Game Development in Go
Build cross-platform 2D games with Go, Ebitengine, and the Dev Thicket ecosystem. Fast builds, single binaries, and real performance.
2.5D Raycaster
Fireflies
Water Mesh
PhysicsWhy Build Games in Go?
Fast Compilation
Go compiles in seconds, not minutes. Change a line, rebuild, and see the result immediately. Iteration speed matters in game development.
Single Binary Deployment
No runtime dependencies, no DLL hell, no installer required. Your game is one executable. Copy it and run.
Cross-Platform
Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and WebAssembly. One codebase, every platform Ebitengine supports.
Goroutines
Lightweight concurrency built into the language. Asset loading, networking, and AI without callback spaghetti or thread management.
Simple Language
Go is small and opinionated. Less time debating patterns, more time building your game. The standard library covers most of what you need.
Growing Ecosystem
Ebitengine is mature and actively maintained. Libraries for physics, networking, and UI exist and are improving every year.
Go isn't the most popular game development language. But it's practical, productive, and the ecosystem is growing fast. If you value fast iteration, clean code, and shipping on every platform from a single codebase, Go is worth a serious look.
The Go Game Development Ecosystem
Ebitengine
The foundation. A hardware-accelerated 2D game library for Go. Handles the game loop, GPU rendering, input, and audio. Ships to Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and WebAssembly.
Willow
A display-tree rendering framework on top of Ebitengine. Scene graph, sprite batching, cameras, text rendering, particles, shaders, tile maps, and input handling. Think PixiJS for Go.
Willow UI
A widget library for game UIs built on Willow's scene graph. Buttons, sliders, tabs, panels, reactive data binding, and XML templates. Build menus, HUDs, and editor tools in typed Go.
What People Are Building
2D Games
Platformers, top-down RPGs, puzzle games, shoot-em-ups. Willow handles the rendering; you handle the design.
Tile-Based Worlds
Large scrolling maps with efficient tile rendering, cameras, and animated tiles. Think Stardew Valley or Zelda-style worlds.
Creative Coding
Generative art, audio visualizers, particle simulations. Go's performance and Willow's scene graph make experimentation fast.
Desktop Tools
Level editors, asset browsers, debug overlays. Willow UI provides the widget toolkit; Go provides the speed.
The Ebitengine community has shipped games on Steam, mobile app stores, and the web. Check out the Ebitengine showcase and Willow examples for inspiration.
Start Building Today
Install Go
Download Go from go.dev. Runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Add Willow
go get github.com/devthicket/willow@latestRun the example
Follow the Willow quick start guide to draw your first sprite in under 10 lines of Go.