Game libraries
Software concept
Libraries that contain large number of functionality one would need to make a game, and are there specifically for that purpose (including functionality that presumably only games need), but is not and does not have an engine on itself.
Alternate name: Game frameworks
See also: game engines, game makers
Many sources seem to consider game engines and game libraries the same thing even though game libraries require much more technical work to get a game running on. This is also exacerbated by game libraries that partially cross over to game engine zone but don't fully go there (e.g. Moai).
Many sources seem to consider game engines and game libraries the same thing even though game libraries require much more technical work to get a game running on. This is also exacerbated by game libraries that partially cross over to game engine zone but don't fully go there (e.g. Moai).
This is a container group; its children are:
| clanlib | Cross platform C++ toolkit library. Its primary focus is on games. (too short) | 2001 / 2012 | 16 games |
| Flixel | A free, open-source game-making library for Actionscript 3 and designed for use with free development tools. | 2009 / 2014 | 19 games |
| libgdx Framework | Cross-platform framework for games. (too short) | 2012 / 2019 | 18 games |
| Moai | Created using the Moai development framework, a mostly Lua driven cross-platform game development kit created by Zipline Games. | 2011 / 2014 | 9 games |
| Nvidia GameWorks | A toolkit and collection of APIs for game development from Nvidia. (too short) | 2012 / 2016 | 12 games |
| pygame | A game development framework that wraps SDL for Python. (too short) | 2001 / 2017 | 163 games |
| XNA Framework | Made with and uses the XNA framework by Microsoft, a set of tools and a runtime for game development. Or the Mono.XNA open-source and cross-platform re-implementations of the API. | 2004 / 2021 | 76 games |