Level Up Your Game Dev Journey

370 Lines to a Game: Sean Barrett’s Indie-Scale C Workflow

Sean Barrett (Thief engine, stb libraries) live-codes a 2D twin-stick shooter from a blank C file using Visual Studio 6 and raw OpenGL. In about 370 lines, he builds window creation, rendering, input, bullets, enemies, and collision—all driven by a single object array and simple switch-based logic. Along the way he explains why “just use arrays” often beats heavy ECS for indie games, when he’d refactor, and how this bare-bones workflow helps you reach a playable prototype fast.

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