I’m making videos of recreational programming sessions where I build video games using my own minimalist language.
I’ve already uploaded episodes covering a version of Boulder Dash (a famous classic game), and I’m currently working on series for two original games.
For the past few years, I've been developing a minimalist, self-hosted stack machine environment and programming language heavily inspired by Chuck Moore’s ColorForth and the broader Forth philosophy.
The core motivation behind r3 was simple: zero bloat and instant feedback. Modern game development often requires multi-gigabyte engines, complex toolchains, and heavy standard libraries. I wanted to see how far I could push practical game development in the opposite direction—building a completely self-contained, live-coding creative suite with zero external dependencies beyond a thin C abstraction.
Technical Highlights
Ultra-Minimalist VM: The core engine (
r3evm) is written in plain C99 and compiles down to an executable of ~40 KB. It runs seamlessly on Windows and Linux.ColorForth-Inspired Semantics: Words carry structural/execution metadata rather than relying on heavy, complex syntax parsing. It uses concatenative, stack-based logic to keep execution fast and memory footprints negligible.
Self-Hosted & Live Environment: Running the binary directly boots into an integrated development suite (IDE, dictionary browser, code editor, and live-coding tools) written in r3 itself.
Instant Iteration: Because the VM compiles and executes code in milliseconds, game loops and graphics can be modified and tested on the fly without waiting for build pipelines.
Graphics & Multimedia: Native dynamic library support (
.dll/.so) interfacing with SDL2 for sprite rendering, tilemaps, fonts, audio, and custom GLSL shader pipelines.
Quick Start (No Setup Required)
I wanted friction to be absolute zero for anyone curious enough to test it out:
Windows: Download the release zip from GitHub, extract, and run
r3.exe. No installation, no environment variables, no toolchains.Linux: Requires standard SDL2 libraries (
sudo apt install libsdl2-dev). Download the binary and launch./r3lin.
Running the executable without arguments boots straight into the interactive system containing built-in demos, games, and tools. You can also run standalone scripts via CLI: ./r3lin your_script.r3.
GitHub Repository: https://github.com/phreda4/r3
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the VM design, stack-based graphics architectures, or the general trade-offs of ColorForth-style systems!
Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@pablohreda
