imge

README

IMGE — 2D Game Engine in Go

IMGE is Minimal Game Engine. A 2D game engine being developed in Go with a component-based architecture and an event-driven communication system. It is in active development.

Motivation

Go is fast to compile, easy to reason about, and produces single-binary outputs. IMGE brings these strengths to 2D game development by embedding Go as the scripting language — no bindings, no DSL, just Go.

Architecture

• Component-based: Game objects are composed of reusable components (built-in @Hitbox, @Movement, or user-defined). Components are registered with a factory pattern.
• Ping-Pong Event System: Components communicate through a deferred event queue. Ping() emits an event, the EventManager queues it between frames, and subscribers receive it via Pong().
• Platform layer: Rendering, input, and audio are abstracted behind a Platform interface. Currently SDL2 is the primary implementation, with a mock platform for headless testing.

Features

• Built-in components (@Hitbox, @Movement) with collision detection
• User components — write any .go component, register it, use it in objects
• JSON-defined scenes and objects — compose your game world from .scene and .obj files
• Ping-Pong event bus — decoupled communication between components
• Tag-based object queries — find objects by tag at runtime
• Depth-based rendering — control draw order per object

CLI Tool (imge)

The imge CLI tool creates the game binary:

imge init              # Scaffold a new project
imge build sdl         # Build for SDL2 (desktop)
imge build sdl --clean # Clean build
imge version           # Show engine version

The build pipeline generates a go.mod pointing to the engine's GitHub release, fetches the engine automatically, compiles the user's components together with the engine, and produces a single standalone binary.

Project Structure

my-game/
├── game.json           # Game config (window size, title, FPS, initial scene)
├── components/         # User-defined Go components
├── scenes/             # Scene definitions (.scene)
├── objects/            # Object templates (.obj)
└── assets/             # Game assets

Supported Platforms

Platform	Status
SDL2	Working — desktop builds (Linux, macOS, Windows)
Mock	Headless testing
Web/WASM	Planned

Development Status

IMGE is in early development. While the core systems are functional, expect rough edges:

• Editor: A visual editor is planned to make scene/object editing more accessible.
• Web builds: WASM export will be added once the platform abstraction stabilizes.
• Audio: SDL audio device opens, but playback APIs are being built out.
• Missing features: Several convenience APIs and component types are still being implemented.

License

MIT

Documentation

Overview

Package imge is the root package for the IMGE game engine module. This file exists to make subdirectories recognizable as Go packages.

Index

• Variables

Variables

var EngineVersion = strings.TrimSpace(versionRaw)

EngineVersion is the current IMGE engine version, read from the "version" file. Update the version file at repo root when bumping.