LunarBasic, a BASIC that compiles 2D games to native executables
Details
- External ID
- 49419746
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- LunarBasic, a BASIC that compiles 2D games to native executables
- Website domain
- lunarbasic.com
- Launched
- Aug. 24, 2026
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 6
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.3125
- Tags
- —
- Fetched at
- Sept. 10, 2026, 5:32 a.m.
- Updated at
- Sept. 10, 2026, 5:32 a.m.
Description
I built LunarBasic because I wanted a modern recreation of BlitzBasic from back in the day. I wanted it to have good step debugging features, and I wanted it to compile down to a native binary with no external dependencies. I do know there's an open source BlitzBasic out there but I wanted something simpler and more concise. It does have a "pro" feature set, but for the foreseeable future, anyone joining up will have the pro version in perpetuity (eg I'm not trying to sell anything here).It's early (v0.8.0). Would love feedback on the language design and compiler output, especially from anyone who's used QB64, Blitz, or FreeBASIC.Currently runs on x64/arm64 Windows, arm64 macOS, and arm64 Linux (x64 linux coming soon once I get the toolchain together).
Enrichment
- Theme
- interactive simulations and creative experiments
- Vertical
- Horizontal
- Function
- Dev tools
- Audience
- Developer
- AI stance
- Not AI
- Project type
- Hobby / open-source project
- Normalized one-liner
- basic compiler for 2d games
- Manually corrected
- False
Could you build this?
No Building a custom compiler that parses a programming language and emits native machine code executables with interactive step debugging requires deep compiler engineering and low-level runtime expertise.
What it would actually take: A production version requires a lexer, parser, intermediate representation (IR), and code generator (likely targeting LLVM or custom machine code generation for x86/ARM), integrated with a debugger engine implementing DWARF or custom step-debugging protocols. It also requires bundled runtime libraries for 2D graphics, audio (e.g., SDL2/OpenGL), and OS system call abstractions with zero runtime dependencies. This necessitates deep systems programming expertise in C/C++ or Rust and compiler design.
Discussion
3 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: MoonBasic
Concerns raised: Running compiled binary from unknown source, Windows installer not code-signed (raises antivirus warnings), Code signing certificates cost over $1000
Feature requests: Linux VM support
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one — 124 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #100 of 125 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 292 days after the earliest competitor.
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- Anos · hn · 2026-04-04 · 115 upvotes · similarity 0.37
Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.
Same idea, different domain
Nobody's really built a dev tools tool for Sales yet.