Tools
Conventional Tools such as Photoshop work fine for creating image assets for GB Studio. Here are some free and low cost option for tools and assets.
Tiled – Free/Donationware Map Editor makes it easier to design scenes using a grid layout. Import sprites, lay out scenes. It’s free, or “pay what you want” and is available for all major platforms.
Pixel Studio – Available via Steam with paid and trial version.
Aseprite – Pixel Art Creator – Available via Steam with a free trial version.
Piskel – Free online and offline pixel sprite editor.
Graphicsgale – Freeware pixel art creator – only for Windows
GIMP – Free Photo Editing Application similar to Photoshop.
Paint.net – Award-winning Paint program for Windows. Available as a free version, or through Microsoft’s store.
Pixelorama – full featured web-based free pixel art editor
2Bit Character Generator – Web based tool for generating characters. Creates content ready for GB Studio.
GB Studio Tile Count – Web-based tool gives you the unique tile count for a background.
Tilesetter – Automated Tile Generator – both free and paid versions
Assets
GB Studio color swatches for Photoshop and Piskel
GB Studio swatches for Aseprite
GB Studio Community Assets – trove of content for game creators
Texas Tech collection of GB Studio assets on itch.io
GB Studio Tile Sets on itch.io
GB Studio Sprites on itch.io
GB Studio Central on itch.io
More GB Studio Assets collected by Reakain
Background Pattern Pack – no more empty scenes!
Dialog Boxes – Several to choose from – fancy up dialogues
MOD repository with lots of music. There are several formats listed, make sure you are choosing MOD files, and not other formats, as they won’t work with GB Studio. When using MOD files, you will need to change your preferences in GB Studio to use them instead of the default music file format.