30 open-source projects similar to nethack/nethack, ranked by shared indexed features. Tags may describe platforms or build tools rather than the same primary purpose. Check each project’s use case, license, and deployment requirements before treating it as a replacement.
Cataclysm-DDA is an open-world survival game and turn-based roguelike set in a post-apocalyptic world. It functions as a simulation where players manage resources, engage in combat, and handle character progression in an environment where time only advances when the player takes an action. The project includes a procedural world generator that creates randomized, persistent environments and city layouts, ensuring unique maps for every new game session. The simulation covers tactical movement and resource management through turn-based strategy gameplay. It also provides options for personali
Pixel Dungeon is a browser-based roguelike game and turn-based RPG focused on exploring procedurally generated dungeons. It utilizes a retro pixel-art aesthetic to deliver a dungeon-crawling experience directly within a web browser. The game centers on procedural dungeon generation, creating unique, maze-like labyrinths for each playthrough. Gameplay is driven by turn-based combat and movement on a grid, where the player and enemies interact in discrete steps.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon is an open-source roguelike dungeon crawler built as a turn-based strategy game. It features procedurally generated levels, hundreds of collectible items, and permadeath mechanics, all rendered from a single Java codebase that runs on Android, iOS, and desktop platforms. The game offers six distinct hero classes, each with branching subclass trees, endgame abilities, and talent points for deep character customization. Players battle over 60 enemy types, 30 traps, and 10 bosses across five dungeon regions, while managing equipment, enchantments, and alchemy-crafted gear
Julius is a cross-platform game engine and simulation tool designed for the reimplementation of legacy games. It executes original game logic using the original assets while applying modern resolution and interface updates. The engine features a localization framework for integrating community translations of text, audio, and video, and an integrated scenario editor for configuring gameplay rules and resource requirements within map data files. The project covers a broad capability surface including save game management with automated backups, input mapping for diverse keyboard layouts and t
OpenMW is a modern, open-source game engine designed to execute the game Morrowind and its expansions. It serves as a cross-platform game runtime and 3D world renderer, providing a data-driven environment to run game logic and physics with improved stability. The project functions as a game modding framework, utilizing a modular plugin system and an interpreted scripting layer to load external modifications. This architecture allows for the integration of community content, custom textures, and external scripts without altering the base executable code. The engine covers a broad range of cap
Mindustry is a cross-platform game engine and factory automation simulation that combines resource management with tower defense strategy. Players construct complex supply chains and automated networks to process materials while building defensive structures to protect a core from waves of hostile mechanical forces. The project utilizes a deterministic lockstep networking model to ensure simulation consistency across desktop and mobile devices. It is built on an entity-component-system architecture and a tile-based grid simulation, allowing for the efficient management of thousands of active
This project is a programming education resource and a collection of vintage game ports. It provides a library of classic computer game implementations and algorithmic problems translated into modern memory-safe scripting languages for educational study and execution. The collection focuses on the implementation of game logic and the practice of fundamental computer science algorithms. It includes diverse examples of procedural content generation, such as random mazes and text-based art, alongside mathematical visualizations. The project covers a wide array of simulation categories, includin
This project is a reference implementation and starter template for developing role-playing games in Godot. It provides a structured architecture for large-scale game development, featuring a pre-implemented framework for core RPG systems. The project distinguishes itself through a focus on code standardization and developer experience. It implements static type hinting and a standardized code layout to ensure consistency, alongside a docstring documentation system that extracts metadata from source code to generate reference guides and editor tooltips. The repository covers several core gam
Cocos2d-x is a high-performance C++ game development framework designed for building and deploying interactive applications across mobile, desktop, and web platforms. It functions as a cross-platform game engine that utilizes an entity-component system to manage object lifecycles, behaviors, and spatial relationships within a unified codebase. The engine is distinguished by its specialized 2D graphics rendering pipeline, which is optimized for hardware-accelerated performance when displaying sprites, particle effects, and skeletal animations. It provides developers with low-level access to gr
XenonRecomp is a static binary translator and Xbox 360 game recompiler. It functions as a binary analysis tool and native code generator that converts machine instructions from Xbox 360 game executables into C++ source code for recompilation on different hardware platforms. The tool features specialized capabilities for translating compiled binaries, including the conversion of assembly jump tables into native switch cases and the detection of function boundaries using stack space data and branch link instructions. It optimizes translated code by converting non-volatile and non-argument regis
This project is a cross-platform game engine framework and build pipeline designed to produce playable executable binaries for desktop and Android devices. It provides a collection of core libraries for game development, including a native Android build system and a C++ build pipeline. The framework features a specialized bitmap font rendering system that displays stylized typography by mapping character indices to image atlases using coordinate and spacing metadata. It also implements a hardware abstraction layer to decouple application logic from graphics and audio drivers, ensuring portabl
LÖVE is a cross-platform game engine and framework for developing two-dimensional games using the Lua programming language. It provides a 2D graphics API for rendering shapes, images, and sprites across multiple desktop and mobile platforms. The framework enables the development of a single codebase that can be deployed to Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. It utilizes a Lua-based scripting interface to control internal engine systems. The project covers 2D game development, mobile game development, and cross-platform game deployment.
