Who are you, and what do you do?
My name is Heather Flowers. I'm an independent game developer and writer, currently working on the Extreme Meatpunks Forever game series (Seasons 1 and 2 out now), about gay disasters beating up Neo-Nazis in giant robots made of meat.
What hardware do you use?
I work using a refurbished Lenovo ThinkPad P50. It's a solid laptop -- strong enough that I'll be using it for years to come, while still maintaining a kind of brutalist elegance.
And what software?
I program my games in Unity engine (specifically v2018.3). I code C# in Sublime Text with a personalized theme I put together a while back. I write in Yarn, a Twine-like program used for game dialog. For static art assets, I tend to use stylized ASCII art, so a common workflow is to make a basic ASCII image in Notepad, port it into Glimpse (a GNU Image Manipulation Program fork), color/edit it there, and export to Unity. For animations, I use Aseprite.
What would be your dream setup?
My dream setup is honestly similar to my present setup, but more powerful. Part of the reason I enjoy the ThinkPad P50 is that it has lots of room to grow: it's an easily modded machine, so with the right setup it can become really powerful for a laptop. I don't think I'd want to switch to a desktop, long term -- ironically, mobility is an important aspect in my working from home routine. Being able to pick up my workstation and move it elsewhere in my home allows for a strong routine and greater work hygiene, which is important to my mental health.
Software-wise, I want to begin incorporating Blender for 3D modeling into my workflow, but I have some more learning to do before I feel confident working with it professionally.