1. Programming
Regarding programming, you need a simple ASCII text editor and compiler. For the compiler, GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) is by far the most popular and supports a wide variety of architectures and operating systems. Developed for the GNU project there is a set of compilers from the command line (with Makefile), but there are also IDEs (1) like KDevelop (GNU / Linux) or Dev C ++ (Windows). The supported languages are C, C ++, Objective C, Fortran, Java, and Ada. The native code for the GCC Windows port is MinGW.
GCC website: gcc.gnu.org.
The text editor can be any text editor that can save plain text (ASCII), with preferred syntax: Emacs, VIM, etc.
2. Graphics and 3D modeling
To create textures and other 2D images of your game, the freeware and cross-platform design and digital image editing you need is The Gimp. You can find it at gimp.org.
Regarding 3D modeling, with Blender you have to do it! Although its interface is a bit austere at first glance, it is still a powerful 3D creation software. See blender.org.
Another free 3D modeling software Wings3D. It’s more “simplistic” and Blender doesn’t support animations, but it’s easy to control. For small jobs, for example. wings3d.com.
3. Level design
For level creation, there is no real “generalist” software. For some games you can use GtkRadiant (qeradiant.com/?data=editors/gtk), or on the model in Blender and then convert them to a specific format for your game, otherwise you will have developed your own level of editing tools.
4. Soundscape
There are several free audio editing programs:
* Audacity: GNU / Linux, Mac OS X, Windows – audacity.sourceforge.net.
* Ardor: GNU / Linux, Mac OS X – ardor.org.
* Ecasound: all UNIX types, Windows (via Cygwin) – wakkanet.fi/ ~ kaiv / ecasound.
5. Documentation
Documentation is also important, especially for free software. Therefore, it is preferable to document the tools you have developed to convert / compile between different file formats. You can also document your own code set if another team wants to take over and tweak it, or just for other programmers on your team.
The Free Software Foundation has also created a free license for everything related to documentation: the FDL (Free Documentation License). It is also a copyleft license, so any product must maintain the same license. An unofficial French adaptation is available at wikipedia.org/wiki/FDL.
6. Game engines
There are already a multitude of free game engine engines and graphics that you can (re) use. Among them:
* Ogre 3D, which is written in C ++ and licensed under the LGPL, a derivative of the GPL (ogre3d.org).
* Crystal Space 3D, also in C ++ and under LGPL (crystal.sourceforge.net).
* Quake II, whose game source code (C) completely uploaded GPL Quake I as above (but less relevant) (idsoftware.com).
* Irrlicht, project-specific open source license written in C ++. It is not the MacOS version (irrlicht.sourceforge.net/).
