Top 10 Best 2D Game Asset Sites

Published January 10, 2016 by David Ying, posted by yinakoSGA
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2D games are making a big come back with the proliferation of mobile games, HTML5 and major support of big publishers. Producing them now have been much easier than before with tools like Unity and help of online 2D Game Asset stores. Below is a list of top 10 2D games asset stores you can find online, not ranked in any order. Some commercial and some free.

** Not ranked in any order **

1. Unity Asset Store (commercial)

Biggest commercial game assets site. No you don't have to use the Unity engine to use games assets offered on the Unity asset store, you can simply download a free copy of Unity and download assets through the Unity asset store online. Game assets will be imported into Unity, and the files will be saved into your Unity project folder. You can use the saved game assets in any 2D game engine. Many people may not know Unity is a very successful 2D game engine, in the hands of professional game developers. Amazing variety of highly successful 2D games have been created such as Rovio's smash hit, Bad Piggies. The integrated asset store offers a large range of 2D assets designed to make well use of Unity's 2D physics engine.

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/

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2. GameDev Market (commercial)

GameDev Market is quite a new entry, like Super Game Asset it is very well organised into different categories. The offer both 2D and 3D including Game UI, character sprites, icons and environments. It is a market so all assets are artist submissions and it is growing very quickly.

https://www.gamedevmarket.net/

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3. Graphicriver - Game Assets (commercial)

Graphicriver is the world's most popular stock image resource, with the proliferation of casual games on mobile they have recently started a specific category just for game assets, and it is all 2D. This is a trustable source for quality game resources as all assets will be reviewed by envato internally before getting listed on the site. Plus you have community review on the sources as well. It is a constantly-growing source with great support from envato.

http://graphicriver.net/category/game-assets

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4. Scirra Store (commercial)

Scirra is the developer of Construct 2, a popular HTML5 2D game editor and they now have their own game asset store. You don't have to use them in Construct 2 it is perfectly okay to use in any 2D editor really. The game assets are categorized in graphics, sound, music and even game templates which can help you start a new game quickly in Construct 2.

https://www.scirra.com/store

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5. Game Art Partners (commercial)

Plenty for 2D platform games. This site has plenty of 2D game assets for you. All assets are very cartoon styled and include large collections of characters with animations, monsters, weapons, effects and user interface kits well suited for platform games.

http://gameartpartners.com/

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6. Super Game Asset (commercial)

Best for RPG Games. If you are creating your own RPG or isometric games, Super Games Asset store has the highest quality 2D games assets you can buy online. They offer awesome RPG game icons (these are probably the best you can purchase directly online), 2D sprites, character animation sprites, and huge hand painted RPG game maps in isometric view. Majority of game assets here are visually consistent.

http://www.supergameasset.com

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7. Open Game Art (free)

The definitive place for open source games. This place is most likely the biggest online community for free licenced game assets. There is a large selection of game assets all submitted under GNU or Creative Commons licences, you can find anything from sprites to icons. It is a great place to start if you are a beginner or just require prototyping game assets. Not all visual styles are consistent though, so you'll need to find and match.

http://opengameart.org/

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8. Kenny Game Assets (free)

This is another good source for prototyping a game, there are over 20,000+ game assets on this site. It includes various user interface assets, common 2D platform game assets and sprites. Best of all most assets are vector graphics, so it is resolution independent and can be used on any device's screen. Most assets are free to download separately or you can give a small $9 donation to download the whole 20,000 asset pack.

http://kenney.nl/assets

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9. Game-Icons.net (free)

best free icon only site, game-icons.net offer a really comprehensive set of icons, in fact over 2000 different variations of monochromatic icons. I say monochromatic because all of the icons here are in black and white but still very generic enough to be used in just about any game. It's a great source to search everything from actions icons, health, potion, character skills, weapons, items. Best of all it's all in vector format.

http://game-icons.net/

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10. Reiner's Tilesets (free)

Best free tileset site. The game assets on this site are well suited for games with isometric view, Reiner have sprites for animals, plants, buildings, weapons, visual effects and just about every general object to populate an RPG world. The style are more realistic, along the lines of Diablo 2. It is a great place to start game development and test out RPG game engines as all assets are free.

http://www.reinerstilesets.de/en/

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0 Likes 12 Comments

Comments

Eck
Eck

This is a good list of assets, but I couldn't help but notice that your website is number 2 on the list and rated as the best source for RPG games. :) You should put in a disclaimer saying as much.

December 24, 2015 05:31 PM
Servant of the Lord

This is a good list of assets, but I couldn't help but notice that your website is number 2 on the list and rated as the best source for RPG games. smile.png You should put in a disclaimer saying as much.


And GameDev's website is #3, purely as a form of flattery to this community.

I can't mark it as 'peer reviewed', because the ranking is clearly biased both towards yourself and to flatter us.
I don't feel it's inaccurate for me to mark this article as "Inaccurate and misleading". In fact, I think it's intentionally inaccurate and misleading.

As far as my peer-reviewing goes, this can be resolved by three ways:
1) Remove the ranking entirely.

1A) Don't try to claim one is superior another.

1B) Don't try to manipulate us by ranking us artificially higher than we should be.

1C) Don't try to manipulate users by lying to them about the quality of your site.
2) Don't put your website near the top.
3) Clearly state it's your website, letting users know that you are biased.

December 24, 2015 10:39 PM
jbadams

And GameDev's website is #3, purely as a form of flattery to this community.

That's not us actually, although at a glance the similar name has tripped me up several times!

Otherwise agreed with your comments! :)

January 01, 2016 11:32 PM
Servant of the Lord

*facepalm*

Thanks for pointing that out.

January 03, 2016 08:15 PM
yinakoSGA

Hi, actually I didn't not meant to rank them, just point out all 10 and numbered them. I put all the commercial ones at the top and free ones at the bottom. I have edited to make this clear.

January 04, 2016 10:16 AM
Servant of the Lord

Thanks for making that clearer in the article. If you put yours at the bottom of the commercial list, I'll gladly approve the article.

January 04, 2016 08:19 PM
yinakoSGA

Hi, that's okay I have updated article to reflect this.

January 08, 2016 03:09 AM
Servant of the Lord

Thank you, I changed my vote to approve it.

January 08, 2016 05:20 PM
ongamex92

I've always wandered, can I buy a Unity Asset and "unpack" them to fbx/dae/(other common format) + resources?

January 11, 2016 09:15 AM
tetriarch

Thank you, this is seriously something I needed!! ;)

January 11, 2016 03:34 PM
DigiMan Shart

I've always wandered, can I buy a Unity Asset and "unpack" them to fbx/dae/(other common format) + resources?

As long as you download a free version of Unity, then import the package from the Asset Store, if it's a 3D model or a texture, once it's imported into Unity, you can open the file in explorer and access the art asset and use it however you like. Just look in the Asset Store description, so you know what file format the model or texture will be in.

January 12, 2016 05:24 PM
polox

Thank you very much:)

February 03, 2016 07:44 PM
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Producing 2D games now have been much easier than before with tools like Unity and help of online 2D Game Asset stores. Below is a list of top 10 2D games asset store you can find online, some commercial and some free.

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