support for any of these tools because it is impossible for anyone to know everything about such a large number of different applications. We can only point you to online tutorials and resources to help you find answers to questions or problems you may encounter as you develop your game. For this reason, we have made sure to only include development tools that have a library of tutorials and/or active community forums or discord servers for user support.
Beginner friendly development tools
These are tools that are fairly easy to learn, even if you have never made a game before. Many, with the exception of Twine, offer a drag and drop interface that replaces the need for writing any code at all. You will not need any programming skills to use the tools in this category. A little knowledge of html might be helpful for getting started with Twine, but the documentation is solid enough for anyone to quickly pick up the basics.
Lumi/H5P ⬇️
You may have encountered H5P in your UCL Moodle course. H5P is a framework that allows anyone to build interactive web content without any coding skills. H5P provide activity templates, and you provide the content and your creativity – that’s all there is to it. Take a look at the content types here: https://h5p.org/content-types-and-applications
To develop H5P activities outside of Moodle, you will need to download the freely available Lumi editor app for your system. It is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Build your H5P content in Lumi, then export the game as an HTML web page. You can then upload the HTML to itch.io or upload it to Github or Codeberg pages. – We have created a basic Lumi/H5P overview tutorial: Quick Lumi/H5P Overview
You can play the finished tutorial crossword here: https://elearningtechie.codeberg.page/crossword/DemoCrossword.html
Twine (⬇️ optional)
Twine is a 2D game development tool that started out as a tool for writing interactive fiction. It is freely available and can be used in the browser or downloaded as a separate app. To build a game in Twine, you create connected pages (‘passages’) that can contain text, images and other embedded media. For more advanced interactivity, such as inventory systems, there are ‘macros’ and custom scripts. The basics of Twine are easy to learn and thanks to a large, active online community, documentation and FAQs are always just a web search away. Once you have built your game, you ‘publish to file’ in order to export an HTML page that you can upload to itch.io, Github or Codeberg pages.
Example game: https://team-awesome.itch.io/ecotopia
GDevelop 🔑 (⬇️ optional)
If you would like to build a 2D or 3D game, but don’t know much about coding, GDevelop may be a good tool to try out as it comes with a large library of video tutorials and a buzzing Discord server. GDevelop works in most browsers (with limited cloud storage) or you can download the app for Windows, Mac and Linux. Account creation required.
Example game: https://gd.games/rinexusgames/stranded-on-a-raft
Scratch by MIT 🔑
Scratch was originally designed to teach kids how to code, but it can also be used to create simple 2D games and animations. This is one of the easiest tools you could use for your project: simply upload your artwork to the Scratch platform and make it ‘do stuff’ by means of colourful drag and drop blocks. It’s 100% free to use but sign up is required.
Scratch does not have its own tool to export to HTML, but you can publish your game on your Scratch account’s page, and from there you will be able to embed your game in a Reflect or MyPortfolio page as well.
Example game: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/719825567/
Tools for intermediate skill levels
The following tools have a steeper learning curve, especially if you have no experience at all with game development or coding. Learning these tools within the space of a one game jam may be a little too much for some people.
ct.js ⬇️
ct.js is a lightweight 2D game development tool. Connect your game assets (images and sounds) to JavaScript, TypeScript or CoffeeScript code – or use the beginner friendlier visual catnip option to make your game. The software is freely available for Windows, Mac and Linux. This tool may take some getting used to but should be easy enough to pick up if you have some experience with development tools and are familiar with some basic game dev concepts.
Example game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2815150/Hollow_Floor/ (free demo)
Ren’Py ⬇️
This is a free and open-source environment for making interactive stories and 2D story-driven simulation games. Built in Python, Ren’Py is similar to Twine in concept: you build pages from images and text, then use scripting for dialogue and story progression. Ren’Py offers more interaction options than Twine, but because of this it will probably also require more effort to learn. Ren’Py is available for all major Operating Systems.
Example game: https://gamejolt.com/games/30-kilowatt-hours-left/124093 (download win/mac)
PlayCanvas 🔑
This one is similar to GDevelop in that you can do your development work entirely in the browser – in fact, there is no software to download at all. But unlike GDevelop, PlayCanvas focuses on 3D games and can be a little more overwhelming for someone who has never made a game before. It also has fewer tutorials available. Account creation required.
Example game: https://playcanv.as/p/JtL2iqIH/
Tools for experienced game makers
Godot Engine ⬇️
Free and open source, Godot is one of the more complex tools to get your head around. Godot can handle 2D and 3D game development, and there are plenty of community generated tutorials available on YouTube and elsewhere on the web. The best place to host your Godot game will be itch.io
Showcase of games here: https://godotengine.org/showcase/
Unity ⬇️
Unity is extremely versatile and definitely worth learning if you are interested in building games and interactive experiences for a hobby or a career. That said, learning Unity from scratch for the purpose of this game jam is not advisable as the learning curve is far too steep if you have never made a game before. Unity is free to use for hobbyists and there are plenty of tutorials online. Unity games are best hosted on itch.io
Both 2D and 3D examples here: https://www.create-learn.us/blog/top-games-made-with-unity/
There are countless other game engines and development platforms out there, but we have excluded them from the recommendations here because they either cost money and are therefore not accessible to everyone or they are far too complex for the scope of this game jam. That said, if you have those tools already and are used to working in them, you are most welcome to use them for your game jam project!