AI · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Hedra – an open-world 3D game I wrote from scratch before LLMs
With the current inflow of LLM aided software, I thought I would share a cool "hand-coded" project from the previous era (I wrote this in highschool so roughly ~8 years ago). Hedra is an open world 3d game written from scratch using only OpenGL and C#. It has quite a few cool features like infinite generation, skinned animated mesh rendering, post processing effects, etc. Originally the physics engine was also written from scratch but i swapped for the more reliable bulletphysics.
Hedra is an open-world 3D game built from scratch using OpenGL and C# without AI assistance. The game features infinite procedural generation, skinned animated mesh rendering, post-processing effects, and physics… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.
- 1
Hello HN! We’re a small creative studio specializing in real-time 3D experiences. Netlify approached us to design and build an interactive experience to celebrate reaching 5 million developers. Inspired by the classic game Marble Madness, we created a gamified experience where users control a ball through playful, interactive levels. The goal was to blend marketing content with the look and feel of a game to engage users. The app is built with Three.js [1], using our custom render pipeline and shaders, and uses Rapier for physics simulation [2]. The 2D content is overlaid on the WebGL view…
2024 · 5-million-devs.netlify.com · its alternatives →
- 2
An OpenGL RTS game engine written in C. Contribute to eduard-permyakov/permafrost-engine development by creating an account on GitHub.
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 3AF
I've seen some interests in (simulation) video games here on HN so I thought I'd share a short version of our story. More than 6 years ago, me and my friend from university were playing around with an idea of making a game we always wanted to play. We worked on it on weekends but the progress was quite slow, especially due to so many dead ends and wasted effort. Eventually however, we solidified our direction and decided to take the risk to resign from our well paid SWE jobs and work on it full time. It took more than a year but yesterday we have finally released it on Steam:…
2022 · its alternatives →
- 4
Hi HN ! This is an open source project I've been working on for a while. It's actually the third breakout-like game I've built. I really like the simplicity of the concept, having just one input (the puck horizontal position) and a simple gameplay that gives a low skill floor. My girlfriend and I played a lot of the excellent LBreakoutHD, an open source breakout game that follows the traditional formula of having multiple lives, scoring points by breaking bricks and catching the good upgrades that spawn randomly and fall down, while avoiding bad upgrades. She liked this game because it is…
2025 · breakout.lecaro.me · its alternatives →
- 5
Hey HN. Over the last half a year I have been working on a 3D CAD programming language called DSLCAD. Today I am here to show my first release! It is heavily inspired by OpenSCAD which got me hooked on the idea of a CAD programming language and what it can do. Please let me know what you think. Ill be in the thread to answer any questions you may have.
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 6
A replayable arcade shooter where you control a snake of heroes. - a327ex/SNKRX
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 7MP
I have been working on this game somewhat sparsely for the past three years or so. However, it is still in a very early stage, and there is a lot of work to do. One of my friends encouraged me to post about it here, since he felt people might find interesting how I don’t use any libraries for it. The game can be played on a browser by virtue of WebAssembly. There are native ports using either MiniFB or SDL2, but you have to build those yourself. I decided to write the game in C because I feel like it is a simple language that a lot of people can understand well enough, and I didn’t think I…
2023 · zamfofex.neocities.org · its alternatives →
- 8
A simple Minecraft clone written in C using modern OpenGL (shaders). - fogleman/Craft
2013 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 9
Mobile-first 3D mapping engine with emphasis on user experience - felixpalmer/procedural-gl-js
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 10IM
Hi, I've been developing an HTML5 MMORPG game where people can submit code to play a game, like collect items, destroy defense towers or kill monsters, etc.. I've been working on this for over 1.5 yrs (all my spare time) and now it's ready for preview, does anyone want to try it out? It's mostly opensource (and the rest will be opensource sooner or later) Please access it with PC, it's an HTML5 game: https://bytelegend.com/ I really want it to expand to more languages, but right now I've only finished Java part. I wonder if anyone can help me with other languages. Besides, I'm…
