What tools do I need to make my own games at home?

What tools do I need to make my own games at home?

There used to be a lot of tools for making games at home, all variously inaccessible. Increasingly, however, we're finding that a lot of the tools are now being made more widely available for people just to have a go with. The current generation of consoles, I think both Microsoft and Sony, are supporting grass-roots level game creation. Basic tools are available for download and it would be a matter of just going to those particular holders websites and they'll probably point you in the right direction. Things like XNA will give you the tools you need to start and get up and rolling. You might need some additional things for game-making, like Photoshop, and a 3D modelling package might be useful, but that's probably over-complicating it. Actually, you can download a good version of Flash and there's a huge, thriving industry of Flash games going out there at the moment, doing really creative, very interesting things, and stuff that you probably couldn't get away with in commercial games, as they are quirky ideas that wouldn't really make much money. But they're great games to play.