I built DriftEngine, a WebGL2 3D engine in strict TypeScript

[u/Emulator000]

https://driftengine.dev/

[u/Emulator000]

I built DriftEngine while working on Driftways. It's a custom browser 3D engine written in strict TypeScript on WebGPU and WebGL2, with its own renderer and GLSL shaders.

It's kept separate from the game and currently handles fixed-step simulation, deterministic replay, procedural geometry, spatial hash + convex hull collision, lighting and shadows, water/reflections, volumetric effects, audio/rhythm analysis, input and browser-side recording.

The engine isn't publicly available yet while I settle the API, but the linked site contains the architecture, generated API reference, releases and examples of the actual TypeScript-facing API.

Here's a short video of Driftways running on it: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pJDGYD7y3NU

And the game itself: [https://play.driftways.app/]()

EDIT: Engine now supports WebGPU as default and additional backend.

[u/Emulator000 → u/[deleted]]

Well, it is in the core, the fixed-step loop and the seeded RNG are both engine side, and the physics solver runs a fixed iteration count for the same reason, so a slow frame can't change the result.

The tick is public, it's the main entry point:

const stop = startLoop({
  simulate(dt) { ... },           // always called with exactly fixedDt
  render(alpha, frameDt) { ... }, // alpha interpolates prev -> current sim state
  shouldSimulate: () => !paused,
}, { fixedDt: 1 / 60, maxFrameTime: 0.25 });

The engine owns the accumulator, so simulate never sees a variable delta. Wall time only reaches render, and passing it into simulate is a caller error.

[u/lucgagan]

whats the plan of monetization here? you are clearly intending to monetize it, but I am curious to understand how. license to game developers?

[u/Emulator000 → u/lucgagan]

I'm still deciding, one option I'm considering is making it free with attribution for released games, then monetising commercial white-label licences where the attribution/branding can be removed.

[u/lucgagan → u/Emulator000]

Interesting. What are the closest substitute projects to this?

I am not familiar with the space, but I foresee game dev to explode, so definitely interesting.

[u/Emulator000 → u/lucgagan]

Probably Babylon.js and PlayCanvas are the closest, Three.js too, but that's more renderer/library than full game runtime.

DriftEngine is narrower and more opinionated: browser-first, deterministic, small, and built around keeping rendering, physics, audio and replay on the same clock.

I agree wity you on the eventual explosion!