Horizon Engine
C++20 3D FPS Game Engine with ECS and Modern Renderer
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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!
HN · launched Jan 10, 2026 · 5 upvotes (top 90%) · 0 views
Niche: game development engines · 85 launches, 1 in the last 7 days ▼ -86% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Media & entertainment
- Dev tools
- Developer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 85 launches in game development engines →
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 : 520 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #488 of 521 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 73 days after the earliest competitor.
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- MicroECS · hn · 2026-06-12 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.51
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- A browser-based vector animation engine rendering animated objects · hn · 2026-07-27 · 9 upvotes · similarity 0.47
- A WebGPU-based browser engine with "Blam "-style physics · hn · 2026-01-15 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.47
- Shalltear · github · 2026-10-30 · 16 upvotes · similarity 0.46
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