Open Source Game Development Resources

0xDE57 · December 19, 2023, 5:35am

This thread will aim to be a sort of sister thread to: A curated list of amazing open source software you may have not heard of
But with a focus on game dev.

Post open source engines, libraries and resources, or good learning materials for game development!

Rules: no restrictive licenses or engines that (tried to) enforce per-user install fees…

Disclaimer: be sure to check specific licensing of engines and frameworks.

NOTE: Sometimes the line can be blurry between engines and frameworks and libraries.

Engines

Frameworks and Libraries

Collections of libraries to provide some engine-like features but leave implementation and architecture up to the developer.

stb | cross-plat | C, C++ | Single-file libraries to make your life easier
single_file_libs | cross-plat | C, C++ | A huge collection of single-file libraries for you to use in your projects

Physics Engines

Bullet | C++ | 3D
JoltPhysics | C++ | 3D
Rapier | Rust | 2D + 3D
Torque2D | C++ | 2D
box2d | C++ | 2D
box2c | C | 2D | (soon…)
matter.js | JavaScript | 2D

UI

ImGui | C++

Art: 2D & Pixel

LIBRESPRITE | Cross-plat
Aseprite | Cross-plat

Art: 3D

Blender | Cross-plat

Audio: DAW’s, Music, SFX

Audacity | cross-plat
ARDOUR | cross-plat
LMMS | cross-plat
MusE | Linux

Fonts and Glyphs

dafont | (be sure to double check per-font license)
Controller and Keyboard Prompts / Glyphs | CC0 | UI Images for player inputs

Learning Materials

High quality learning materials for how games work under the hood.

The Book of Shaders | GLSL | Learn the basics of shaders in OpenGL
Game Programming Patterns | Architecture and design patterns

Other reference material

Game UI Database | UI catalog and reference tool for interface designers

This repo is maintained has way more resources:

daveMeister · December 20, 2023, 5:45pm

Frameworks

I think it would be a crime to not include SDL2, which is
pretty much the go-to framework that many games are built on top of.
Simple DirectMedia Layer | cross-plat | C, C++, C#, Python | 2D + 3D, Audio, Input, Joystick

Engines

There’s also raylib which is a simplified game framework that you interface with directly in code:
raylib | cross-plat | C, C++, golang, Python, Rust, ect… | 2D + 3D

Other

stb | cross-plat | C, C++ | Single-file libraries to make your life easier
single_file_libs | cross-plat | C, C++ | A huge collection of single-file libraries for you to use in your projects

Thanks for the resource 0xDE57, I think that people need to know that they have more than one option for game developement.

0xDE57 · December 21, 2023, 5:19am

Precisely why I created this thread. Thanks for contributing!!!

0xDE57 · December 21, 2023, 5:22am

I want to start playing with some linux DAW’s soon. Starting with Ardour.

I still mess around in Ableton with some VST’s but that’s one of the last pieces of proprietary software in my chain / stack. Ableton under wine has too much latency for real-time effects when messing with live recording. I really wanted it to run on the steam deck but its unusable. So hopefully a native DAW will resolve that.

Any music makers on Linux please chime in!

0xDE57 · January 6, 2024, 3:41am

Almost forgot Pygame which is uses SDL.

0xDE57 · March 23, 2024, 6:19am

found a much better list:

/thread

0xDE57 · April 21, 2024, 9:12pm

I’m just going to leave this here

Summary