Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

Hypatia is an open-source 2D game engine designed for creating single-player action adventure games similar to The Legend of Zelda series. Built with MIT licensing and currently in alpha, it targets both programmers… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Hypatia 0.2, a 2D adventure game engine launched in 2015; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1. 1
   I'm open-sourcing my game engine▲318

   Modd.io is a collaborative game editor that runs in browser. It's kind of like Figma for game dev. We made this engine low-code and multiplayer-first, so developeres can quickly prototype casual multiplayer games. I hope some of you guys will find this useful. Would love to hear feedback also. Thank you. Engine Demo: https://www.modd.io

   2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

2. 2IB
   I built an indie, browser-based MMORPG▲340

   I've been working on an MMORPG that is now in alpha as a solo developer. Here are the major open source technologies that I use: Blender - 3D modeling software for creating the overall environment and every game object. I've gotten a lot of CC and Public Domain assets from https://poly.pizza GLTF - I export assets from blender to the GLTF asset format JSON - I write a JSON config for every game object that describes things like its name, its interactions, its collisions, etc. Node.js exporter - I iterate over the environment and every asset to create a scene hierarchy. I use…

   2024 · alpha.reconquer.online · its alternatives →

3. 3
   I open sourced a game I just released on Steam, written in Lua▲496

   A replayable arcade shooter where you control a snake of heroes. - a327ex/SNKRX

   2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

4. 4UL
   Unity like game editor running in pure WASM▲644

   In the wake of all the Unity nonsense, just wanted to toss the Raverie engine into this mix :) We’re building off a previous engine that we worked on for DigiPen Institute of Technology called the Zero Engine with a similar component based design architecture to Unity. Our engine had a unique feature called Spaces: separate worlds/levels that you can instantiate and run at the same time, which became super useful for creating UI overlays using only game objects, running multiple simulations, etc. The lighting and rendering engine is scriptable, and the default deferred rendering…

   2023 · raverie-us.github.io · its alternatives →

5. 5
   Homegames. An open-source game platform I've been making for 8 years▲229

   I'm making a platform for simple open source games you can play anywhere. Games are all just JavaScript classes and you can read the source of every game on the platform. I started working on initial "games" (mostly rendering tests) in 2018 and eventually built all of the platform stuff around it to make it easy to share games. There's also an in-browser editor available for you to make and publish games all from the browser. Would love some feedback on the games and studio features as well as the platform overall. All of the code is available at https://github.com/homegamesio

   Jul 2026 · homegames.io · its alternatives →

6. 6
   Triforce Todos▲456

   Minimalist Zelda - Themed Task Management

   2024 · triforcetodos.com · its alternatives →

7. 7
   A 2D game engine in under 1000 lines of C▲98

   A top-down 2d game engine, written from scratch in under 1000 lines of C. Development of the game based on this engine is streamed on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ryanpcmcquen - ryanpcmcquen/basque

   2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

8. 8
   Open-source shooter which made it to AC: Valhalla and Skydio drones▲270

   So just for fun, I wrote a complete multiplayer game in pure C++. I even wrote my own texture atlas packer, which is now used by Assassin's Creed, 2 scientific publications as well as a drone manufacturing company - each of these basically mentions the name of my game. There is even a claim that Unity patented some of the ECS ideas that originate from this project. See https://github.com/TeamHypersomnia/Hypersomnia#tech-highligh... for details. By the way the game is pretty darn good. 10 people connected yesterday to test a new map:…

   2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

9. 9
   2D Game engine and editor for Windows and Linux▲121

   Hello HN, Just wanted to show this little 2D game engine that I've been working on for some time (around 2 years on the editor part, longer on some of the components). It's quite full featured but obviously this a project of such magnitude already that the work never really ends. That being said it's definitely already at a point where games can made and published. The editor runs natively on Windows and Linux using Qt5. The games can run on both Win and Linux as well as on WASM with WebGL. Feature wise there's a bunch of the stuff you'd expect. Audio, graphics, scripting,…

   2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

10. 102P
    2d platformer game built with Codex (zero code)▲10

    Hi HN! On Sunday I spent a couple of hours building a short 2d platformer ("Prince of Persia" style). What's interesting is how I built it. I went for a zero-code approach, and built the whole thing using OpenAI Codex CLI and agent skills (with the progressive disclosure paradigm). You can play the game here: https://acatovic.github.io/gothicvania-codex-demo/ You can see the full code, agent skills and a complete writeup here: https://github.com/acatovic/gothicvania-codex-demo Some takeaways: * This was one of the most enjoyable experiences ever! *…

