KappaDuck.Quack.Runtimes 1.0.0

Quack! 🦆

A modern, fast and flexible .NET game framework using SDL3

Overview

Quack is a modern, simple and fast game framework for building game and interactive applications, built on top of SDL3 and its extensions (SDL_image, SDL_mixer, SDL_ttf). It targets .NET 11+ desktop, providing a clean and flexible API that hides the complexity of SDL.

Features

• 2D rendering via the Renderer API and 3D rendering via the GPU API
• Window and display management
• Audio management
• Input & events
• Image and font loading
• Native UI integration
• Native AOT

Usage

Using the easy way with Game class

using KappaDuck.Quack;
using KappaDuck.Quack.Graphics;
using KappaDuck.Quack.Graphics.Rendering;

internal sealed class Pong : Game
{
    private Sprite _ball = null!;

    public Pong() : base("Pong", 1280, 720)
    {
    }

    protected override void Initialize()
    {
        Texture texture = Assets.Load("ball.png");
        _ball = new Sprite(texture);
    }

    protected override void Update(GameTime time)
    {
        // move things by time.Delta
    }

    protected override void Draw(GameTime time)
    {
        Renderer.Clear(Colors.Black);

        Renderer.Draw(_ball);
        Renderer.Present();
    }
}

// Program.cs
using Pong game = new();
game.Run();

Using your own loop

using KappaDuck.Quack;
using KappaDuck.Quack.Events;
using KappaDuck.Quack.Graphics;
using KappaDuck.Quack.Graphics.Rendering;
using KappaDuck.Quack.Input;
using KappaDuck.Quack.Windowing;

using Window window = new("Pong", 1280, 720);
using Renderer renderer = new(window);

using Texture texture = Texture.Load(renderer, "ball.png");
Sprite ball = new(texture);

while (window.IsOpen)
{
    while (window.Poll(out Event e))
    {
        if (e is QuitRequested or KeyPressed { Key: Key.Escape })
        {
            window.Close();
            return;
        }
    }

    renderer.Clear(Colors.Black);

    renderer.Draw(ball);
    renderer.Present();
}

More examples and documentation can be found at Documentation

Installation

Install Quack! via NuGet:

dotnet package add KappaDuck.Quack -v 0.5.0

or via your .csproj:

<PackageReference Include="KappaDuck.Quack" Version="0.5.0">

You can also install via the NuGet Package Manager in Visual Studio or JetBrains Rider.

Beta packages

Pre-release versions are published to NuGet.org alongside stable releases. To install the latest beta:

dotnet package add KappaDuck.Quack --prerelease

Documentation

Full API documentation and samples are available:

• Full API reference
• samples/ for runnable code covering common uses cases

Cross-platform support

Quack supports Windows and Linux thanks to SDL3's abstraction layer.

The framework may have platform-specific implementations or limitations depending on the underlying SDL support. Using platform-specific features will surface a compiler warning indicating the code may not be portable across all targets.

SDL compatibility

SDL3 native libraries are bundled via KappaDuck.Quack.Runtimes. The table below shows the SDL versions included in each release of both packages.

Development & Sandbox

You can build Quack from source and experiment quickly using the included sandbox project.

Prerequisites

• .NET 11.0 SDK

Setup

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/KappaDuck/quack.git
cd quack

2. Build and test

dotnet build
dotnet test

Tests run headless by default, so they work on a machine without a display. To watch the windows appear, pick a driver:

dotnet test -- --test-parameter video-driver=default

default lets the platform choose, the way a real application does. You can also name a driver directly, such as x11 or windows. An SDL_VIDEODRIVER environment variable that is already set always wins.

3. Restore the local tools (only needed to build the documentation)

dotnet tool restore
dotnet build src/Quack --configuration Release
dotnet docfx docs/docfx.json --serve

The API reference is generated from the compiled assembly and its XML documentation, so the build has to run first.

Repository layout

Quack.Sandbox

The repository includes a dedicated sandbox project at src/Quack.Sandbox/ for experimenting without touching the main source. It references KappaDuck.Quack directly so changes are reflected immediately.

Everything you write there is ignored by git. If the folder holds no source at all, the first build drops a starter Program.cs in for you, so a fresh clone always compiles.

dotnet run --project src/Quack.Sandbox

or simply run it in your IDE.

Benchmarks

dotnet run -c Release --project benchmarks -- --filter '*'

AI disclosure

AI tools assisted with two things in this project: documentation (XML doc comments, README, CONTRIBUTING guidelines) and design exploration (prototyping API shapes, exploring implementation approaches, and thinking through architecture decisions). Everything is reviewed by the author and no generated-AI code will be in the code source.

Credits

Built with inspiration from

• SDL3
• SDL_image
• SDL_ttf
• SDL_mixer
• SFML
• LazyFoo
• Sayers.SDL2.Core
• SDL3-CS