Leadwerks Game Engine 5.1 is a major update of our game development technology that delivers improved compatibility, faster performance, and new features. New Deferred Renderer Although Leadwerks 5.0 launched with a clustered forward+ renderer, after extensive testing we felt the
Leadwerks Game Engine 5.1 is a major update of our game development technology that delivers improved compatibility, faster performance, and new features.
Although Leadwerks 5.0 launched with a clustered forward+ renderer, after extensive testing we felt the deferred lighting approach we've used since 2008 offers better support for large numbers of lights and decals. 5.1 introduces an all-new MSAA-enabled deferred renderer with stencil-based optimizations and advanced support for transparency.
Improved Terrain
Terrain rendering is improved, with a new clipmap rendering system that eliminates the need for bindless textures. Terrain-mesh blending is implemented as a deferred effect that can be controlled with a simple checkbox with some adjustable settings. A new fluvial erosion tool has been added to help you easily turn simple hills into realistic rugged terrain.
Better Vegetation
To cover your landscapes, the vegetation system now uses alpha-to-coverage. Combined with optimized multi-sample anti-aliasing, this provides clean sharp vegetation without the blurry artifacts temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) and other techniques suffer from. A wind vertex shader effect is also included to make your game environments feel like a living breathing world.
3D Ocean Water
Where the land meets the sea, the new 3D ocean water steps in to improve the realism. Many adjustable settings and buoyancy physics bring your aquatic worlds to life.
Improved Transparency
Transparency is improved, with support for optical density, for thick ice and soft particle edges.
Roughness works with transparency to provide a frosted glass effect:
Reflections of transparent surfaces can be enabled for dramatic real-time reflections. You can use the new sprite animation feature to add reflective fire and other effects, with plenty of free ready-to-use animations available in our downloads system:
Vendor-Agnostic Upscaling
We feel that upscaling should only be used as a last-ditch effort to give new life to old hardware, not as a crutch to replace optimization. Leadwerks 5.1 introduces a new vendor-agnostic upscaling technique that's about 2x faster than FSR1 and runs on all hardware. This can be used to help "potato" PCs play modern games at acceptable framerates.
Khronos Technologies
Leadwerks continues its support for glTF interoperability with added support for the MSFT_texture_dds extension. This enables seamless import and export of models and scenes with DDS compressed textures for applications that support them, alongside with PNG fallbacks.
The world settings dialog features a selection of tone mapping options, including the Khronos PBR neutral tone mapper, ensuring accurate and realistic color rendering through Khronos's standards.
Lower System Requirements
According to the latest Steam hardware survey results, about a third of players are still using ten-year old hardware. Of the ones who have upgraded, more than 60% upgraded to the low-to-midrange hardware, which isn't much faster than yesterday's high-end cards. We want games made with Leadwerks to run fast on everyone's machine. Leadwerks 5.1 provides better support for old and low-end graphics cards, with lower system requirements. 5.1 is fully compatible with Intel integrated graphics, going back to the Haswell architecture (2013). AMD graphics cards are supported going back to the Radeon HD 7000 series (2012), and Nvidia cards going all the way back to the 400 "Fermi" series, released in 2010.
Start Building Your Dreams
These features and enhancements combine to make Leadwerks 5.1 our most developer-friendly game platform to date. Get Leadwerks 5 now and start building your next hit game, or join in one of our fun-and-friendly game tournaments.
As the summer days heat up, the Leadwerks community is igniting a new season of creativity and cooperation with our Summer Games Tournament ! This is your chance to showcase your skills, develop exciting new projects, and participate in a lively celebration of game design. Let’s
As the summer days heat up, the Leadwerks community is igniting a new season of creativity and cooperation with our Summer Games Tournament! This is your chance to showcase your skills, develop exciting new projects, and participate in a lively celebration of game design. Let’s make this summer a season of innovation, collaboration, and unforgettable gaming moments!
Create a simple, playable game using Leadwerks within the tournament timeframe. When you're done, upload your masterpiece on our website before the deadline hits!
🛠️ How to Play
Build your simple playable game with Leadwerks.
Submit it before July 27th, 2026 (GMT).
