Learn game programming in real C++.

What you are actually learning

Every system is C++ you can read

There is no scripting layer and no editor generating code behind your back. You write C++, you call into SDL2 when you want to, and the engine's own source is there to read when you want to know how a piece works. Everything lives under namespace storm, so it never collides with your own Entity or Logger.

Take one piece at a time

The collision math needs none of the engine

You do not have to adopt an architecture to get started. <stormengine2/collision/shapes.h> includes glm and nothing else, so a program with no Registry, no entities and no components can still use it. Adopting the ECS is a choice about the broadphase, not a precondition for the geometry.

#include <stormengine2/collision/shapes.h>
using namespace storm;

ContactCircle puck{x, y, 3.0f};
ContactAABB   post{px0, py0, px1, py1};

glm::vec2 normal;
float depth;
if (Manifold(puck, post, normal, depth)) {
  // normal runs from the puck INTO the post; depth is how far they overlap.
  // Applying MinimumTranslation(normal, depth) to the POST separates them --
  // or negate it and apply it to the puck.
}

Boxes and circles are supported in every combination. Circles matter for anything round - a puck kept off the boards by its edge, characters pushed apart by a separation radius, a shot glancing off a post. A circle against a box corner produces a diagonal normal; approximating it with a box would snap that to an axis and change how the game feels.

Worked examples

Twelve games to own

Twelve games to own, build, run and take apart. Eight ship in the repo; four live as standalone repos against the same public API, with no engine forks and no private headers, so anything you see in an example you can do in your own project. Start with the platformer, then read the one closest to the game you want to make.

Co-op · LAN

Lamplight

Two-player co-op dungeon crawl over LAN with NetSnapshot deltas. One shared lamp, screen-space lighting as a mechanic.

Stealth

Nightshift

Top-down stealth with honest vision cones and a five-state guard brain. Darkness triples the time guards need to notice you.

Asteroids roguelite

Salvage Run

Circle colliders, pure-velocity drift, damped-spring tether. Blast rocks, tow the loot back before the 2-minute shift ends.

Arena survival

Last Stand

Kite the horde while the spawn ramp climbs. Pooled bullets, pair-filtered broadphase, regen that costs you time.

Platformer

Platformer

Tilemap loading, tile-based physics with gravity and AABB resolution, and a scrolling camera.

Shoot-'em-up

1945

A three-state stack, high entity churn with deferred lifecycle, one-shot animations and an immediate-mode HUD.

Strategy

Realms

A campaign map with a pushed side-on massbattle, a shared campaign model and a 64px tilemap.

Puzzle

Puzzle

Custom components and systems, entity reuse, deferred lifecycle and text from the engine's cached fonts.

RPG

JRPG

Roam a tile-based world, talk to NPCs, and read Final Fantasy-style typewriter dialogue - the state-stack and interaction pattern for any story-driven game.

Sports

Hockey

Back-and-forth hockey with AI teammates, a puck that glances off posts on true circle physics - the case the circle colliders were built for.

Android

Android platformer

Engine and game compiled to a single JNI library via the NDK, with the virtual gamepad replacing the keyboard.

Switch

Switch homebrew

Builds with devkitPro and produces an .nro that runs on a homebrew-enabled console or an emulator.

Get started

Install it, or build it

sudo apt install ./libstormenginev2_2.3.0_amd64.deb

unzip stormengine2-2.3.0-win64.zip

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y \
    libsdl2-dev libsdl2-image-dev \
    libsdl2-ttf-dev libsdl2-mixer-dev \
    libglm-dev libtinyxml2-dev libgtk-3-dev