Alternatives
Products that do what I made a 2D Lua game engine using Rust with code and asset live reload does
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…
- 1LE
2017 · github.com
- 2H0
Hello, Hacker News! My name is Lillian (see: http://about.lillian.link/), and I just released version 0.2 of my MIT-licensed game engine, Hypatia(http://lillian-lemmer.github.io/hypatia/). Hypatia is a game engine for single player 2D action adventure games. You can use it to make a game like Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons. Hypatia is aimed at non-programmers and programmers alike. I'm seeking any sort of feedback. Hypatia supports FreeBSD first, but has great support for just about any platform…
2015
- 3M1
2019 · mnml.gg
- 4AB
Hi HN, I've been working on ThorVG, an open-source vector graphics engine. It started as a lightweight SVG renderer and has gradually evolved into a rendering engine supporting SVG, Lottie, and modern GPU backends. This demo showcases the latest ThorVG 1.1 running entirely in the browser. Try it here: https://thorvg-janitor.vercel.app ThorVG v1.1: https://www.thorvg.org/post/thorvg-v1-1-rising-the-standard
Jul 2026 · thorvg-janitor.vercel.app
- 5MB
Hi, so i'm making a 2D game engine with its own IDE and interpreted programming language, all are written in C# It's open source, and I'm looking for contributors! The backend engine is MonoGame, the IDE is WinForms and the project is real, not just another AI-slop... Please check it out, i promise it's an unusual thing! Here's a YouTube video showing me using the engine for making a little cute game: https://youtu.be/h_AnUg4yJWs?si=MR3nQCVvOMDP3iqg Any feedback is welcome!
May 2026 · github.com
- 6RS
Built a native Scratch 3.0 runtime in Lua that runs .sb3 projects without a browser. Why? Browser sandboxing prevents access to hardware features (haptics, sensors, fine-grained perf controls). Native runtime gives you direct hardware access and lets you deploy to consoles, handhelds, embedded devices. Also means much smaller binaries (LÖVE is ~7MB vs 50-100MB for Electron). How it works: - Scratch blocks compile to IR, then optimize, then generate Lua - LuaJIT executes the compiled code - Coroutine-based threading for concurrent scripts - Lazy loading + LRU cache for memory management - SVG…
Oct 2025 · github.com
- 7AC
2015 · github.com
- 8CA
2025 · github.com
- 9AM
Hi, I work on this library because I like the simplicity of CGI and enjoy building things with C++. It is based on asio and my own implementation of FastCGI, and it works on both Linux and Windows. I have just released the new version and created a simple live demo that you can check out here: https://asyncgi-guestbook.eelnet.org
2023 · github.com
- 10AM
Hi everyone! I'm one of the developers behind this project. I wrote it with my two brothers, Daniel and Ricardo. For years the three of us have been curious about how multiplayer games work, which is why we decided to work on this project. Our goal was to gain a deep understanding of how different players can share the same 3D space, which is why we wrote our own tiny game engine instead of using something like Unity. We wrote the engine using C++ and OpenGL, and we then compiled it to WebAssembly using Emscripten so that it would run effortlessly on web browsers. We are really excited about…
2022 · play.moonlightmuseum.io
- 11IB
Hey HN, I built a tiny zero DOM layout engine for vector graphics and custom renderers to resolves nested rows/cols/grids into exact `{x, y, w, h}` boxes, with text measurement, overflow signals, and collision separation. This is to help make SVG, PDF, Canvas responsive. Feedback welcome from anyone building canvas/SVG diagrams, dashboards, node editors, or diagram tools.
