MicroEngine

Roadmap

What exists today, what comes next and what is only a direction. There are no dates: items move when they are ready, and exploring or vision items may change or be dropped.

Completed
Built and verified; available in the engine today.
Planned
Intended next work. Scope may change; no date is promised.
Exploring
Research. The result may change the plan or be dropped.
Vision
Long-term direction. Not available and not a commitment.

Available today

Everything here runs in the four demos. Status and limitations lists what is missing.

  • 2D engine in C#/.NET 10, Alpha 0.x
  • Four complete demo games
  • Procedural and file-based assets
  • Scenes, rendering, audio, input and UI
  • Saves (persistence) and achievements
  • SDL 3 platform on Windows, Linux, macOS, Android and iOS
  • raylib in WebAssembly for browsers, and as a desktop alternative
  • Named platform profiles and replaceable subsystems behind IPlatform
  • On-screen touch controls and suspend/resume on phones
  • Native demo downloads, checked as downloaded
  • This site and its documentation

Next stages

Work that is intended or being researched. Public installation is the first of them: until it ships, MicroEngine can be seen through its demos and documentation.

  1. SDK-1: packages

    Planned

    Make MicroEngine easy to add to a game without building it from the repository. The layout is prepared (docs/guide/sdk.md).

    • NuGet packages: the core and one package per backend
    • dotnet new templates
    • Versioned SDK releases with migration notes
    • A default platform without installing every backend

  2. Real devices

    Planned

    Turn automated evidence into played evidence.

    • Play the SDL builds by hand on Windows, Linux and a Mac
    • An arm64 Android phone
    • An iPhone, with Apple signing for a distributable build
    • Safari and browsers on phones

  3. Engine robustness

    Planned

    Audit behaviour under real-world conditions.

    • Variable frame rates and the simulation
    • Fixed timestep, and interpolation where it helps
    • Web audio and behaviour in background tabs

  4. Mobile experience

    Exploring

    The phone hosts run the games with generic on-screen controls; what a good touch experience needs is still open.

    • Control layouts per game
    • Screen safe areas (notches)
    • Text input, haptics
    • Touch controls in the browser builds

Future vision

Directions, not features. Neither a visual editor nor 3D exists in MicroEngine today.

  1. Visual editor

    Vision

    Tools around the code-first engine. Nothing of it exists today.

    • Project management
    • Scene editing
    • Property inspector
    • Asset management
    • Visual development tools
    • Distribution with an installer

  2. Towards 3D

    Vision

    MicroEngine is 2D only. 3D is a research direction.

    • 3D rendering research
    • Evaluation of physics libraries
    • An architecture independent of specific technologies