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This course is a gentle and comprehensive introduction to the fundamentals of 2D game engine architecture. We'll discuss several of the most popular programming patterns used in game development and try to put all the theory we learn into context by coding a small 2D game engine using modern C++, SDL, and Lua.
We will write, together, a small ECS framework from scratch to manage our entities, components, and systems. We will discuss how engine programmers design their code and how we should think of organizing game objects in memory with performance in mind.
We'll try to write most of our engine code from scratch. All these libraries and tools are cross-platform, so you'll be able to code along with either Windows, macOS, or Linux!
The target audience for this course are beginner programmers that wish to learn more about how C++ works in the context of game development. Therefore, students must already know how to code and be familiar with basic concepts of programming and logic. You should be able to write if-else statements, loops, functions, and classes using simple OOP.
You do not need to know C++ before enrolling; many successful students have a background in web, mobile, and game development, working with languages like Java, Python, Ruby, Go, Swift, JavaScript, Ada, Zig, Kotlin, and many others.
This course is not just a simple tutorial on how to create a game with C++. This is the opportunity for you to think about the abstraction of what a "game" really is and all the pieces that need to interact to make them happen. More than that, this course allows you to write from scratch the code of a small C++ engine that can be used to create many types of games.
We will also touch other important topics like ECS, data-oriented design, STL containers, C++ templates, game loop, SDL rendering, event systems, asset management, memory management, and performance. And finally, we'll also learn how to embed the Lua language into our native C++ code to add scripting power to our engine.
While there are other resources about game engine development out there, they are either too theoretical or overwhelmingly long. If you are looking for a gentle introduction to the world of game engine programming and want to learn how games really work under the hood, then you should definitely take this course!
Gustavo Pezzi is a university lecturer in London, UK. He has won multiple education awards as a teacher and is also the founder of pikuma.com.
Gustavo teaches fundamentals of computer science and mathematics; his academic path includes institutions such as Pittsburg State University, City University of London, and University of Oxford.
73% of our students come back for another course
We don't offer discounts on our courses. Ever.
"Superb course! Thank you so much for creating this :) Since I love understanding things under the hood, such courses are indeed what I look forward to. Even C++ is new for me and I am learning a lot by this course."
"Great course for learning ECS for the first time. University-course level quality. Concepts are introduced incrementally and are expanded upon in a way that demonstrates the purpose and reasoning of the code design clearly."
"Well, I have reached the end of the course and I must say - it was brilliant and exactly what I was looking for. The course is great if you want to understand the fundamentals of how a game a engine is put together. It goes through all of the fundamentals Graphics API, Input, Game Loop, Delta Time, ECS, Event System, and Scripting. At the end I feel as if I have attended a university course. You can tell Gustavo has a passion for teaching (and is a professional lecturer). I approached it consistently by trying to do a few hours day, and really looked forward to and enjoyed my study time. I am now looking forward to using what I have learnt to understand the topics more deeply. Thanks Gustavo!"
"Great course! everything is explained very clearly even for somebody like me who is very new to c++. Thank you"
"I really enjoyed the course. It has a good level of detail to understand the building blocks of a game engine. I had very much fun writing the code of the engine and especially the exercieses. Always getting my code up and running was not always straight forward, but I think that this helps learning. Integrating the scripting languange was an eye opener, since I did not do such a thing before. This opens many interesting possibilities. Thank you very much."