Make sure your mailing address is up-to-date in your user profile to claim your prize!
🎁 Prizes for Everyone!
Rather than a competition; this tournament is a co-opetition; a collaborative challenge where everyone wins! Every participant gets a prize. (See details below.)
🎉 Tier 1 Prize: The Leadwerks Sticker Pack
All new participants since the Leadwerks 5 launch will receive this awesome swag in the mail!
A sleek round Leadwerks gear icon with a blue border, approximately 2.75 inches in diameter.
A gear icon sticker about 2 inches in diameter with a vibrant purple border.
A rectangular decal featuring the Leadwerks logo on a stunning dark background.
🏆 Tier 2 Prize: The Leadwerks Enamel Keychain
Have you participated in our previous tournaments? If yes, you’re in for a treat! Second-time entrants will receive a special prize that is both beautiful and functional, the new Leadwerks keychain:
📦 New Summer Assets
If you are looking for ideas, some new summer-themed props have been added to the build-in asset downloader for you to use:
🚀 Ready to Join the Fun?
Don’t miss out! Submit your game before the July 27th, 2026 deadline! Remember, to claim your prize, update your mailing address in your user profile.
If you don't have Leadwerks yet, now's a great time to grab it with a discount during the Steam Summer Sale.☀️
If you need help with your game idea, feel free to ask questions on the forum or in our Discord server. We're all in this together, and your fellow devs will be happy to help!
Let’s make this summer unforgettable with creativity, collaboration, and a whole lot of fun. We can’t wait to see what you build!
The tournament starts Saturday. Good luck, and happy developing!
I'm excited to announce that after several months of work, the beta of Leadwerks 5.1 is now available on Steam . Version 5.1 is a significant update that brings a wealth of new features, enhancements, and optimizations designed to empower developers and elevate your 3D projects.
I'm excited to announce that after several months of work, the beta of Leadwerks 5.1 is now available on Steam. Version 5.1 is a significant update that brings a wealth of new features, enhancements, and optimizations designed to empower developers and elevate your 3D projects.
The clustered forward+ renderer has been replaced with a new deferred renderer, to provide better performance and easier shader development. Many new optimizations have been implemented, such as the use of the stencil buffer for controlling decal visibility. The transparency system in 5.1 is insanely good, with screen-space reflections, probe volumes, refraction, and rough transparency (frosted glass) all integrated into an efficient rendering pipeline that gives you gorgeous visuals with minimal effort.
Support for Potato PCs
Given the inflated costs of PC components today, supporting older hardware is more important than ever. Leadwerks 5.1 introduces optimized support for low-end PCs and older computers, ensuring that even users with modest hardware can enjoy smooth gameplay. In fact, Leadwerks 5.1 will run on computer hardware going all the way back to 2010...including integrated graphics. This change unlocks an underserved market and increases the audience for your game by 50%, while delivering better visuals than ever before.
Terrain-mesh Blending
A new terrain-mesh blending feature lets you seamlessly blend rocks, trees, and other items into the landscape with a natural appearance. This feature makes it easy to achieve stunning outdoors scenery with minimal effort.
Ocean Water
Create breathtaking aquatic environments with the new ocean water system. Realistic waves, reflections, and shoreline effects enable immersive waterfront scenes and coastlines.
Image created by Qulex3
Upscaling
A custom upscaling solution has been added that boosts framerates by as much as 300%, with minimal loss of quality. This allows an Intel HD 630 (definitely potato-class hardware) to achieve a solid 60 FPS in our first-person shooter sample, running at 1080p!
Get the Beta Now
These are just a few of the headlining enhancements set for the final 5.1 release. To access the beta on Steam, right-click on the Leadwerks application in the Steam interface and select the Properties popup menu. In the Game Versions and Betas section you can select the beta branch in the list of available versions to install:
Please see these important instructions for upgrading your existing projects to be compatible with the changes in 5.1.
Leadwerks Game Engine 5.0.2 is now available with new fixes and features for you to enjoy. Enhanced Timing New enhanced timing features provide smooth stutter-free movement and make Leadwerks a great choice for use in twitch shooters and other fast-paced games. Before you we begi
Leadwerks Game Engine 5.0.2 is now available with new fixes and features for you to enjoy.
