Horizon Engine
C++20 3D FPS Game Engine with ECS and Modern Renderer
Details
- External ID
- 46570521
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- Horizon Engine
- Website domain
- github.com
- Launched
- Jan. 10, 2026
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 5
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.09617918313570488
- Tags
- —
- Fetched at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:25 p.m.
- Updated at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:25 p.m.
Description
Hi HN,I’m working on an experimental 3D FPS game engine in C++20, aiming to deeply understand engine internals from first principles rather than just using existing frameworks.Currently I'm strictly following LearnOpenGL docs.This project focuses on: Entity-Component-System (ECS) architecture for high performance. OpenGL 4.1 rendering with a PBR pipeline, material system, HDR, SSAO, and shadow mapping. Modular systems: input, physics (Jolt), audio (miniaudio), assets, hot reload. A sample FPS game & debug editor built into the repo.Repo: https://github.com/jackthepunished/horizon-engineThis isn’t intended to be a commercial rival to any commercial game engines.it’s a learning and exploration project: understanding why certain engine decisions are made, and how to build low-level engine systems from scratch.I’m especially looking for feedback on: Architecture choices (ECS design, render loop, module separation) Your thoughts on modern C++ engine patternsWhat you’d build vs stub early in a homemade engineTips from experienced graphics/engine developers Criticism and suggestions are very welcome — it’s early days and meant to evolve. Thanks for checking it out!
Enrichment
- Theme
- graphics rendering and visual tools
- Vertical
- Media & entertainment
- Function
- Hardware & robotics
- Audience
- Developer
- AI stance
- Not AI
- Project type
- Hobby / open-source project
- Normalized one-liner
- 3d game engine in c++
- Manually corrected
- False
Could you build this?
No Building a 3D FPS game engine from scratch in modern C++ with an ECS and custom OpenGL graphics pipeline demands deep systems programming and computer graphics domain expertise.
What it would actually take: The engine requires low-level C++20, raw OpenGL/Vulkan bindings, a custom cache-friendly ECS architecture (e.g., archetype or sparse set based), linear algebra math, shader pipelines, spatial partitioning (BVH/Octrees), and collision physics. It demands specialized graphics engineering and low-level memory management skills that cannot be sustained through casual prompting.
Discussion
1 comment analyzed.
Concerns raised: ECS ergonomics vs raw performance trade-offs, Renderer abstraction depth and over-engineering risk, Build times and compile-time vs runtime costs, Which systems worth fully building vs stubbing early
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one — 210 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #201 of 211 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 73 days after the earliest competitor.
- I built a small browser engine from scratch in C++ · hn · 2026-01-28 · 146 upvotes · similarity 0.51
- Zephyr3D · hn · 2025-11-26 · 9 upvotes · similarity 0.51
- MicroECS · hn · 2026-06-12 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- 2D RPG base game client recreated in modern HTML5 game engine with AI · hn · 2026-03-10 · 11 upvotes · similarity 0.48
- I vibe-coded a custom WebGPU engine for my MMO · hn · 2026-02-23 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.48
- A browser-based vector animation engine rendering animated objects · hn · 2026-07-27 · 9 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- A WebGPU-based browser engine with "Blam "-style physics · hn · 2026-01-15 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- AffineUI a 2 file C++ GPU/HTML5 UI that can replace Electron · hn · 2026-07-13 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.45
Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.
Same idea, different domain
Nobody's really built a hardware & robotics tool for Horizontal yet.