These are just some lists of free resources that I use or had noted down here and there. So I am just wrapping them up in one place for me to find them and update them easily and of course, also for sharing them 😉
Layout Batching
Some prefer blank sheets and a pen, but if you prefer to work digitally, then print and cut. If you are in need of putting together a large amount of -let’s say- cards or any other component that has many unique elements that share a similar layout you can work faster with this tools.
| Google Sheets: https://www.google.com/sheets/about/ 100% Free. If you need a tool to handle spreadsheets for balancing your game or batch definition (cards for instance). Google sheets is an excellent replacement for MS excel. |
| Cardmaker beta: https://github.com/nhmkdev/cardmaker 100% Free. Lovely tool for assembling graphics and texts in large batches. It will save you more time than prototyping blank paper and pen. Just make sure that you read the instructions first or that at least you check the sample project, otherwise it may seem not intuitive, but once you grasp a bit how the scripting works for referencing to data tables and gfx, you’ll witness its power. Cannot compare to Adobe’s InDesign, but it seems flexible enough for the given task. Last version comes ready to work directly with google sheets (haven’t tried the option yet though). |
| NanDeck: http://www.nand.it/nandeck/ 100% Free. Not tested |
| Meeply: https://meeply.net/ Not tested |
| Deck Zone: https://deck.zone/create/-LgA4K7b6n-FRc90iJQ6 |
| Studio Component: https://component.studio/ Paid App, part of TheGameCrafter. |
Make your game real
| GOING JUST FOR CARDS |
| Printer Studio: https://www.printerstudio.com/ The only one I’ve tried personally. Good finishing and good price. Huge shipping period and price to get your decks to Spain. |
| MakePlayingCards: https://www.makeplayingcards.com/ (?) Not tested. They have lenticular and transparent cards. |
| GOING FOR MORE COMPONENTS THAN JUST CARDS |
| The Game Crafter: https://www.thegamecrafter.com/ (?) Not tested. |
| Print Ninja: https://www.printninja.com/ (?) Not tested. |
| PrintAndPlay: /www.printplaygames.com/ (?) Not tested. |
| Campaign Coins: https://campaigncoins.com/ (?) Not tested. Coins for tabletop and custom coins. |
| VIRTUAL TABLETOP |
| Tabletop Simulator: Link to Steam page Paid app on Steam. Not free but quick and easy to use. Nice for prototyping if you are working primarily in digital without having to spend any penny on materials. |
| Tabletopia: https://tabletopia.com/ It is free with option to pay for some services. I tried it just once, so I don’t know much about it. I already had Tabletop Simulator so when I saw that I had to upload every card one by one I just haven’t digged deeper. Probably it’s easier to run playtests on it than on Tabletop Simulator since it is free. |
| Vassal: http://www.vassalengine.org/ (?) Not tested. |
| Roll20: https://roll20.net/ (?) Not tested. More for hosting RPG campaigns but still intersting. |
Art Resources
| GRAPHICS |
| SVG Silh: https://svgsilh.com/ SVGs under Creative Commons License CC0. |
| Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/ Photos, Illustrations and SVGs under Creative Commons License CC0. |
| Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/ Free photos and videos. |
| Unsplash: https://unsplash.com Free quality photos. |
| The Noun Project: https://thenounproject.com/ Free icons for everything. |
| Game-Icons: https://game-icons.net/ Free game icons, in the style of the skills in Diablo or World of Warcraft. |
| IconMonstr: https://iconmonstr.com/ (?) Not tested. |
| Kenney game assets: https://www.kenney.nl/assets (?) Not tested. Haven’t tried it. Just found this, have to check. It says explicitly that they can be re-used even for commercial pourposes. |
| Unity Asset Store (2D): Link to 2D & Free Assets (?) Not tested. Just an idea. Not sure about the licensing, but there is some interesting stuff that can be nice for personal use. |
| itch.io game assets: https://itch.io/game-assets/free (?) Not tested. |
| Open Game Art: https://opengameart.org/ (?) Not tested. |
Ancient public domain printings
| The Public Domain Review: https://publicdomainreview.org/ |
| Old Book Illustrations: https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/ |
| The British Library – Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/albums |
3-Dimensional
| 3D-PRINTABLE MODELS |
| Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/ They have plenty of Creative Commons figurines ready to 3D print. |
| PAPERCRAFT MODELS |
| Cannon Creative Park: Link here They have plenty of Creative Commons figurines ready to 3D print. |
| Paper Replika: http://paper-replika.com/ |
Fonts
| FONTS |
| Google Fonts: https://fonts.google.com/ |
Misc
| itch.io: https://itch.io/ Games and game jams. Option for donations/pay what you want. |
| drivethrurpg: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/ RPG Games. ption for donations/pay what you want. |
| drivethrucards: https://www.drivethrucards.com/ Card Games. Option for donations/pay what you want. |
| Board Game Atlas: https://www.boardgameatlas.com/ A quicker and million times lighter version of gameboardgeek for finding out about games and price trends. |
| Board Game Geek: https://boardgamegeek.com/ The library of Babel of board games, so much knowledge about the subject here that whatever you think about has been already discussed, yet it is difficult to find. |
| The Game Crafter: https://www.thegamecrafter.com/ You can not only bring your game to life here, but also put it to sell. |
| AnyDice: https://anydice.com/ Want to know probabilities of combinations of dices? AnyDice is a quick and flexible tool focused on that. |
| Inkscape: https://inkscape.org/ Vector graphics editor. It is enough for my needs. |
| yEd; https://www.yworks.com/products/yed Graph editor, very powerful and free. |
| Twine: https://twinery.org/ Interactive fiction editor. |
And this is it for the moment. As mentioned, I’ll keep on updating this very same list as I find new stuff around the internet and as I try it.
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