We use several tools for our development:
Hi-Tech C [link]
We use C because it is a fast but readable programming language. With Hi-Tech C it’s even possible to generate ROM’s which makes development fast and easy. Slow and critical parts will be converted to in-line assembly code to keep the code fast.
BlueMSX [link]/OpenMSX [link]
We use both emulators for testing our code during development. Especially the debugger of BlueMSX is very handy for solving nasty bugs.
Polka! [link]
Because we’re creating a tile-based screen2 game we just had to use Polka!. It’s the ‘only’, workable, tool around for creating gfx for MSX1. Too bad it still lacks those features we all need (just try to make some end-boss gfx 
).
Pletter 5b [link]
We’re using pletter for compression. Pletter’s decompression is fast and the compression ratio is great.
Vortex Tracker II [link]
Vortex tracker is an excellent tracker for the PSG sound-chip. The tracker generates .pt3 files which are very common in the spectrum scene. The possibilities and results are incredible. PSG music is very underrated in the MSX scene due to the more advanced MSX-Music and MSX-Audio during the golden years of the MSX scene.
BMP2PP [link]
This tool is made by Marcel de Kogel and converts BMP images to PP format. We made a small converter that converts .pp files into a polka! format.
VDPenc [link]
For some special effects we use ARTRAG’s tool to convert movies and animations.
Meteor
Meteor is our own made level editor. During development the tools had several makeovers. With future projects in mind the editor is very dynamic and can be used for different needs.
Enemator
Enemator is an enemy editor. It combines a sprite editor and an FSM matrix editor. This editor is usable for multiple purposes of game types.
Scriptor
As John came up with a fantastic but huge (40+ pages) gamescript we needed to make a tool to script everything to our needs in the game. The script language is a markup language that is parsed into binary data.
Tilemator
For in-game animations (flames, water etc) we have designed an animation tracker. The animation are real-time updates into the pattern table in VRAM.