New enhanced timing features provide smooth stutter-free movement and make Leadwerks a great choice for use in twitch shooters and other fast-paced games. Before you we begin, let me point out that you don't have to do any of this. 75% of players use a screen refresh rate of 60 Hz, and if you don't specify any optional parameters in the world Update and Render methods, the engine will choose settings for you. This is only for people who want extra control over their game timing.
You can run the world update loop and the rendering loop at the same speed, perfectly synchronized, or you can render multiple frames for each world update, using interpolation on every object to smoothly display motion at high framerates, without overloading the main thread.
For example, if your game runs at 60 hz and the screen refresh rate is 60 hz, you can specify that one frame should be synchronized across both threads.
The world is updated at 60 Hz and the world Render method specifies that one frame should be synchronized:
If your screen has a refresh rate of 120 Hz, you can double the game update speed and render one frame per update, at a faster rate. The only drawback to this is your game code will only have 8 milliseconds to complete, instead of the full 16 milliseconds a 60 Hz loop would provide:
Here, we just increase the game update speed to 120 and use one synced frame:
There is another way to handle this. If your screen refresh rate is 120 Hz, you can still update the game 60 times per second, while rendering at twice the speed:
Here, the world is still updated at 60 Hz and the world Render method specifies that two frames should be drawn for each world update:
How is it possible for the game and rendering loops to run at different speeds? The renderer interpolates between the last two frames of data received to provide smooth motion. The image below provides a very exaggerated example for clarity. Both boxes are updating their rotation at just one update per second, but the renderer is using interpolation on the object on the left to provide the appearance of smooth motion.
For other screen refresh rates, you can divide the refresh rate by 60 to determine the closest value to 60 and use this for the world update frequency:
Here, the world update speed is 72 and the renderer draws two frames for every one update in the game loop:
You can use more than just two synced frames. The code below will render four frames for every one update in the game loop, with perfectly smooth motion, when a 240 Hz display is in use:
Here we still use 60 Hz for the game update frequency, but with four frames drawn for each game update, proving smooth motion at 240 frames per second:
If the renderer is interpolating between the last two game updates, this introduces latency into the system. However, we discovered during our work with VR that not all latency matters. The only latency you can actually perceive is that which is connected to your body. In VR, this means the orientation of your headset and controllers. Our solution was to put all our VR code in the rendering thread, and always update the headset orientation right before a new frame is rendered.
For 3D games, especially shooters, mouse look latency is a significant problem. We noticed in Leadwerks 5.0 the mouse looking could sometimes feel "mushy" and wanted a solution to this. We found that using the new Microsoft GameInput API, we could enable low-latency mouse looking behavior that could be called from any thread. The new Camera:SetMouseLook command allows us to perform the mouse look updating in the rendering thread, right before a frame is drawn, just like we did with our VR implementation.
Of course, if you want the ultimate responsiveness you can just update the whole game at 240 Hz, but the variable-rate rendering feature allows games to run at a high framerate without being too demanding on the CPU.
These features combined provide strong support for fast-paced games, as well as high-frequency displays and VR headsets, with a difference you can feel whenever you play.
Entity Collision Testing
New collision testing features allow you to test the intersection of two entities outside of the physics simulation. This can be used for improved object holding or custom player movement.
Faster Texture Compression
Although BC7 provides better quality texture compression, the editor now defaults to using DXT5, which compresses much faster and provides a more responsive user experience, especially when converting large batches of images into DDS format. You can switch to BC7 compression if you wish by changing the Material Generation > Compression format setting in the program options. The images below show a comparison of BC1 (DXT1) to BC7. Although DXT1 is lower quality compression than DXT5, both formats will have some similar artifacts.
BC7 does provide reduced artifacts, using the same storage space as DXT5, but at the cost of increased compression time. Many developers may prefer to have faster texture compression / conversion over slightly higher quality.
You can read more about texture compression formats here.
Bug Fixes Galore
The latest update fixes more than 75 bugs that were identified since the launch of Leadwerks 5, providing a stable and smooth experience for new and experienced developers. A big thanks is due to the entire community for their help identifying important issues. The engine currently has a 97.7% bug closure rate for all reported issues.
