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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.
"Great course! Wonderful course, goes over a lot of essential things in C++ but doesn't go too deep to make it its primary goal which is to create a game engine and introduce some of the major aspects of this area. If you read this and think about starting the course I immensely recommend, and have a small tip to give you for once you start - for every lecture you watch read the posts of other students at the end, they will help you both fix errors you might be having and sometimes even help you understand better some things that were shown in the lecture but you didn't quite fully understand yet(I know it happened to me a few times xD)."
"Awesome Course! Loved the course, looking forward to a real usable 3D Game Engine course with all the stuff needed to make a shipping game, like an Editor, Build System for different platforms, etc. Overall, awesome course. Thanks!"
"Awesome course! Most of all I liked ECS Design & Implementation, Event System and Lua Scripting sections. Moreover, I appreciated how detailed the guide was on setting up the libraries. Because it's always pain to setup a C++ project. In general, the course is well structured and gives a fairly solid representation of a structure of a typical game engine. Absolutely worth the time and money."
"Love the topics Gustavo teaches! I am an engineer that loves low level programming. I have learned a lot with your lectures. TY!"
"Great Course! I'm having fun :D Looking forward to the rest of the course!"
