About Dev Thicket
Dev Thicket is an open source project building developer tools, rendering frameworks, and scripting languages for Go, Ebitengine, and beyond. The goal is to grow a community of developers who love building things together.
Our Mission
We're a community of developers who love building things. Our roots are in Go and Ebitengine, but we believe great tools should exist everywhere, not just in one ecosystem.
Dev Thicket is a place to build useful tools, share what we learn, and bring developers together. Good software has no language barrier, and neither does this project. All languages are welcome.
How It Started
I was looking for a modern language that could target every platform without being chained to HTML5 wrappers or closed-source engines. Go and Ebitengine were exactly that. After building a few demos I was hooked.
Ebitengine is powerful, but at the time there was no lightweight scene graph layer sitting between it and your game. There were full engines, but nothing for developers who wanted to build their own. Coming from a PixiJS background, I knew that layer could exist, so I built Willow. Then Willow UI followed, because every game needs menus, HUDs, and editor panels, and I wanted that to be genuinely good.
Dev Thicket exists because open source only works when people actually build together. This project is my way of giving back to the Ebitengine community that got me excited about programming again, and an open invitation to anyone who wants to be part of it. Let's build awesome stuff together. Welcome!
Open Source First
Core tools are free and open source. Fork it, extend it, make it yours. The foundation is always free.
Community Guests, Not Landlords
Dev Thicket contributes to communities, it doesn't claim to own them. The ecosystems we work in were great before this project existed. The goal is just to build tools that are useful.
High Performance
Built from the ground up for speed. Zero-compromise rendering and lightning-fast toolchains.
Developer First
Ergonomic APIs, thorough documentation, and a welcoming community that helps you ship faster.
Curiosity Driven
Interesting problems get followed wherever they lead, regardless of language or platform.
Open Source Philosophy
Core tools are free and open source. Always. I will never take something free and make it paid, and I will never cripple free tools to push premium sales.
Down the road, premium add-ons may exist for highly specialized things like complex editor widgets and domain-specific tools. If that happens, you will be buying development time, not unlocking features. The core frameworks will always give you everything you need to build it yourself.
This is how Dev Thicket stays sustainable: no venture capital, no ads, no compromising the tools people depend on.
Get Involved
Whether you're experienced or just getting started, there's room for you here. Contribute to the tools, hang out on Discord, share what you're building, or just lurk and learn. No pressure.
Join the Community →