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Top 23 C Gamedev Projects
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To render graphics and build interactive apps, we need a graphics library. For that we need to use a popular and in my opinion, really great graphics library Raylib. Raylib is:
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Pygame
🐍🎮 pygame (the library) is a Free and Open Source python programming language library for making multimedia applications like games built on top of the excellent SDL library. C, Python, Native, OpenGL.
Hi everyone! I'm excited to share a fun personal project I built recently: a retro-style 2D racing game made with Pygame. It's called 🎮 Atari Speed Racer, and it brings back those classic vibes of dodging traffic at high speeds!
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shameless plug: https://github.com/0xFA11/GameNetworkingResources
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Project mention: Flecs – A fast entity component system (ECS) for C and C++ | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-10-19
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Project mention: The Rise of Hybrid PHP: Blending PHP with Go and Rust | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-08-30
I recognize it as a more or less universal optimization process. Everything important ends up in silicon, if it remains important long enough. And there are several stages of that.
Like you, a part of me years for SGML and The Semantic Web, and where it makes sense in Alumina I am using RESTish APIs.
But I do not pine for Javascript. Language or frameworks. 20 years has been enough. And I do not believe that some of the 4mb minified obfuscated js downloads from a CDN I've seen are in any way more accessible than a WASM binary of similar size. At least there is advanced tooling for the WASM representation. Folks who want you to read their code will still make it easy, and folks who don't won't.
To your point about learning, WASM makes some really incredible systems like https://lovr.org/ available in the browser, which I would have loved to have as a kid, but which also aren't javascript. It's related to Turing completeness somehow, once you let a little software into your structured document, it all wants in. Or maybe it's "if you give a mouse a cookie"?
I understand what you're saying about discoverability. But the developer in me really likes having a relatively simple binary interpreter to target for network-delivered cross-platform binary applications. My hope is that offering such a juicy target to the folks who want to develop applications (including myself) gets them out of all the semantic document features, allowing both sets of code to get simpler and more focused.
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InfluxDB
InfluxDB – Built for High-Performance Time Series Workloads. InfluxDB 3 OSS is now GA. Transform, enrich, and act on time series data directly in the database. Automate critical tasks and eliminate the need to move data externally. Download now.
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dxwrapper
Fixes compatibility issues with older games running on Windows 10/11 by wrapping DirectX dlls. Also allows loading custom libraries with the file extension .asi into game processes.
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space-shooter.c
A cross-platform, top-down 2D space shooter written in C using only platform libraries.
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IconFontCppHeaders
C and C++ headers, C# and Python classes, Rust files and Go package for icon fonts Font Awesome, Fork Awesome, Google Material Design icons and symbols, Pictogrammers Material Design icons, Kenney game icons, Fontaudio, Codicons and Lucide.
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pygame-ce
🐍🎮 pygame - Community Edition is a FOSS Python library for multimedia applications (like games). Built on top of the excellent SDL library.
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kohi
A game engine made as part of the Kohi Game Engine series on YouTube (and Twitch!), where we make a game engine from the ground up using C and Vulkan.
This "logging system" I adapted to this engine was influenced a whole ton by the kohi engine. If you don't know, the Kohi Engine is quite a robust game engine built in C. The guy who created it also logs his progress on his YouTube channel. Check it out. The series is very fun to watch and very informative.
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Vortice.Windows
.NET bindings for Direct3D12, Direct3D11, WIC, Direct2D1, XInput, XAudio, X3DAudio, DXC, Direct3D9 and DirectInput.
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foolrenderer
A tiny software renderer implemented from scratch without the use of graphics API, used to understand how GPUs work.
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Project mention: Dethrace: Reverse engineering the 1997 game "Carmageddon" | news.ycombinator.com | 2024-09-25
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SSVOpenHexagon
C++20 FOSS clone of "Super Hexagon". Depends on SSVStart, SSVEntitySystem, SSVLuaWrapper, SSVMenuSystem, JSONcpp, SFML2.0. Features JSON/LUA customizable game files, a soundtrack by BOSSFIGHT, pseudo-3D effects.
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NOTE:
The open source projects on this list are ordered by number of github stars.
The number of mentions indicates repo mentiontions in the last 12 Months or
since we started tracking (Dec 2020).
C Gamedev discussion
C Gamedev related posts
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Naylib – A Raylib Nim Wrapper
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Swift and Cute 2D Game Framework: Setting Up a Project with CMake
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RPG in a Box
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WebMonkeys: Massively parallel GPU programming on JavaScript, simple and clean
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From C++ to Clojure: New Language Promises Best of Both
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WASM-4: Build retro games using WebAssembly for a fantasy console
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Intentrace: Strace for Everyone
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A note from our sponsor - SaaSHub
www.saashub.com | 1 Sep 2025
Index
What are some of the best open-source Gamedev projects in C? This list will help you:
| # | Project | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | raylib | 27,961 |
| 2 | Pygame | 8,250 |
| 3 | MultiplayerNetworkingResources | 8,132 |
| 4 | flecs | 7,433 |
| 5 | TIC-80 | 5,533 |
| 6 | lovr | 2,383 |
| 7 | Open-Golf | 1,858 |
| 8 | glfw | 1,636 |
| 9 | dxwrapper | 1,580 |
| 10 | librg | 1,404 |
| 11 | space-shooter.c | 1,363 |
| 12 | IconFontCppHeaders | 1,345 |
| 13 | pygame-ce | 1,277 |
| 14 | kohi | 1,269 |
| 15 | Vortice.Windows | 1,120 |
| 16 | foolrenderer | 1,116 |
| 17 | dethrace | 962 |
| 18 | ENet-CSharp | 865 |
| 19 | raylib-rs | 860 |
| 20 | bake | 717 |
| 21 | raylib-games | 684 |
| 22 | SSVOpenHexagon | 635 |
| 23 | exengine | 609 |
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