Faster Online Features
We've also migrated our site to a new web hosting company, so the forum, blogs, and downloads system will load a lot faster now.
New Commands
The following new commands have been added to the engine API:
Display:GetRefreshRate
Hmd:GetRefreshRate
Camera:SetMouseLook
Entity:CollisionTest
Entity:SetPlayerSize
Updating Projects for 5.0.2
The latest update uses new technologies and techniques. Some modifications are needed to prepare your existing project for use with version 5.0.2.
Newton Game Dynamics is now compiled separately as a set of DLLs. This provides us with the ability to debug game physics without a game's source code, and provides faster engine build times, so we can get updates out to you more frequently. You can get these by opening the project manager (File > Project Manager) and pressing the sync button to update your project.
The following DLLs will be added to your project:
newton.dll
newton_d.dll
dCustomJoints.dll
dCustomJoints_d.dll
dContainers.dll
dContainers_d.dll
This cuts build times for the whole engine down to about three minutes.
Updating C++ Projects
In addition to the project update described above, C++ projects requires two additional actions. Ideally, you should apply these changes before updating the project in the project manager.
In the Visual Studio project settings, set Linker > System > Stack Reserve Size to 4194304. Make sure this is applied to both the Debug and Release configurations.
You must also add the MicrosoftGameInput library via nuget. In Visual Studio, select the Tools > NuGet Package Manager > Manage Nuget Packages for Solution... menu item, search for "GameInput" and apply to the project.
If you ran the project update before performing this step, the interface will incorrectly show the package as installed. If this happens, press the uninstall button, then find and install the Microsoft GameInput library again. If the GameInput library is not installed in your project, you will get linking errors when you try to compile it.
New C++ projects created with Leadwerks 5.0.2 will be created with these settings enabled by default.
Looking Ahead
Thank you for your support as we continue on to the development of Leadwerks 5.1, which is planned to provide better performance and more optimizations aimed at low-end and older hardware, as well as new visual effects and tools.
As the new year begins, we reflect on this year’s Winter Games Tournament, a vibrant showcase of talent, innovation, and collaborative spirit from the Leadwerks community. Over the course of 30 days, developers of all skill levels poured their ideas into a variety of creative, fu
As the new year begins, we reflect on this year’s Winter Games Tournament, a vibrant showcase of talent, innovation, and collaborative spirit from the Leadwerks community. Over the course of 30 days, developers of all skill levels poured their ideas into a variety of creative, fun, and impressive games built using Leadwerks. From charming strategy games to fast-paced challenges, each entry demonstrated the passion and ingenuity of our participants. Below we will review a diverse lineup of games, celebrating the creativity that made this tournament a memorable and inspiring event for everyone involved.
This first-time entry from "Yue" offers a slow-paced journey across the Martian surface, inviting the player to engage in observation, environmental awareness, and quiet discovery. Rather than focusing on action or challenge, the experience emphasizes atmosphere, symbolism, and the passage of time.
Gameplay is intentionally minimalist, prioritizing environmental storytelling and reflective moments over complex mechanics. Each scene is designed to be felt rather than explained, allowing the player to connect emotionally with the world and its meaning.
SnowBall VR by returning champion "reepblue" is a simple target game using Leadwerks 5. Throw snowballs at targets in a short amount of time to increase your score!
In Nerva, by returning champion "aiaf", two powers collide across the battlefield. Players must expand their influence by capturing neutral territory, strengthening their positions through geometric connections, and hunting for the enemy’s hidden King. Strategy is key: do you spread thin to find the King, or build a fortified tower that cannot be breached?
As the days grow shorter, fireplaces crackle, and winter chill fills the air, the Leadwerks community is heating things up with the return of our annual Winter Games Tournament ! It’s your chance to unleash your creativity, bring your wildest ideas to life, and take part in the f
As the days grow shorter, fireplaces crackle, and winter chill fills the air, the Leadwerks community is heating things up with the return of our annual Winter Games Tournament! It’s your chance to unleash your creativity, bring your wildest ideas to life, and take part in the fun with your fellow developers.
