What Programs To Use?

There are a ton of fantastic programs one can use when writing and designing games. Below are what I used to make Liminal Horror.

Markdown

I’ve found myself writing my games using markdown (an easy to use computer language) that can be used with a variety of different programs, and allows you to output in multiple formats (pdf, epub, html). This increases your ability to create dynamic and accessible products down the line.

Create your own SRD

Creating your own online SRD is not only a way to present your work (creating a free web based, public facing document that allows for collaboration and growth) but can help structure the writing and end product.

Character Sheets

Word Processors/File Organization

  • Markdown based programs such as typora or ghostwriter are great options. I would highly recommend taking a little bit of time to learn about this option since it can really open up some opportunities at the end of your project.
  • Google Drive for file organization & management. Jalopy Design: Itchfunding & Gdocs by David Schirduan (Technical Grimoire) goes into detail about how one can leverage google docs to create a finished ttrpg. It presents what went well using gdocs, and what the drawbacks were.
  • Google Docs for writing the base text of Limnial Horror. This also allowed me to share the document and recieve notes/feedback.

Layout

  • Affinity Publisher. This is an affordable, single purchase program.
  • Canva is a free website that really scaffolds small scale design in a way that allows anyone to create professional products. It is used a ton in teaching and other fields. A great overview by Jeeyon Shim, on how to use it in ttrpg spaces, can be found here
  • Top 15 Tutorials. Affinity has a bunch of helpful tutorials to lower the learning curve and this had some good ones included.
  • Tips for adding interactivity to your digital publications

Image Editing & Creation

  • Affinity Phto and Designer. This is an affordable, single purchase program.
  • Jalopy Design: Cleaning up Public Domain Art by David Schirduan (Technical Grimoire) does another fantastic entry that goes through how to edit and leverage Public Domain Art in your works.
  • Noise Dystopia Machine by Chaoclypse is a collection of Photoshop actions that lets you turn existing images into xerox’d, messed up, straight up fucked black and white copies with just a click or two!
  • GIMP is a free, open source image editor. While I do own Affinity Designer and Photo, I still primarily use this to edit the images I used in Liminal Horror.
  • PIXLR X Is a free browser based photo editor. Described as an easy-to-use photo editor (with help of templates)
  • PIXLR E Is a free browser based, powerful photo editor. Described as an advanced editor for pros.
  • Dither Me This is a tool you can use to dither images.
  • Inkscape is a free vector graphic program.
  • Krita is a free open source painting program.
  • Artflow AI allows users to generate visual content wit hthe help of an AI. Currently it is built to generate portraits. The output is licensed under CC BY which allows commercial and noncommercial use with attribution.

Here is a list of alternatives to Adobe programs created by xdaniel Art (they require a regular subscription that is predatory and if you don’t pay you often get hit with massive hidden fees and lose access to things you have made/bought)
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Liminal Horror is developed by Gobin Archives, Josh Domanski, and Zach Hazard Vaupen