I too put Aesprite in this category, but the big one for me is Godot. After years of from-scratch OpenGl projects and dabbling with Unity, I leaned into Godot 100% around 2020, and ever since it has been my #1 joy-sparking piece of software.
Around 2016 or so I had concluded that game dev has just stopped being fun, but luckily a friend talked me into trying pico-8. It's hard to describe what this little piece of software did for me, pure white magic!
Just around New Year Godot finally 'clicked' for me and once again I am super excited to tinker and prototype. I'm almost too scared to try out Picotron now. Almost.
I too put Aesprite in this category, but the big one for me is Godot. After years of from-scratch OpenGl projects and dabbling with Unity, I leaned into Godot 100% around 2020, and ever since it has been my #1 joy-sparking piece of software.