Lunacraft

Lunacraft

Lunacraft is a lightweight, open source game engine for building 2D and 3D games. It uses Lua scripting and offers cross-platform support, flexible entity-component architecture, live coding capabilities, and a visual editor.
Lunacraft image
2d 3d lua open-source crossplatform entitycomponent-architecture live-coding visual-editor

Lunacraft: Lightweight Open Source Game Engines

A cross-platform game engine for building 2D & 3D games with Lua scripting, entity-component architecture, and live coding capabilities.

What is Lunacraft?

Lunacraft is an open source, cross-platform game engine designed for building 2D and 3D video games. It is written in C++ and uses the lightweight Lua scripting language to implement game logic and behaviors.

Key features of Lunacraft include:

  • Lightweight and modular architecture based on the entity-component model
  • Live coding/script reloading capabilities for rapid iteration
  • Out-of-the-box support for 2D and 3D gameplay with essential components like physics, audio, rendering
  • Visual Scene Editor for visually constructing scenes
  • Cross-platform export to Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android
  • Lua-based API for implementing game code ranging from simple scripts to complex systems
  • C++ plugin architecture for extending engine functionality

With its approachable API and live coding features, Lunacraft simplifies game development allowing developers to focus on the creative aspects. Its modular entity-component architecture also makes it scalable for building everything from simple 2D games to complex 3D worlds.

Lunacraft Features

Features

  1. Lightweight and optimized for 2D and 3D game development
  2. Uses Lua scripting language
  3. Cross-platform support for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android
  4. Entity-component architecture
  5. Live coding capabilities
  6. Visual editor for building levels and games
  7. Modding and plugin support
  8. Open source and free

Pricing

  • Open Source
  • Free

Pros

Lightweight and fast

Easy to learn Lua scripting

Cross-platform support

Flexible and extensible architecture

Rapid iteration with live coding

Visual editor simplifies development

Active community support

Cons

Limited documentation

Steep learning curve for complete beginners

Not as full-featured as some commercial game engines

Limited built-in editor features compared to other options


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