Game engines power the experiences we enjoy every day, but what does it actually take to build one from scratch? As developers, we often use frameworks and engines as black boxes, rarely stopping to explore the systems that make them work.

In this session, I'll share my journey building PixelForge, a custom game engine written in C#. We'll dive into the core building blocks of a game engine, including rendering, game loops, input handling, asset management, and object lifecycles. More importantly, we'll explore the design decisions, mistakes, and lessons learned along the way.

Whether you're interested in game development, software architecture, or simply enjoy building things from the ground up, this session offers a practical look at how complex systems come together and what you can learn by creating one yourself.

What Attendees Will Learn
- The fundamental components of a game engine
- How rendering, input, and game loops work together
- Common architectural patterns used in game development
- Tradeoffs encountered when designing engine subsystems
- Performance and maintainability considerations in C#
- Lessons learned from building a complex system from scratch
When building your own engine makes sense and when existing engines are the better choice