Game design software for aspiring game designers

If you are passionate about video games and already know that you want a future job in the game design industry, now is the best time to start developing your skills and gaining some experience. If you’re not yet ready to take college-level courses in programming or design, one of the best things you can do is start working with game design software at home. Here are three titles you can get started with, all of which are free.

1. Crystal Space – 3D Game Design Engine

This open source game engine is a great way to get your feet wet if you’re interested in cross-platform game development. Since it allows you to develop games using the C++ programming language, it is a great design software title to start with. In addition to allowing you to gain first-hand experience in 3D visualization, Crystal Space will also help you develop your skeletal and keyframed game animation design skills.

Since there are downloadable versions for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, anyone aspiring to enter the game design industry can gain a lot of experience by first working with this on their home computer. There is also a great online support community that can answer your questions and help you learn and develop your design skills with this title.

2. Cube – First Person Shooter Game Design Software

If you are not yet ready to program in C++, but still want to get familiar with game design, you should download and try working with Cube. This is a first person shooter (FPS) game and an open source game engine. If you enjoy titles like Quake and Doom, this engine will allow you to create your own game with similar action and physics.

With this software, you can design your own FPS game world and learn how to work with basic game design features such as lighting, textures, and other graphics. You’ll also learn how to program collision detection and other physics needed to create realistic weapon functions. To top it off, the game you design can be programmed for both single player and multiplayer modes. Again, this title is perfect for getting started with game design, as it can be downloaded and run on a Windows PC, Linux machine, or Mac.

3. DimensioneX – MMORPG Game Design Engine

With the popularity of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) like World of Warcraft, you’ll probably want to get some experience designing these types of games as well. If so, you should download and spend some time with DimensioneX. While most MMORPG design software is quite expensive, this title, like the ones before it, is open source and free.

DimensioneX will allow you to develop multiplayer games that run on a Java servlet and use BASIC-like scripting code. This means that not only is the programming language easy to master, but after creating the game, you can easily upload it to a web server and others can play with you online. While you can’t create massive deep worlds with it, it will at least allow you to learn and work with important MMORPG game design concepts, including maps, player communications, sounds, and more.