Prowl is an open-source game engine built entirely in C# on .NET 9, designed to give developers a familiar, Unity-like workflow while remaining as lean and customizable as possible. If you have shipped or prototyped with Unity, you will recognize theDocumentation Index
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GameObject/Component paradigm, coroutines, ScriptableObject, and a near-identical scripting API — the goal is that porting existing Unity projects requires minimal friction. Prowl is currently in early development and is not yet stable for production use, but its core systems are functional and it welcomes contributors and enthusiasts who want to help shape its future.
Prowl is in early development. Expect frequent API changes, missing features, and potential bugs. It is not recommended for production game projects yet — but it is absolutely ready to explore, experiment with, and contribute to.
What Prowl Is
Prowl is a fully self-contained, cross-platform 3D game engine. It ships with an integrated editor, a multi-backend rendering system, a physics engine, spatial audio, navmesh-based AI navigation, and a robust asset pipeline — all under the MIT License with no royalties or licensing fees. The engine targets .NET 9 and runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS without any platform-specific forks or wrappers.Architectural Pillars
GameObject & Component System
Prowl uses aGameObject/MonoBehaviour structure that mirrors Unity’s, so writing scripts in Prowl feels immediately natural. Every entity in a scene is a GameObject which holds one or more Component instances. Components implement lifecycle methods such as Awake(), Start(), Update(), and OnDestroy(). Unity-style coroutines, ScriptableObject, and prefabs (including nested prefabs) are all first-class citizens.
Multi-Backend Rendering via Veldrid
Prowl’s rendering layer is built on top of Prowl.Veldrid (a fork of the Veldrid graphics abstraction library). This lets the engine select the best available GPU API at runtime without changing any application code:| Platform | Preferred backend | Fallbacks |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | OpenGL | Vulkan, DirectX 11, OpenGL ES |
| Linux / FreeBSD | OpenGL | Vulkan, OpenGL ES |
| macOS | Metal | OpenGL, OpenGL ES |
Jitter2 Physics
Rigid-body physics are powered by Jitter Physics 2. Supported collider shapes include Box, Sphere, Capsule, Cylinder, Cone, and Convex Mesh. Collision layers allow fine-grained filtering between groups of objects.OpenAL Audio
Prowl’s audio system uses OpenAL through a modular backend design. Currently.wav file playback is supported, with the architecture ready for additional format support.
DotRecast Navmesh & AI Agents
Navigation and AI pathfinding are handled by Prowl.DotRecast (a C# port of the Recast & Detour libraries). This provides runtime navmesh generation and agent steering — the same proven technology used across the games industry.Node Graph
Prowl includes a built-in Node Graph system (based on Unity’s xNode) for creating visual data-flow graphs. This is the foundation for material graphs, behaviour trees, or any other node-based tool you need to build.Asset Pipeline
The asset pipeline tracks every asset by a stable GUID stored in a sidecar.meta file. Import results are cached so only changed or new files are re-processed on startup. Custom importers can be registered for proprietary file types. Sub-assets (assets stored inside other assets) and full dependency tracking are supported. The build system packs only the assets actually referenced by your scenes, producing small, self-contained standalone executables for Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Platform Support
Windows
Fully supported. Preferred backend is OpenGL with Vulkan, DirectX 11, and OpenGL ES as fallbacks.
Linux
Fully supported. Preferred backend is OpenGL with Vulkan and OpenGL ES as fallbacks.
macOS
Fully supported. Preferred backend is Metal with OpenGL and OpenGL ES as fallbacks.
Current Status
Prowl is in active early development. The core feature set is in place — editor, scripting, rendering, physics, audio, navmesh, asset pipeline, and build system all function. Work in progress or planned items include cascaded shadow maps, a particle system, a terrain engine, animation tooling, a material node editor, 2D support, realtime GI, and networking. See the GitHub project board for the full roadmap.License
Prowl is distributed under the MIT License. You can use it in personal, commercial, and open-source projects without restrictions or royalties.Explore the Documentation
Installation
Clone the repository, initialize submodules, and run the editor on your platform.
Editor Overview
Learn the editor layout: scene view, hierarchy, inspector, assets browser, and more.
Project Setup
Create a new project, understand the folder structure, and add your first script.
GitHub Repository
Browse the source code, open issues, and contribute to the engine.