    Feb 2026 · its alternatives →

11. 11
    Tiny – A 2D Game Engine in Kotlin Working with Lua▲100

    I created a small 2D game engine named Tiny. The engine was created using Kotlin Multiplatform and can run on a JVM and JS. Funny things: Games can be created using the programming language Lua. Tiny is designed to help you create and test your ideas quickly and effectively. Not only can you run your games on your desktop computer, but you can also export them for the web, making it easy to share your creations with others. You can create games easily with the hot reload, small API and Lua, which is very easy to learn. If you want to test a game idea, to try to create your first game or just…

    2023 · minigdx.github.io · its alternatives →

12. 12
    Crown – A flexible game engine written from scratch in C++▲193

    Crown Engine. Contribute to dbartolini/crown development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

13. 13
    Ejecta, A Fast, Open Source JavaScript, Canvas Implementation for iOS▲190

    2012 · impactjs.com · its alternatives →

14. 14AP
    A point-and-click game engine▲72

    2019 · purdone.com · its alternatives →

15. 15
    Lumix Engine – Open source C++ 3D game engine▲260

    3D C++ Game Engine - yet another open source game engine - nem0/LumixEngine

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

16. 16
    My first Open Source project -- Teaching my son Lua▲33

    Lua Text Adventure Engine. Contribute to shawndumas/adventure.lua development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2012 · github.com · its alternatives →

17. 17
    I open sourced Athena Crisis, a game built with React and CSS▲74

    Hey HN! I'm so excited to open source Athena Crisis under the MIT-License and fund contributions to the game and the genre. If you like the game and want to support its development, please check it out on Steam or on athenacrisis.com.

    2024 · cpojer.net · its alternatives →

18. 18
    Fio: 3D World editor/game engine – inspired by Radiant and Hammer▲96

    A liminal brush-based CSG editor and game engine with unified (forward) renderer inspired by Radiant and Worldcraft/Hammer Compact and lightweight (target: Snapdragon 8CX, OpenGL 3.3) Real-time lighting with stencil shadows without the need for pre-baked compilation

    Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

19. 19IS
    I spent 6 years making a cool free game▲151

    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 →

20. 20
    A Demo for a Strategy Game▲109

    This is something that I've been working on on-and-off in my spare time for the last few years. I started in 2020 during Covid trying to do a Mount and Blade style map in UE4, and it grew from there until where it is now - I would just add a feature, then another, until it came together. Since the start of the year I've really been trying to polish it some more. I've got the full thing planned for a Q3 25 release. Github release if you don't have Steam: https://github.com/joe-gibbs/fall-of-an-empire-release

    2024 · store.steampowered.com · its alternatives →

21. 21MP
    My platforming game written in C 89▲127

    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 →

22. 22HM
    Hathora – Multiplayer Game Development Made Easy▲89

    Hi HN, this is Harsh, I am the developer behind Hathora. I tried making a simple multiplayer game a few years ago and, as someone with software engineering experience but no gamedev experience, I found it to be very challenging. On top of the challenges of building a single player game, you now have to constantly battle the network and latency, find ways to prevent cheating, and figure out how to make a scalable backend architecture. With Hathora my goal was to encode best practices for online multiplayer game development into a framework so developers can simply focus on implementing their…

    2022 · docs.hathora.dev · its alternatives →

23. 23IM
    I made a 2D game engine in Dart▲98

    A 2D Game Engine for Dart.

    2025 · bullseye2d.org · its alternatives →

24. 24
    I made a 2D Lua game engine using Rust with code and asset live reload▲30

    I love making small 2D pixel art games, especially using tools that have some constraints. Things like Pico-8 and the Playdate SDK are simple, fun, and allow for focusing on the game idea rather than the technical minutia. Years ago I prototyped an idea for this little game engine, Usagi, but used Rhai instead of Lua. The idea for this little game engine never went away, so I decided to finally dig in and build it. Today I released v1.0.0 of Usagi Engine after making a bunch of small games, getting feedback from developers, and stabilizing the API. It's simple, has a great developer…

    May 2026 · usagiengine.com · its 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 →