Game development with Beef

This repo contains libraries, frameworks, and guides for starter. Unlike zig-gamedev, I only focus on hobby/indie gamedev, so this repo prefer simple, ergonomic high-level, yolo coding solutions other than high-performance, low-level graphics, ECS, DoD (which is can archieve with Beef by default).

Disclaimer

• This repo focus on hobby/indie games, may not work with bigger games (gacha, moba, AAA)
• Please this for reference only, not the source of truth (still researching)
• For general purpose programming, see this awesome list

Programming language guides

• If you have experience with C++ and C#, Beef is not hard from the beginning.
• Just read through all the docs (which is short), you will have based knowledge of syntax and semantic.
• Have some practices and experimentals, like I did. Now you can coding fluently with Beef. That's well enough to start developing game.

Beef advantages for gamedev

• Check out the design goals of Beef
• Full syntax of C# with C++ semantic (two familiar/main-stream programming languages for gamedev)
• Syntaxes for ergonomic gameplay coding: tagged union, pattern matching, comptime, comptime codegen
• Fast code compile, hot code reloading, immediate change when changing gameplay code (fast iteration development)
• C/C++ interop, easy bindings existing game libraries
• Realtime memory leaks detection, optional safety check on expressions, distinct build
• IDE support for generation file with Beef (like Unity support custom editor with C#)

Libraries

Only contains libraries which are should used:

• Raylib Beef bindings (origin version, MaiHD fork)
• Linq (for functional programming)
• Dear ImGui
• Json

Frameworks

Create new framework or using existing:

• Use modules from this repo (which I called Gamefx)
• Roll your own based on existing framework/engine: MonoGame (Stardew Valley, Bastion, Celeste), deepnightLibs (use in Dead Cells), SexyAppFramework (Popcap Games), Cocos2d-x (Many many mobile games), ...
• Underhood rendering, audio, IO:
  • Just use Raylib from beginning
  • Use extension features of Beef to wrap code, in the long-term, you can change your system without change gameplay code
• Modules:
  • Tweening (use comptime reflection to avoid runtime overhead)
  • Timer: middle-level actions scheduler
  • Input bindings: action/callback bindings per input type (only Raylib now)
• Wishlist modules:
  • Full framework (include all modules, deps)
  • StalkerX: Camera control
  • Windfield: Physics and simulations (high-level wrapper for existing physics engine)
  • LDtk: parser and high-level usage like entity/class generation
  • Resources caching, assets flow in game runtime (ie: load and cache texture, sound)
  • Package reader: famous .pak format, raylib's rres
  • Simple and fast allocator (Arena central memory allocations)
• Existing framework:
  • Pile
  • Strawberry (unmaintained)
  • Raylib Beef generator (nearly with C version, no extensions)

Tools

• Beef IDE
• LDtk
• Asesprite pixel art editor
• Pixi free pixel art editor
• Raylib tooling set
• Raylib's rres

Games made by Beef

• Evening Star's Penny's Big Breakaway
• Motion Melody
• NeonShooter

Cross-platform

• Beef work well with Windows (main-stream PC platform, also a starter platform for indie gamedev)
• Can build for mobile, but no production show case
• Wasm for Web platform, which also a priority target platform of Beef
• I have no experience for on gaming console, but Evening Star's Penny's Big Breakaway proof it worked

Source code license

MIT License. Copyright (c) 2024 MaiHD. Detais in LICENSE.