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Programs

Any program/engine/framework is cool to use, and that goes for art programs as well. If you want a better idea as to what you might use, you can check out the end of this document.

Assets

While we permit the use of assets, we recommend you try to make things yourself. If you do use assets just make sure to check their licensing terms and link them in a design document or in the description of your project. AI art or music is not allowed.

Design Doc

While it's not necessary, we highly recommend you create a design document to go along with your game. It's a great place to store all of your ideas so that the group is all on the same page. High achiever ahh example (notice the project tracker table at the end)

Game Engine

Pygame:
If you've done year 10 Digital Technologies, you probably already know how to use this., but you have to do everything from scratch, which is an absolute pain and pretty time consuming (not very good for a time-based challenge like a game jam).

Godot:
Python-based language that is really easy to pick up if you have very basic Python knowledge, may not have as many quality resources as it is a newer opensource program that's always changing.

GameMaker: 
Toby Fox? UNDERTALE? UNDERTALE reference? Funny Sans UNDERTALE reference? UNDERTALE???  U N D E R T A L E ?

Unity:
Industry standard and lots of features for everything you need, but you need to know C# + supporting evil :(

Unreal Engine:
Great for 3D.

Art

Photoshop:
Pros: school provides it for free!
Cons: supporting evil :( + It's not built for pixel art.

Krita:
Pros: Free to use after you leave school and has most of photoshops features. 
Cons: It's not built for pixel art.

Asesprite:
Pros: if you go to their git hub you can build it for free and now you have really cool pixel art software
Cons: you have to build it and honestly I was too lazy so I supported the developers 
(Alternatively, you can use Libresprite, which is a free fork of Aseprite. It's mostly up to date and it's amazing)

Blender for you 3D folk or Maya if you love pain

Microsoft Paint:
Pros: haha lol im gonna use ms paint
Cons: I am a changed person. I have grown. I have hardened. I will never be that same, naïve little child again...

Music

FamiStudios: Pros: free retro music :) Cons: only retro music :(

Anvil Studio: Don't know enough to even make even an uneducated take

FL Studios: Pros: Very professional Cons: $160 ;-;

Musecore: Wow you must really hate yourself!

Audacity: Pros: wanna make an a cappella soundtrack? Cons: welp good luck