OpenLara is an open-source game engine and classic game emulator designed to load and execute original game data files from classic action-adventure titles. It functions as a cross-platform game runtime that enables legacy game assets to run on modern hardware and operating systems. The engine features a deterministic physics system using fixed-point coordinate math to ensure consistent movement and behavior across different hardware environments. The project incorporates a component-based entity system and a data-driven level loading process to reconstruct world geometry and object placemen
Space Station 14 is a C# multiplayer game and roleplay simulation framework. It is built upon an Entity-Component-System (ECS) game engine that separates logic into systems and data into components to manage complex entity interactions. The project functions as a grid-based physics simulator with a YAML data-driven prototype system for defining game objects. The project features a specialized 2D sprite rendering engine that maps server-side appearance data to client-side shaders. It implements a networking model with client-side prediction and dirty-flagged state synchronization to reduce inp
Unciv is an open-source, cross-platform turn-based strategy game and a community-driven remake of a commercial strategy title. It simulates empire building, city management, and technological research for players on Android and desktop platforms. The project is designed as a moddable game engine, allowing users to override gameplay rules, modify units and buildings via external definition files, and replace audiovisual assets. It supports the distribution of custom maps and the ability to import mod archives from remote web addresses. The application includes a dedicated server for multiplay
OpenDiablo2 is an open-source re-implementation of an isometric action role-playing game engine. It functions as a cross-platform game client designed to execute core mechanics and logic across multiple operating systems using external game assets. The project focuses on recreating the functionality of a classic action RPG from the ground up through a community-driven effort. It provides a framework for running a game engine that simulates specific gameplay experiences and movement patterns. The engine includes capabilities for isometric projection rendering, deterministic game state simulat
Veloren is an open-source multiplayer RPG featuring a voxel-based action adventure in a procedurally generated fantasy world. It is built upon a voxel game engine that supports 3D rendering via Vulkan and Metal, utilizing a procedural world generator to create geography and ecosystems based on erosion algorithms and temperature maps. The project is distinguished by a sandboxed plugin system using WebAssembly, which allows for the addition of new game logic and equipment without recompiling the core engine. It also features a dedicated game server architecture designed to synchronize state, ma
This project is a first-person shooter game engine and a pseudo-3D rendering engine written in C. It serves as a software framework for rendering three-dimensional environments and managing entity physics. The engine includes a networked multiplayer system designed to synchronize game state and player actions across a client-server network. It utilizes a portable codebase that allows game logic to be adapted across different operating systems and hardware architectures. Core capabilities cover 3D game engine architecture, including spatial partitioning and depth-based rendering. The system a
Brogue: Community Edition - a community-lead fork of the much-loved minimalist roguelike game
OpenRA is an open-source game engine designed for the development and modernization of real-time strategy titles. It provides a modular framework that allows developers to build standalone games or total conversion modifications by leveraging a trait-based entity composition system. The engine is built to support both the preservation of classic strategy games and the creation of new experiences, offering cross-platform compatibility and a flexible architecture for defining game rules and unit behaviors. The engine distinguishes itself through a configuration-driven approach where game logic,
Legend of Elya — N64 game with a real 819K-parameter transformer running on the VR4300 MIPS III CPU. Zelda-style dungeon, AI NPCs, byte-level inference at 60 tok/s. Built with libdragon SDK.
Pokémon battle simulator.
chess.js is a headless chess game logic engine and move validation library. It functions as a board state manager that enforces official rules, generates legal moves, and tracks game state without a user interface. The project provides comprehensive parsing and management for standard chess notations, including PGN for game histories and FEN for board configurations. It includes utilities for importing and exporting game records, managing PGN metadata, and handling position annotations. The engine covers a wide range of analysis capabilities, such as detecting game-ending conditions like che
lifeRestart is a life simulation game where players make sequential decisions that affect their character's future outcomes and final score. It utilizes a deterministic state machine and a stat-based character manager to track health, wealth, happiness, and relationships as they update dynamically based on in-game events. The simulation employs a seeded random number generator to ensure that identical sequences of player decisions produce reproducible outcomes. It features a reincarnation loop that allows players to start over after death, carrying over accumulated knowledge or meta-progressi
Warriorjs is a programming game framework and code-based logic puzzle where players write code to control characters and solve strategic combat challenges. It serves as an educational coding game designed to teach programming logic and algorithmic thinking through a series of combat scenarios. The project functions as an extensible game engine that allows the addition of new universes, levels, abilities, and units via independent package extensions. It also provides tools for custom level design, enabling the creation of challenges for other players to solve. The system manages game entity d
WaveFunctionCollapse is a procedural generation engine that creates complex, non-repeating patterns by treating spatial arrangement as a constraint satisfaction problem. It functions as a stochastic solver that derives output structures from a single input example, ensuring that every element placed within a grid satisfies specific adjacency requirements relative to its neighbors. The system distinguishes itself by using an entropy-driven approach to grid collapse, where it iteratively selects the cell with the fewest remaining possibilities to trigger a cascade of logical updates. By decompo
Ren'Py is a cross-platform game engine and interactive storytelling tool built around a Python-based scripting engine. It is designed for creating visual novels and branching narrative games, where player choices determine story paths and character interactions. The engine provides a complete development framework for building narrative-driven experiences, from simple dialogue trees to complex life simulation games. The engine distinguishes itself through a comprehensive set of integrated systems that handle the full lifecycle of interactive storytelling. Its script-based story engine compile
Cocos Engine is a cross-platform game engine designed for building high-performance 2D and 3D interactive experiences for web, mobile, and desktop platforms. It features a multi-backend rendering engine and a 2D and 3D physics simulator, utilizing a core architecture that combines a C++ runtime for performance with TypeScript for game logic scripting. The engine distinguishes itself through a multi-platform deployment system that packages projects for native operating systems and instant-play web ecosystems. Its graphics system supports multiple APIs, employing physically based rendering and
The Forge is a low-level toolkit for building high-performance graphics engines and applications across desktop, mobile, and console platforms. It provides a cross-platform engine framework and a dedicated shader compiler that translates a single source into target-specific languages for various graphics APIs and hardware. The project includes a GPU memory and resource manager that utilizes unified root signatures for resource binding, alongside a ray tracing rendering pipeline that implements hardware-accelerated ray and path tracing queries. State management is handled through a high-perfor