GoKawiilSolo developer built open-world 3D RPG 'Hedra' from scratch starting in high school
A developer has shared Project Hedra, a procedurally generated, low-poly open-world RPG and custom game engine built largely alone, starting at age 15 to learn OpenGL. The codebase has grown to roughly 100,000 lines of code and now runs natively on Linux and Windows, with Steam integration and a CI pipeline for beta deployment.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The project illustrates how a self-taught learning exercise can scope-creep into a full engine with custom rendering, physics, animation parsing and UI systems normally built by larger studios. It could serve as a reference point for other solo or small-team developers considering building engines from the ground up rather than relying on existing frameworks like Unity or Unreal.
- Hedra started as a personal OpenGL learning project at age 15 and grew into a ~100k-line custom engine and game.
- The engine includes advanced features like screen space reflections, SSAO, bullet physics integration, and dynamic shader reloading.
- The game supports Steam integration, modding, localization, and procedurally generated infinite worlds via a chunk system.
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Published there as: “Hedra is a 3D open world game I wrote from scratch while in highschool”
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