🏆The Challenge
Create a simple, playable game using Leadwerks within the tournament timeframe. When you're done, upload your masterpiece on our website before the deadline hits!
🛠️ How to Play
Build your simple playable game with Leadwerks.
Submit it before January 19, 2026 (GMT).
Make sure your mailing address is up-to-date in your user profile to claim your prize!
🎁 Prizes for Everyone!
Rather than a competition; this tournament is a co-opetition; a collaborative challenge where everyone wins! Every participant gets a prize. (See details below.)
🎉 Tier 1 Prize: The Leadwerks Sticker Pack
All new participants (up to 100) will receive this awesome swag in the mail!
A sleek round Leadwerks gear icon with a blue border, approximately 2.75 inches in diameter.
A gear icon sticker about 2 inches in diameter with a vibrant purple border.
A rectangular decal featuring the Leadwerks logo on a stunning dark background.
🔥 Special Rewards for Returning Champions
Have you competed in our previous tournaments? If yes, you’re in for a treat! Up to 20 returning champions will receive a special prize package, including:
The Tier 1 Leadwerks sticker pack (x3 stickers).
A luxury high-capacity Leadwerks USB drive with a magnetic closing box, perfect for backups or transporting files between machines...with style!
One mystery bonus item(!)
🚀 Ready to Join the Fun?
Don’t miss out Submit your game before the January 19, 2026 deadline! Remember, to claim your prize, update your mailing address in your user profile.
If you don't have Leadwerks yet, now's a great time to grab it with a discount during the Steam WInter Sale.❄️
Let’s make this winter unforgettable with creativity, collaboration, and a whole lot of fun. We can’t wait to see what you build!
The tournament starts Saturday. Good luck, and happy developing!
Leadwerks Game Engine 5 is an all-new update that makes game development easier than ever. Dive into our video tutorials and learn everything you need to bring your ideas to life. Create with ease using our intuitive visual editor and Lua script. When you're ready to publish, you
Leadwerks Game Engine 5 is an all-new update that makes game development easier than ever. Dive into our video tutorials and learn everything you need to bring your ideas to life. Create with ease using our intuitive visual editor and Lua script. When you're ready to publish, you keep 100% of your profits with our royalty-free license.
Our new multithreaded architecture prevents CPU bottlenecks, to provide order-of-magnitude faster performance under heavy rendering loads. Build with the confidence of having an optimized game engine that keeps up with your game as it grows.
Advanced Graphics Capabilities
Achieve AAA-quality visuals with PBR materials, customizable post-processing effects, hardware tessellation, and a clustered forward+ renderer with support for up to 32x MSAA.
Built-in Level Design Tools
Built-in level design tools let you easily sketch out your game level right in the editor, with fine control over subdivision, bevels, and displacement. This makes it easy to build and playtest your game levels quickly, instead of switching back and forth between applications. It's got everything you need to build scenes, all in one place.
Vertex Material Painting
Add intricate details and visual interest by painting materials directly onto your level geometry. Seamless details applied across different surfaces tie the scene together and transform a collection of parts into a cohesive environment, allowing anyone to create beatiful game environments.
Built-in Mesh Reduction Tool
We've added a powerful new mesh reduction tool that decimates complex geometry, for easy model optimization or LOD creation.
Stochastic Vegetation System
Populate your outdoor scenes with dense, realistic foliage using our innovative vegetation system. It dynamically calculates instances each frame, allowing massive, detailed forests with fast performance and minimal memory usage.
Fully Dynamic Pathfinding
Our navigation system supports one or multiple navigation meshes that automatically rebuild when objects in the scene move. This allows navigation agents to dynamically adjust their routes in response to changes in the environment, for smarter enemies and more immersive gameplay possibilities.
Integrated Script Editor
Lua script integration offers rapid prototyping with an easy-to-learn language and hundreds of code examples. The built-in debugger lets you pause your game, step through code, and inspect every variable in real-time. For advanced users, C++ programming is also available with the Leadwerks Pro DLC.
Visual Flowgraph for Advanced Game Mechanics
The flowgraph editor provides high-level control over sequences of events, and lets level designers easily set up in-game sequences of events, without writing code.
