Hey I am new to this site, and was wondering what people on here use to design games. I'm currently using Unity3d and love it! Compared to the other engines that I have used, it is super easy to learn, and has a great community driving it forward. I'm curious if there are any other great engines out there.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

(Edited) : I am editing this post, because I originally meant what engine people use to develop games, and what I said was design which was taken in a way that I did not intend. I imagine that people write down there ideas (I guess that is designing games...). But I think a much more interesting topic is what do people use to develop games.

I am new to this site, and was wondering what people on here use to design games

To design games, professional game designers use Word or Google Drive (or other word processing or text editing tools) for the text, and they use Excel or another spreadsheet program for laying out damage/health tables and such, and they use GIMP or Photoshop for images for the designs. Google Sketchup is another good game design tool.

If you want to talk about level design tools, that's another matter. Level design isn't synonymous with game design; it's a relative of game design, sometimes associated with art (environment design) instead of game design (depending on the company structure and/or the preferences of the department leads).

Or if you want to talk about programming tools, those are separate from game design, and you might want to post in For Beginners or another technical forum. I've seen your posts about your Unity tutorials, and Unity is not something a game designer would use, except for level design (unless that designer has other responsibilities besides game design).

Yeah, mostly I suppose they use a whiteboard, a text file, a scrappy word-document with screwed up styles and lame diagrams, some diagram tools, paper and a pencil etc.

I am a software designer but not a game designer, I'm sure similar principles apply.

Bits of scrappy paper. Whiteboards. Text files. a stick on the sand at low tide. Whatever happens to be around.

Maybe Excel. Maybe Trello. Whatever floats your boat. Designing the game is the challenge, not the tools.

Hey I am new to this site, and was wondering what people on here use to design games. I'm currently using Unity3d and love it!

i use pen and paper to design games.

to build the games themselves, i don't use an engine, i use directx 9.0 (for the moment), in-house "game parts" libraries, c code, and MS C++ 2012 express compiler.

i use TrueSpace 7.61 beta for modeling, TrueSpace 7.6 for converting model formats, paint.net, and free clone stamp tool. i have an in-house rigid body modeling and animation system with model and animation databases and an animation manager in one library [EDIT: the "game parts" library], and a model and animation editor in a second library [EDIT: the "modeler" library]. they both use the in-house mesh, texture, and material databases in the "game parts" library.

for audio, in the past i've, used winjammer midi sequencer. but most of my game music is original stuff, loop based wav's, drums, guitar, bass, etc sampled into the PC. its played through an in-house loop based wav music player. despite having sound forge etc. i find a simple wav editor is all that's needed to mix the loops. in the past, sound has been based off of directsound, but this time around it looks like i'll be using the xaudio2 api.

as you can see, your use of the phrase "what people use to design games" when you probably meant "what engine people use to build games" will not exactly get you the response you expected <g>.

folks here are rather literal minded, and rightly so. game development is a technical endeavor warranting precise terminology.

in game development, the tasks might be broadly described as: design, code, artwork, other content creation, music/sfx, marketing, and admin. slicing the world that way, unity is primarily a code engine / runtime module combined with content creation tools. modifying the unity engine would be considered code work. simply using it to create games would be considered primarily "additional content creation" - IE level design. using its scripting capabilities to extend the engine would probably be considered code work.

its the fact that design is one aspect of development, and the fact that you used the term "design" when you probably meant "development" that may lead to a little confusion.

unless you really did want to know that most designers used paper and pen or the software equivalent thereof (word processor, spreadsheet, database, and graphics programs). <g>.

I guess I should have written development instead of design... lol. I guess I have to agree with you guys that to design games I do use pen and paper. I'm gonna delete this post, and create a game development engine.

(woops) should edit

I'm going to create a game development engine post.

I guess I should have written development instead of design... lol. I guess I have to agree with you guys that to design games I do use pen and paper. I'm gonna delete this post, and create a game development engine.

try something like:

"if you use a game engine, which one and why? if not, why not?" for the question.

that will probably get you exactly the info you're interested in.

don't feel bad about getting the terminology wrong. i've been doing this off and on for 25 years now, and it just so happens i'm online right now to look up the term not for a scene graph, but for the list of "active entities" in a game. i can't remember what its called. i usually refer to it as an "active targets list" - but i believe there's an "official" name for it. so you're not alone. i'm working on a re-design of a "game engine" i made recently, and i may be posting some questions here. thus i wanted to get my terminology straight first.

and now, this 25 year veteran is off to the beginners corner in search of a glossary of game development terms! <g>.

Thank you Norman for the advice! I'll have to be a little more careful of how I word things. I guess when I think of designing games, I think of every aspect because of being a solo developer using Unity, and not actually writing what I am going to do on paper.

I like your suggestion though, and will give it a whirl.

-Acem

I guess I should have written development instead of design... lol. I guess I have to agree with you guys that to design games I do use pen and paper.

Which is what I was saying all along.

I'm gonna delete this post,

Please don't.

Because I don't know how to delete posts I simply edited the post. I am much more interested in what engine people use to develop games not what form of text people use to design games (I guess.. that writing stuff down is designing...but to me designing games is more than writing stuff down.)

Tom - could you teach me how to delete posts so in the future I can delete them instead of being misunderstood? We have different views are on what designing games are, and I think it would be more acceptable to match the other posters in the thread, than be misunderstood.

Tom - could you teach me how to delete posts so in the future I can delete them instead of being misunderstood? We have different views are on what designing games are, and I think it would be more acceptable to match the other posters in the thread, than be misunderstood.

Only mods or staff can delete posts -- even if you delete everything of the post -- earlier versions pre-edit can be seen by any member.

My basic advice is don't worry about it. Threads sink into the quicksandlike hell of archives fast enough. More importantly posts such as:

don't feel bad about getting the terminology wrong. i've been doing this off and on for 25 years now, and it just so happens i'm online right now to look up the term not for a scene graph, but for the list of "active entities" in a game. i can't remember what its called. i usually refer to it as an "active targets list" - but i believe there's an "official" name for it. so you're not alone. i'm working on a re-design of a "game engine" i made recently, and i may be posting some questions here. thus i wanted to get my terminology straight first.


and now, this 25 year veteran is off to the beginners corner in search of a glossary of game development terms! .

are basic truths that can actually teach new people not to expect perfection.