I thought I should mention a list of my favorite tools which I think really might help people out. These aren’t free tools necessarily, just some I’ve fallen for.

If you are interested in doing a cross-platform game, check out monkey. This language is really going places. Code your game once and it will run on: Mac, PC (OpenGL or DirectX or XNA), flash, html5, iOS, Android, PS Vita, Nintendo DS, and even believe it or not Amiga apparently.

http://www.monkeycoder.co.nz/

If you need to do pixel art or tiles sets, look no further than Pyxel Edit. This is the best tool of this kind I’ve seen since Deluxe Paint!

http://pyxeledit.com/

Now if you’re a programmer type and want to make music, you got to check out this amazing DAW, Renoise. I just love this tool for making music, because it is 1) so well done, 2) so full featured for a tracker and 3) let’s me make music in a way that makes sense to us programmers, I think.

http://www.renoise.com/

I am going to try to do a IF game this time, so I won’t be needing most of these tools. If you want to make interactive fiction, I don’t think there is a better choice than Inform 7. It’s the ultimate “natural language” programming language. The things you can do with it will blow your mind.

http://inform7.com/

So what are the tools you are in love with?