Game engines

A game engine is where your game actually comes together: it draws the graphics, plays the sounds, handles input and exports a playable build. If you are just starting, pick one free engine and stick with it for your first few small games.

Godot Engine

Game engines

A free, open-source engine for 2D and 3D games.

Free
Open source
Good for beginners

GDevelop

Game engines

An open-source, no-code engine for 2D and 3D games.

Free + paid plans
Open source
Good for beginners

LÖVE

Game engines

A small, free framework for making 2D games in Lua.

Free
Open source
Good for beginners

Phaser

Game engines

A popular open-source framework for 2D browser games in JavaScript.

Free
Open source
Good for beginners

TIC-80

Game engines

A free, open-source fantasy computer for small retro games.

Free
Open source
Good for beginners

Bevy

Game engines

A free, open-source, data-driven game engine built in Rust.

Free
Open source

raylib

Code & programming

A simple, free C library for learning game programming.

Free
Open source
Good for beginners

MonoGame

Code & programming

An open-source C# framework for 2D and 3D games.

Free
Open source

libGDX

Code & programming

A Java framework for 2D and 3D games on desktop, Android and web.

Free
Open source

Looking for something specific? Search and filter game engines, or suggest something we are missing.