Abstract
Videogames, and their powerful industry, constitute a hugely appealing sector for a large proportion of creative profiles—however, it is difficult for them to access this small number of companies organized as huge production conglomerates. On the other hand, the movement of free software and open source is headed in precisely the opposite direction, empowering individuals by giving back the creative control and freedoms limited by commercial software licenses. In the middle of the tension generated by these two extremes, we have tried to highlight the power that independent creators hold today through produce videogames, from their inception right through to their distribution, exclusively using open source software and free resources. This chapter, which aims to be a guide for future indie creators, analyzes these alternative offerings from their praxis, and explains the entire process. The conclusions drawn from this experience have been surprisingly positive.
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Free Resources for Indie Game Creation
Free Resources for Indie Game Creation
As a summary, we would like to include here a list to serve as a guide to open source and free resources for videogames creators, which we have tested for reliability in the process of this project:
GIMP | Photo retouching | Open source |
Krita | Digital drawing and 2D animation | Open source |
Inskcape | Vector design | Open source |
Blender | 3D modeling and animation | Open source |
Audacity | Audio editing | Open source |
Unity | Videogame creation | Privative, but free |
Cinemachine | Camera control library | Privative, but free |
C# | Programming language | Privative, but free |
TextureHaven | Texture library | Creative commons |
SoundBible | Sound bank | Creative commons |
Freesound | Sound bank | Creative commons |
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Lanza, D., de Iracheta, M., Pérez, C., Jaume, B., Sánchez, L., Casero, M. (2021). Real Possibility of an Entirely Open-Source Pipeline for Indie Games Design and Production. Altamira Game as a Case Study. In: Martins, N., Brandão, D., Moreira da Silva, F. (eds) Perspectives on Design and Digital Communication II. Springer Series in Design and Innovation , vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75867-7_7
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