Jul 2026 · github.com
- 12BA
This is a little side project I've been working on for the last few months. It's a service hosting Lua scripts behind static HTTP endpoints in a fully sandboxed environment. It's something I've built to scratch my own itch and now I'm launching a free public beta to see if it's something that anyone else also finds useful. My first professional job was for a company building an industrial IoT platform who's most unique feature was their Lua-based scripting platform. I ended up loving Lua so much that at my next job, at SmartThings, I ended up being the main instigator who made the Lua-based…
Nov 2025 · bodge.app
- 13AM
I recently finished a round of tweaks on my barebones mud-server and thought HN might be interested. https://github.com/endgame/MudCore It sits somewhere between socketmud and a full mud like tbamud in that it handles all the socket work and telnet negotiation, but it makes no assumptions about anything else. The other interesting thing is that it can talk to other services using ZeroMQ. I'm interested in reactions, particularly in terms of coding style, documentation quality and so on. It's my main "presentation piece" so far, in that it's some of the first code I actually feel proud to…
2012
- 14SA
Me and my boyfriend are making a puzzle game together. The goal of the game is to follow a specific pattern by moving around in a grid. Since we are both web developers, we chose to do it in React and Typescript rather than a game engine. We will release it on Steam in November, using Electron to package the app as a desktop executable. Not sure if it has saved us time to do it in React, but we didn't feel like learning a new tool and it has worked really well! I thought making a game would take a lot of time, but we started in December so we will finish this project in less than a year. And…
2024 · lageb.itch.io
- 15IB
Link: https://docs.trysoma.ai/ For the past ~9 months I’ve been building Soma, an open-source AI agent & workflow runtime written in Rust, with a TypeScript SDK (Python coming soon). It’s not a framework; it’s meant to sit underneath whatever agent/tooling code you already write (Vercel AI SDK, LangChain, custom code, etc.). It provides features around your framework + a better DX for building agents. I’ve tried to take a Next.JS model: open-source, good DX, self-deployable. I originally set out to build a vertical back-office/operations product for SMEs. I needed a…
Dec 2025 · docs.trysoma.ai
- 16EA
I'm excited to share a project that I've been working on mostly solo for the past year! It's called Elara, and it's a free open source game that teaches you how to code. You can play directly in your browser without downloading anything or creating an account. It's targeted toward complete beginners, but if you already have some coding experience, there are optional bonus challenges to really test your knowledge and problem-solving skills. If you like code golf, some of the challenges will be right up your alley ;) Under the hood, the backend/core game logic is built with Rust and…
2023 · elaragame.com
- 17CP
2018 · github.com
- 18RA
2017 · github.com
- 19HE
Hi HN, I’m working on an experimental 3D FPS game engine in C++20, aiming to deeply understand engine internals from first principles rather than just using existing frameworks. Currently I'm strictly following LearnOpenGL docs. This project focuses on: Entity-Component-System (ECS) architecture for high performance. OpenGL 4.1 rendering with a PBR pipeline, material system, HDR, SSAO, and shadow mapping. Modular systems: input, physics (Jolt), audio (miniaudio), assets, hot reload. A sample FPS game & debug editor built into the repo. Repo:…
Jan 2026 · github.com
- 20MA
I hereby present my little tiny pet project that entertained me for the past six months. In this post, I briefly present Maginet and its technical components. It is a turn-based strategy game that is built using Rust and compiles to WebAssembly with HTML5 bindings, which works on mobile and desktop alike! It comes with many game mechanics and components, including an AI opponent and online cross-platform multiplayer. There is so much to discuss even for a project of a smaller scale, but I am nevertheless excited to share a little bit about how you can actually build a game in Rust,…
2023 · evrim.zone
- 21
Build tile maps, game boards and pixel editors faster
Jul 2026 · canvastileengine.com
- 22SB
I originally made Serene Bach in the 2000s as a weblog engine written in Perl CGI. I rebuilt it from scratch in Go as a single binary that can run either as a CGI program or as a normal HTTP server. I know CGI is generally considered legacy technology now, but I still rely on it for shared hosting. In this version, I added Markdown support, a responsive default theme, Open Graph image generation, and static output generation. It is still in beta, but the repository includes a Docker image published on GHCR, documentation, and a local quick start. I'd appreciate feedback from anyone…
May 2026 · github.com
- 23IB
Hi HN, I'm one of the engine programmers at All Out Games (https://allout.game/), a multiplayer-first gaming UGC platform where creators can make and play games with their friends. For scripting we wanted our creators to be able to jump in and create game mechanics without having to think about networking. If a developer had to manually send packets to/from client/server to get things to happen then we have failed. It is particularly bad if you are using AI tools because they struggle to keep in mind what code is meant to run where (client, server, or both) and…
Mar 2026 · docs.allout.game
- 24IM
It works by using open AIs new gpt-image API, image processing algorithms and some prompt engineering. Still has some limitations, but can already generate ready to use assets.
2025 · pixel-gen.ai
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