Punity

A tiny game engine in C.

martincohen
457
28
C

Punity

A tiny game engine with zero dependencies in C that I made for myself to make tiny games. It’s great for game jams. It is also my kōhai course in simplicity and a tribute to my senpai and friend rxi.

  • Single file: punity.h all ready for you to start working. (maybe also grab build.bat when you’re at it)
  • Approx. 6000 lines of C code.
  • No dependencies.
  • Produces a single executable with all resources baked to it.
  • Images in PNG, JPG, PSD, TGA, GIF, BMP, HDR, PIC, PNM when used with stb_image. (see Integration below)
  • Sounds in OGG when used with stb_vorbis. (see Integration below)
  • Drawing bitmaps, texts and standard primitives all in software, this is feature, shut up!
  • Deferred drawing through draw lists.
  • Sounds, fonts and bitmap API available.
  • Built in GIF recorder (outputs record.gif file).
  • Example included (see example-platformer.c).
  • Experimental integration with SDL2 (build with build sdl, see lib/punity-sdl.c).

Speed

On an average machine, a game 33 grams utilizing previous version of Punity runs in 240x240 at ~20μs per frame (equivalent of ~50000 FPS). On GCW Zero, the same game in 320x240 runs between 0.7ms to 2ms per frame (equivalent of ~500-1500 FPS).

Limitations

  • Perfect for use with 320x240 resolution. No one will ever need more, anyway.
  • Perfect for simple pixel art with only 255 colors (0 reserved for transparency)!
  • No need to worry about 8 bits of transparency, because you just get one!
  • Optionaly limited to 30 frames per second that gives you them retro feels!
  • Windows is supported directly, other platforms (*nix, Mac OS X, Android, Dingus, etc.) via SDL-2 (see lib/punity-sdl.c)

Goals

  • Ready-to-go instant package. No tedious external dependencies or fussing around with linkers: download, code and build from a single package.
  • Simplicity and minimalism. Rather go for limitations than complexities.
  • Portability Only get absolute minimum from the platform (window, input and drawing/audio buffers).
  • Optional additional features. Plug & play addons for additional asset file formats, platforms or even scripting.
  • No arbitrary limitations. All the limitations in the system have their reasons (performance, API simplicity). You might be writing a retro game, but the devices today have a lot of memory and computational power to use.
  • One file. Even though it’s supposed to be a ready-to-go package, the essence is in a single file that you can grab and use.

One of the most important parts of Punity is that it’s made to be changed and edited as you need. That way the code can be really simple only giving you basic features and doesn’t need to worry about customizations and abstractions.

Documentation

Please, see the documentation in Wiki.

Files

  • lib/stb_image.h - Optional library to load images.
  • lib/stb_vorbis.c - Optional library to load ogg audio files.
  • lib/gifw.h - Optional library to record and save GIFs.
  • build.bat - MSVC and MinGW build batch file.
  • main.c - Minimal template for jump-start game development.
  • main.rc - Part of the template.
  • punity.h - Punity’s header/implementation file.

In case you use MinGW, then you’ll also need these:

  • mingw/_mingw_unicode.h & mingw/dsound.h - Provided for your convenience to be able to build with default MinGW installation. This file is taken from MinGW-W64 project.

Contributors

Thank you

To everyone who gives Punity it a try, plus these awesome guys: