$ dengine product
How it works
A game engine in C11 with 2D and 3D in one world, on native graphics APIs. What DEngine does, what it’s built with, and how far along it is.
The premise
DEngine is an open-source game engine written in C11, for Windows, Linux and the Steam Deck, and macOS. It draws 2D and 3D in one world through a GPU-driven, physically based renderer on each platform’s own graphics API: Direct3D 12, Vulkan and Metal. Hardware raytracing is used where the GPU supports it, with a raster fallback where it doesn’t. It’s specified with its own ECS, task graph, physics, audio, text, UI and netcode, and a simulation that’s deterministic across platforms, so lockstep, rollback and replays can work.
It’s pre-alpha, and its README says nothing in it is usable yet. The renderer, the asset system and input already run Sky Hop, a small playable example, natively on Metal. The engine is being built from a written specification alongside its first game, Aviate-Navigate-Communicate, which pins tested engine checkpoints. Its source is public under the MIT license.
What’s included
One world for 2D and 3D, designed for physically based materials, hybrid raytracing and a reference path tracer
Native backends: Direct3D 12 on Windows, Vulkan on Linux and the Steam Deck, Metal on macOS
Assets and bundles declared in TOML, loaded with one call and checked with another, packed into archives to ship
A simulation specified to be deterministic across platforms, for lockstep netcode, rollback and replays
A stable C API meant for other developers, under the MIT license
How it’s built
DEngine is built on C11, Slang, Direct3D 12, Vulkan, Metal, SDL3 and CMake.
The repository is 91% C, 3% Slang by volume.
It carries 984 commits since Oct 2026, most recently changed in Oct 2026.
How the work is done
Every project here starts as a written spec, and the spec stays the source of truth once there’s code. The repository keeps a build plan with current status, an append-only decision log of where the code departed from the plan, and a handoff document that describes where things stand, including the unfinished parts.
That’s how one person keeps this many projects moving, and it’s what this page is written from.
Current state
In development. Being worked on now.
The source is public, so you can check anything on this page against it.
Next
Put DEngine in your pipeline
Ask about hooking it up to the repositories and agents you already run.