Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to OpenGL Real-Time Strategy Game Engine in Pure C [38k SLOC C99]

An OpenGL RTS game engine written in C. Contribute to eduard-permyakov/permafrost-engine development by creating an account on GitHub.

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. OpenGL Real-Time Strategy Game Engine in Pure C [38k SLOC C99] launched in 2020; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1
I wrote my own RTS game engine in C▲1,102
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 →
2
Permafrost Engine – OpenGL 3.3 Real Time Strategy Engine in C▲144
An OpenGL RTS game engine written in C. Contribute to eduard-permyakov/permafrost-engine development by creating an account on GitHub.
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
3
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 →
4
StratusGFX, my open-source real-time 3D rendering engine▲483
It's been closed source for a long time while I worked on it on and off as a hobby research project, but yesterday the repo was made public for the first time under the MPL 2.0 license. A feature reel showing its capabilities can be found here: https://ktstephano.github.io/rendering/stratusgfx/feature_re... A technical breakdown of a single frame can be found here: https://ktstephano.github.io/rendering/stratusgfx/frame_anal... It's still in a very beta state (bugs and instability expected), but I felt like it was a good time to make it…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
5
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 →
6
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 →
7MP
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 →
8
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 →
9
VSC – An open source 3D Rendering Engine in C++▲101
Been making this rasterizer engine in C++ for the past few months, now also adding ray-tracing functionality to the system. Simply load a model or generate a mesh, add some lights, and render.
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
10
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 →
11
Mirage▲278
Where you co-create the game as you play it
2025 · its alternatives →
12
Unreal Engine 5▲316
New imaging technology Transforms Movies Into Video Games
2022 · unrealengine.com · its alternatives →
13IM
I made a browser-based RTS game▲212
I've posted this game here before, hopefully a repost is fine as the game has changed quite a bit (improved AI, improved mapeditor, much quicker gameplay, etc). Game is based on JavaScript/Canvas and WebSockets. On the browser side the map is pre-rendered (as a background image), just the mobile units/buildings and animations are dynamically rendered. The lobby server is made in node.js, but the game server is C++ for performance reasons (mainly the pathfinding). I found the C++ WebSocket libraries out there to be too difficult to use so I made my own based on the rfc. Overall I…
2022 · battle-of-flags.com · its alternatives →
14
C# Game Engine with its own scripting language and IDE▲118
GitHub repo: https://github.com/ArcadeMakerSources/ArcadeMaker (first of all, i want to say that I made this project for fun and challenge. I always wanted to create my own language. This has no business goal or something.) So the project is a 2D game engine (MonoGame backend) inspired by GameMaker 8. It includes its own IDE (built with WinForms) and an interpreted programming language that I wrote myself. The language—definitely the biggest challenge in the project—is a simple dynamically typed language. When I started, I had zero knowledge of how to build something like…
Aug 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
15
A work-in-progress C compiler from scratch▲159
Programming language that compiles into a x86 ELF executable. - riicchhaarrd/ocean
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
16
E3Dos – A 3D engine I wrote when I was a teen▲83
A 3D Engine I wrote as a kid in C++. Contribute to vladaionescu/E3Dos development by creating an account on GitHub.
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
17
micro-gl▲101
Run vector graphics on any computer (without GPU or FPU)
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
18
Luminal – Open-source, search-based GPU compiler▲153
Hi HN, I’m Joe. My friends Matthew, Jake and I are building Luminal (https://luminalai.com/), a GPU compiler for automatically generating fast GPU kernels for AI models. It uses search-based compilation to achieve high performance. We take high level model code, like you'd have in PyTorch, and generate very fast GPU code. We do that without using LLMs or AI - rather, we pose it as a search problem. Our compiler builds a search space, generates millions of possible kernels, and then searches through it to minimize runtime. You can try out a demo in `demos/matmul` on mac to…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
19
CXXStateTree – A modern C++ library for hierarchical state machines▲48
Hi HN! I've built [CXXStateTree](https://github.com/ZigRazor/CXXStateTree), a modern C++ header-only library to create hierarchical state machines with clean, intuitive APIs. It supports: - Deeply nested states - Entry/exit handlers - State transitions with guards and actions - Asynchronous transitions with `co_await` (C++20 coroutines) - Optional runtime type identification for flexibility It's ideal for complex control logic, embedded systems, games, robotics, and anywhere you'd use a finite state machine. I’d love feedback, use cases, or contributions from the…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
20
I built a small browser engine from scratch in C++▲146
Hi HN! Korean high school senior here, about to start CS in college. I built a browser engine from scratch in C++ to understand how browsers work. First time using C++, 8 weeks of development, lots of debugging—but it works! Features: - HTML parsing with error correction - CSS cascade and inheritance - Block/inline layout engine - Async image loading + caching - Link navigation + history Hardest parts: - String parsing(html, css) - Rendering - Image Caching & Layout Reflowing What I learned (beyond code): - Systematic debugging is crucial - Ship with known bugs rather than chase…
Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
21
Game Engine in Julia with 400KB Exports (Vs Unity's 200MB)▲5
Hi HN! Built a code-first game engine called OpenReality. No visual editor - you write games in pure code. features: - Pure code workflow - 400KB WASM exports (Unity: 200MB+) - Free and open source - full 3D rendering - multiple rendering backends github: https://github.com/sinisterMage/Open-Reality Happy to answer questions about the tech or implementation!
Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
22
Cross-platform 2D game engine for beginners written in C++▲8
A cross platform 2D game engine written in C++ for beginners - sdslabs/Rubeus
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
23
Proof-of-concept HTML5 version of Starcraft 2▲58
Real Time Strategy. Contribute to emnh/rts development by creating an account on GitHub.
2015 · github.com · its alternatives →
24
Unreal Engine 5 in WebGPU▲63
The Unreal Engine 5 Lyra sample now runs in WebGPU. Live link coming soon, stay tuned! #WebGPU #UnrealEngine5
2024 · twitter.com · its alternatives →

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