MonoGame

Celeste, Stardew Valley, Streets of Rage 4 and Carrion were all built with MonoGame, which settles the usual question about whether a lean framework can carry a shipped game. It is a simple .NET framework for making games in C#, and an open source reimplementation of Microsoft's discontinued XNA Framework.

One codebase targets a long list of platforms. Windows 10 22H2 and up runs on OpenGL or DirectX 10, Linux with glibc 2.27 or newer and macOS 13 Ventura and up run on OpenGL, Android 6 and iOS 12.2 cover mobile, and registered developers can target PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox and Nintendo Switch. Vulkan and DirectX 12 support is in preview for version 3.8.5.

Alongside the framework itself, the repository carries the tooling a project needs.

• mgcb: a command line tool for content processing.
• mgfxc: the effect compiler.
• mgcb-editor: a graphical front end over the content pipeline.
• Templates: project templates for starting a game on a chosen target.

Building from source means cloning with recursive submodules and opening the solution for your platform, with a second solution for the pipeline and content tools.

Release and preview packages are published on NuGet for anyone who would rather not build, and the team maintains samples covering a 2D platformer, a twin-stick shooter, a pong clone in three hundred lines and a 3D ship game.