Integrated Downloads Manager
Download thousands of ready-to-use PBR materials, 3D models, skyboxes, and other assets directly within the editor. You can use our content in your game, or to just have fun kitbashing a new scene.
Learn from a Pro
Are you stuck in "tutorial hell"? Our lessons are designed to provide the deep foundational knowledge you need to bring any type of game to life, with hours of video tutorials that guide you from total beginner to a capable game developer, one step at a time.
Royalty-Free License
When you get Leadwerks, you can make any number of commercial games with our developer-friendly license. There's no royalties, no install fees, and no third-party licensing strings to worry about, so you get to keep 100% of your profits.
Graphics
Multi-threaded rendering architecture
Clustered forward+ renderer with uniform lighting model and optional depth prepass
Multi-display support
PBR materials
Load 3D models from glTF, OBJ, MDL, and FBX (using glTF converter)
Image loading, saving, processing
Vertex, pixel, geometry, and tessellation shaders
Normal mapping with specular
Customizable post-processing effects stack
Crack-free hardware tessellation
Environment probes
Instanced rendering
Real-time mesh modification
Imposters
Editor
Build-in level design tools using constructive solid geometry
Edit level geometry in 2D and 3D viewports
Carve and hollow boolean operations
Build-in mesh reduction tools to optimize models or generate LODs
Programming
Integrated script editor
Easy-to-code Lua API with over 800 commands
Auto-completion
Hover mouse to show command syntax
Visual flowgraph connects script functions to set up sequences of events
Advanced programmers can use C++ (requires Leadwerks Pro DLC)
Terrain
Dynamically sculpt and paint terrain
Cut holes in terrain
Up to 256 material layers
Terrain foliage system
3D Models
Load and save Khronos glTF files
Load and save Wavefront OBJ files
Convert FBX files to glTF and load
Convert Collada files to glTF and load
Build-in mesh reduction tools for optimizing models or generating LODs
Animation
Animated skinned characters
Share skeletons across multiple characters
Attach objects to bones
Built-in animation transition and update system
Hardware skinning
Blend and transition animations
Physics
Fast and accurate asynchronous rigid body physics
Constraints including hinge, ball, kinematic, plane, and sliding joints
Motorized joints with limits
Generate physics shapes
Swept collision
Raycasting with lines or spheres
Pathfinding
Navmesh pathfinding
Crowd avoidance and steering
Navigation areas visible in editor
Physics-based character controller
Automatic AI following
Sound
3D sound spatialization
Head-related transfer function (HRTF)
Audio filters including distortion, flanging, echo, and EAX reverb effects
Emit a sound from any entity
Automatic channel management
Skip to any time in sound
GUI
Resolution-independent for any DPI
Extensible widgets system
Load SVG vector images
Set widget and item image
Change mouse cursor
Custom color schemes stored in JSON files
Supported File Formats
Model files can be loaded from and saved to glTF and OBJ format, or converted from FBX format.
Textures can be loaded from DDS, PNG, JPG, BMP, TGA, PSD, and other image formats.
Audio can be loaded from WAV, MP3, and OGG formats.
ISPC Fast Texture Compression, including BC7 and BC6h pixel formats
We’re excited to invite all our community members to a special live developer meeting happening this Saturday morning on our Discord server . This is a fantastic opportunity to connect directly with the Leadwerks community, ask questions, and get the latest updates firsthand. In
We’re excited to invite all our community members to a special live developer meeting happening this Saturday morning on our Discord server. This is a fantastic opportunity to connect directly with the Leadwerks community, ask questions, and get the latest updates firsthand.
In this special session, we will share our experience using the powerful level design features in Leadwerks 5 to bring our vision of the SCP Foundation to life. Discover the creative techniques and tools we are using to craft detailed, realistic environments.
We will also review the new 3D Spatialization tutorial series, designed to provide you with comprehensive knowledge about three-dimensional geometry for game development, with nearly three hours of video footage and many code examples.
Mark your calendar and join us this Saturday morning on our Discord server. We look forward to seeing you there!
