I just ran into raylib (because I’ve been reading a ton of HN blogs) and it’s making me dream of Programming With the Joy of a Thirteen Year-Old. All I wanted to do when I was 13 was make games and raylib looks like a fun way to do it.

I read the homepage, played a few games, and then read their source. Here’s what I love

1. You write in “easy” C. I searched for pointers and signs of dynamic memory and found none in the simple games I read. I’m sure it’s there in more complex games, but they aren’t making you use pointers just to get started
2. It runs in the browser. It’s C, so it’s expected that it would be cross-platform, but it can also compile to something that runs in the browser.
3. No external dependency philosophy. Dependencies are just future tech debt.
4. No (or very little) magic. It’s just a library. Games are mostly a loop of reading the controller, updating some state, and rendering that state. That logic is very clear in raylib code.
5. Simple games are simple. I played three classic games and then read their source. They were each one file and followed similar logic.
6. There’s is more to it. Once you progress from the simple stuff, it looks to be full-featured with other things you might want in a game library. But, you don’t need to use any of it at first.

I might play around and see where I can get with Nebulous.