Game engines

A game engine is where your game actually comes together: it draws the graphics, plays the sounds, handles input and exports a playable build. If you are just starting, pick one free engine and stick with it for your first few small games.

Godot Engine

Game engines

A free, open-source engine for 2D and 3D games.

  • Free
  • Open source
  • Good for beginners

Construct 3

Game engines

Make 2D games in your browser without writing code.

  • Free + paid plans
  • Good for beginners

GDevelop

Game engines

An open-source, no-code engine for 2D and 3D games.

  • Free + paid plans
  • Open source
  • Good for beginners

GameMaker

Game engines

A 2D engine with drag-and-drop and its own easy scripting language.

  • Free + paid plans
  • Good for beginners

LÖVE

Game engines

A small, free framework for making 2D games in Lua.

  • Free
  • Open source
  • Good for beginners

PICO-8

Game engines

A fantasy console for making tiny retro games with strict limits.

  • Paid
  • Good for beginners

Phaser

Game engines

A popular open-source framework for 2D browser games in JavaScript.

  • Free
  • Open source
  • Good for beginners

Scratch

Game engines

Snap code blocks together to make your very first games.

  • Free
  • Open source
  • Good for beginners

Unity

Game engines

A widely used engine for 2D, 3D, mobile and XR games.

  • Free + paid plans
  • Good for beginners

Bevy

Game engines

A free, open-source, data-driven game engine built in Rust.

  • Free
  • Open source

Defold

Game engines

A free, lightweight engine for 2D games on mobile and web.

  • Free

Looking for something specific? Search and filter game engines, or suggest something we are missing.