2022 · bytelegend.com · its alternatives →
- 11AS
2016 · erkaman.github.io · its alternatives →
- 12
Hello HN! This is the first game I ever built. It's very simple, but I'm still kind of proud of it because all the pixel art is original. Thanks for taking a look! GitHub link: https://github.com/shajidhasan/shehzadi-in-peril
2024 · shehzadi.vercel.app · its alternatives →
- 13
Hey HN, this is a small project myself and closer friends have been building on our free time (https://github.com/Dr-Nekoma/lyceum), it finally reached 0.1.0, we are open to feedback! The original idea was to experiment with Zig + Raylib, eventually we wrote a small server in Erlang as well. We started by first interacting with Erlang via its C bindings, but this eventually led to some of us to prototyping our own tooling to better integrate Zig types with Erlang, we called such tool "zerl" as its avaliable here…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 14IS
Hey everyone! Long time lurker, first time poster. I've just reached beta in my game BoxByte Lyte. -What is it- It's a free 3d arcade game for hardcore players that uses color matching in interesting ways. Also it's a one button game, well movement and one button. Cool huh? The final release will be free too. -What I need- This is a very challenging game, so I really need to balance the difficulty so that it's still hard but not impossible. It would be great just to hear your experiences of the game and how far in it you got. -Where can I report bugs?-…
2015 · its alternatives →
- 15MF
2011 · demoseen.com · its alternatives →
- 16
So, after years of abandoning Rust after the hello world stage, I finally decided to do something substantial. It started with simple line rendering, but I liked how it was progressing so I figured I could make a reasonably complete PSX style renderer and a game with it. My only dependency is SDL2; I treat it as my "platform", so it handles windowing, input and audio. This means my Cargo.toml is as simple as: [dependencies.sdl2] version = "0.35" default-features = false features = ["mixer"] this pulls around 6-7 other dependencies. I am doing actual true color 3D rendering (with Z buffer,…
2025 · totenarctanz.itch.io · its alternatives →
- 17IJ
2011 · codebrief.com · its alternatives →
- 18
- 19WA
Dust3D is a free, open source low poly 3D modeling tool for video games and 3D printing. Features sketch-to-mesh, auto-rigging, procedural animation, and single-tool GLB/FBX export.
2018 · dust3d.readthedocs.io · its alternatives →
- 20AR
I think it's finally time to lock version 0.2 of my 4d side project. (Since previous Show HN a couple of years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37100760 I scrapped lots of stuff and concentrated on making a javascript "game engine") The sole purpose of this project is to explore whether it's possible to make the human brain spatially aware of four dimensions using Virtual Reality. It’s my first ever game project, my first time using Unity, first time writing C#, and my first anything with WebXR, so please be gentle! To manage expectations, it isn't visually pleasing…
2025 · brainpaingames.com · its alternatives →
- 21PA
I've been working for a while on trying to curate a game that has the emergence of procedurally generated computer games but that can be played with only pen and paper. Here I present the best version I've been able to come up with that is simple and emergent. I've really enjoyed being able to engage with this sort of game while not feeling like my brain in rotting. I recon my numeracy improves while playing it.
Jun 2026 · jameshylands.co.uk · its alternatives →
- 22WV
2015 · voxlords.webgl.nu · its alternatives →
- 23AT
This is a tutorial on how to build a 2D game engine with Go and OpenGL. The tutorial is based on the work I did for my own hobby game engine and I am writing it as a way to improve my code and understanding of the material (firm believer in the Feynman Technique). There are currently three tutorials and the plan is to release one every other week. Appreciate any feedback.
2023 · nik-os.com · its alternatives →
- 24SF
Hi HN! I’ve been building a 2D game using a custom engine I wrote from scratch – no Unity, no frameworks. It’s fully self-funded and will be released commercially on Steam. Engine source code (MIT): http://github.com/willtobyte/carimbo I’d love feedback on the gameplay, visuals, performance, or anything else. Thanks!
2025 · bereprobate.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
- A Marble Madness-inspired WebGL game we built for Netlify alternatives
- I wrote my own RTS game engine in C alternatives
- A friend and I spent 6 years making a simulation game, finally released alternatives
- Breakout with a roguelite/vampire survivor twist alternatives
- DSLCad – a programming language and interpreter for building 3D models alternatives
- I open sourced a game I just released on Steam, written in Lua alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →