What framework to use for X?

Invitation link to the Game Development in Rust Discord server

This curated list is from the Game Development in Rust Discord server and prioritizes frameworks that have examples and are ready or almost ready for production. This list was made so it can be shared with beginners.

For a longer list of frameworks, see Are We Game Yet?.

Rust basics

• Rust book.
• Standard library - Comprehensive guide to the Rust standard library APIs.
• Edition guide - Guide to the Rust editions.
• Cargo book - A book on Rust’s package manager and build system.
• Rustdoc book - Learn how to make awesome documentation for your crate.
• Rustc book - Familiarize yourself with the knobs available in the Rust compiler.
• Compiler error index - In-depth explanations of the errors you may see from the Rust compiler.

Resources to understand ECS (Entity Component System) and DOD (Data-Oriented Design)

ECS/DOD is quite a big deal in Rust. Here are some resources to understand the basics:

• Understanding data-oriented design for entity component systems - Unity at GDC 2019.
• CppCon 2018: Stoyan Nikolov “OOP Is Dead, Long Live Data-oriented Design” - Harsh title (ECS/DOD is not a silver bullet for every problem), but useful regardless.
• RustConf 2018 - Closing Keynote - Using Rust For Game Development by Catherine West - A classic presentation already - Catherine West gives several examples, explain the problems with them, and shows the alternatives.
• "Data-Oriented Design" web book by Richard Fabian.

Productivity tools for game development

• Blender for 3D modeling.
• Krita for 2D image creation.

High-level frameworks for game development

• amethyst 2D, 3D. Graphics, audio.
• bevy engine 2D, 3D. Graphics, audio, UI. ECS/DOD oriented.
• oxygengine 2D. Graphics, audio.
• macroquad 2D, 3D. Graphics. Inspired on Raylib (C framework).
• ggez 2D. Graphics, audio. Inspired on LÖVE (Lua framework).
• quicksilver 2D. Graphics, audio.
• tetra 2D. Graphics, audio. Inspired on XNA and MonoGame.
• coffee 2D. Graphics.

Just graphics

• luminance High level. Uses OpenGL.
• miniquad High-level. Focus on portability. Uses OpenGL and Metal (Work-in-progress).
• wgpu Intermediate-level. Uses gfx-hal.
• glium Intermediate-level. Safer wrapper for OpenGL 3+.
• golem Intermediate-level. Higher level wrapper built on glow.
• vulkano Intermediate-level. Safer wrapper for Vulkan.
• rendy Intermediate-level. Uses gfx-hal. Used by amethyst.
• gfx-hal Low-level, based on Vulkan. Backends: Vulkan, GL, DX12, and Metal.
• glow Low-level. Safer wrapper for OpenGL and WebGL.
• erupt Low-level bindings to Vulkan.
• ash Low-level bindings to Vulkan. Used by gfx-hal.
• gl46 Low-level. Wrapper for OpenGL 4.6 (generated by Phosphorus). Used by glow.
• gl33 Low-level. Wrapper for OpenGL 3.3 (generated by Phosphorus).

Window creation and OS integration

• winit Rusty windowing framework.
• glfw Rust wrapper for the C GLFW3 library.
• fermium Rust wrapper for the C SDL2 library. Contains more than window creation features.
• sdl2 Rust wrapper for the C SDL2 library. Contains more than window creation features.

Frameworks for ECS

• hecs Minimalist, ergonomic API without performance compromises.
• legion
• shipyard
• specs

Frameworks for physics and linear math (for 2D and 3D programming)

• cgmath
• glam
• nalgebra
• ultraviolet
• vek
• rapier New 2D/3D physics framework from the creator of nphysics2D/nphysics3D. 2D demo and 3D demo.
• nphysics2d / nphysics3d 2D/3D physics.

Graphical user interface (GUI)

• egui Pure Rust cross-platform library.
• iced Pure Rust cross-platform library.
• imgui Bindings in Rust for the Dear ImGui C++ library.

Font (parser and/or rasterizer)

• fontdue Pure Rust. No std dependency.

Space partitioning

• rstar n-dimensional r*-tree implementation
• bvh Bounding Volume Hierarchy, built on top of nalgebra.
• kdtree K-dimensional tree in Rust for fast geospatial indexing and nearest neighbors lookup.
• ncollide has its own Bounding Volume Tree implementation: 3d docs and 2d docs.
• spade Implements r*-tree and delaunay triangulation.
• flat_spatial Simple flat structures such as a grid/hashmap of cells.
• acacia Generic over the dimension of the partitioned space and thus supports binary trees, quadtrees, octrees, etc.

Audio

• alto Wrapper for OpenAL. Hardly any further development expected, as OpenAL is a well established library.
• kira Library for expressive and dynamic game audio.
• openal Wrapper for OpenAL. Hardly any further development expected, as OpenAL is a well established library.
• rodio