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Top 23 C Gamedev Projects
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bgfx
Cross-platform, graphics API agnostic, "Bring Your Own Engine/Framework" style rendering library.
Project mention: Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-02-18 -
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.
I initially considered Pygame, but a quick discussion with ChatGPT convinced me that Godot would be a better, more portable option for my case.
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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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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.
>I only wish Wine also allowed me to zoom 2x or 3x, but this is where Gamescope comes in
Also possible using dxwrapper (for DirectX 7-9 games):
https://github.com/elishacloud/dxwrapper
Similarly to dxvk, you drop a few DLLs into the game directory then edit one config file. No need to use a dedicated program.
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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.
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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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space-shooter.c
A cross-platform, top-down 2D space shooter written in C using only platform libraries.
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Vortice.Windows
.NET bindings for Direct3D12, Direct3D11, WIC, Direct2D1, XInput, XAudio, X3DAudio, DXC, Direct3D9 and DirectInput.
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libtcod
A collection of tools and algorithms for developing traditional roguelikes. Such as field-of-view, pathfinding, and a tile-based terminal emulator.
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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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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
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Show HN: Galaxy visualization using Redshift data (Raylib, C)
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Galaxy visualization using Redshift data (Raylib, C)
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TIC-80: Free open-source fantasy console for making tiny games
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Why Mini Micro
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TIC-80 – Tiny Computer
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A note from our sponsor - SaaSHub
www.saashub.com | 11 Jul 2026
Index
What are some of the best open-source Gamedev projects in C? This list will help you:
| # | Project | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | raylib | 33,758 |
| 2 | bgfx | 17,249 |
| 3 | Pygame | 8,841 |
| 4 | MultiplayerNetworkingResources | 8,570 |
| 5 | flecs | 8,496 |
| 6 | TIC-80 | 6,046 |
| 7 | lovr | 2,568 |
| 8 | dxwrapper | 1,925 |
| 9 | Open-Golf | 1,923 |
| 10 | orx | 1,743 |
| 11 | glfw | 1,686 |
| 12 | pygame-ce | 1,572 |
| 13 | librg | 1,486 |
| 14 | kohi | 1,471 |
| 15 | IconFontCppHeaders | 1,471 |
| 16 | space-shooter.c | 1,373 |
| 17 | Vortice.Windows | 1,223 |
| 18 | libtcod | 1,198 |
| 19 | gigi | 1,191 |
| 20 | dethrace | 1,156 |
| 21 | foolrenderer | 1,135 |
| 22 | raylib-rs | 925 |
| 23 | ENet-CSharp | 905 |
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