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travisvroman/kohi

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A game engine made as part of the Kohi Game Engine series on YouTube (and Twitch!), where we make a game engine from the ground up using C and Vulkan.

FreeFree tier
Type
Open Source
Visit Website GitHub (38 stars)

About travisvroman/kohi

Kohi Game Engine is an educational 3D game engine built entirely from scratch using the C programming language and Vulkan graphics API. It is developed as part of the Kohi Game Engine series on YouTube and Twitch, where the creator walks through building a complete game engine from the ground up, including design decisions, deep dives, and intentional mistakes to illustrate concepts. The engine is open source, hosted on GitHub, and includes a variety of plugins for audio (OpenAL), rendering (Vulkan), UI (KUI), utilities, and tools, along with testbed applications. It is explicitly not production-ready but serves as a comprehensive learning resource for understanding game engine architecture.

Key Features

Built entirely from scratch using C and Vulkan
Part of a comprehensive video series on game engine development (YouTube/Twitch)
3D engine with plugins for audio (OpenAL), rendering (Vulkan), UI (KUI), utilities, and tools
Includes testbed applications (kapp, klib) for experimentation
Open source and freely available on GitHub
Active community on Discord for discussion and support
Educational focus: explains design decisions and common pitfalls

Pros & Cons

Pros
  • Comprehensive educational resource with step-by-step video series
  • Built from scratch to illustrate real-world design decisions
  • Open source with no cost to use or modify
  • Includes multiple integrated plugins and testbeds
  • Active community on Discord for help and collaboration
  • Regular development with live streams showing ongoing work
Cons
  • Not production-ready; explicitly a learning tool
  • May contain intentional mistakes to teach debugging
  • Not optimized for performance or commercial use
  • Limited documentation beyond API docs and video series
  • Requires familiarity with C and Vulkan to understand

Best For

Learning game engine architecture and design from a practical exampleFollowing along with the Kohi Game Engine YouTube/Twitch seriesStudying implementation of Vulkan rendering in CExperimenting with game engine plugins and modular designReference for building custom game engines or educational projects

FAQ

What is Kohi Game Engine?
Kohi is an open-source 3D game engine built from scratch using C and Vulkan, developed as part of an educational YouTube/Twitch series to teach game engine development.
Is Kohi production-ready?
No, the engine is explicitly not production-ready. It is a learning tool and is not optimized for use in production-quality products.
What programming languages and APIs are used?
The engine is written in C and uses the Vulkan graphics API. It uses OpenAL for audio and KUI for UI.
Where can I find the video series?
The YouTube series is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHPuU-DJoBM&list=PLv8Ddw9K0JPg1BEO-RS-0MYs423cvLVtj . The Twitch stream is at https://twitch.tv/travisvroman.
Is there a community for Kohi?
Yes, there is a Discord server at https://discord.com/invite/YBMH9Em for discussion and support.