Another game made with Leadwerks Game Engine , the fixed-camera mystery advanture Resonant Dusk has been released: View game page Unravel the secrets of the Bariton mansion! Take on the mantle of detective in the role of Lucas Usher, and solve the riddles plaguing the ghosts of t
Another game made with Leadwerks Game Engine, the fixed-camera mystery advanture Resonant Dusk has been released:
View game pageUnravel the secrets of the Bariton mansion! Take on the mantle of detective in the role of Lucas Usher, and solve the riddles plaguing the ghosts of those left behind! Uncover their secrets and help them find salvation…or damnation.
I'm proud to announce the release of the first Leadwerks Games Bundle. Start building your own games with Leadwerks Engine and discover indie titles created by developers just like you. This bundle includes Leadwerks Game Engine, along with three games created with Leadwerks, and
I'm proud to announce the release of the first Leadwerks Games Bundle. Start building your own games with Leadwerks Engine and discover indie titles created by developers just like you. This bundle includes Leadwerks Game Engine, along with three games created with Leadwerks, and a generous discount.
Unleash your creativity and embark on an exciting journey into game development with Leadwerks Engine! This bundle includes the full-featured Leadwerks Game Engine alongside three exceptional games created using Leadwerks by fellow developers just like you. Dive into this world of imagination and innovation—build, play, and inspire others in the thriving community of indie game creators. Your adventure starts here!
Developer HorrorTheory has released their Leadwerks-powered game Concealment . Your life is in your hands Go to an abandoned village to find your missing brother. Explore the objects that come in your way. Solve the terrible mystery of this mysterious place. Concealment is a firs
Developer HorrorTheory has released their Leadwerks-powered game Concealment.
Go to an abandoned village to find your missing brother. Explore the objects that come in your way. Solve the terrible mystery of this mysterious place.
Concealment is a first-person psychological horror game. A game in which you need to solve the mystery of an abandoned ancient village.
Story
You receive a strange letter from your brother. He asks that you urgently come to an abandoned village where something strange is happening. Your goal is to find your brother and find out what caused the strange events.
Features
Open for research location - Go wherever you want, explore the territory to your heart's content.
Interactive items - You can pick up and examine items.
Non-linear plot - Change the plot with your actions.
A new update for Leadwerks Game Engine 4.6 is available on the default branch. This fixes a physics bug that would cause boxes to float into the air after the player stepped on them.
A new update for Leadwerks Game Engine 4.6 is available on the default branch. This fixes a physics bug that would cause boxes to float into the air after the player stepped on them.
Leadwerks Game Engine 4.6 is now available on Steam! This free update adds Steam peer-to-peer networking, lobbies, voice chat, and more. A new multiplayer game template makes it easy to get started with your own multiplayer games, adding new depth and interactivity to the fun. We
Leadwerks Game Engine 4.6 is now available on Steam! This free update adds Steam peer-to-peer networking, lobbies, voice chat, and more. A new multiplayer game template makes it easy to get started with your own multiplayer games, adding new depth and interactivity to the fun.
We've also added over 100 bug fixes, making this the most stable release ever to build your game on!
This update also introduces Leadwerks Marketplace, your easy-to-use shop for 3D models, textures, and other game assets. Register a Leadwerks account and download the Mercenary Action Figure for free this week.
Other changes:
New parameters for better control over physics springs.
World::Update() now has an optional parameter for number of sub-steps, can be used for improved physics precision.
Model editor view range is calculated from model extents, so if you load a model that is huge it won't be invisible.
Model editor displays number of limbs as well as vertices and triangles.
Settings file is now saved any time changes are made in the options editor.
Menu item added for Leadwerks Marketplace.
Menu item added for Discord chat.
Linux version of engine now built on Ubuntu 18.04.
Leadwerks 3.0 was released during GDC 2013. I gave a talk on graphics optimization and also had a booth at the expo. Something else significant happened that week. After the expo closed I walked over to the Oculus booth and they let me try out the first Rift prototype. This was a
Leadwerks 3.0 was released during GDC 2013. I gave a talk on graphics optimization and also had a booth at the expo. Something else significant happened that week. After the expo closed I walked over to the Oculus booth and they let me try out the first Rift prototype.
This was a pivotal time both for us and for the entire game industry. Mobile was on the downswing but there were new technologies emerging that I wanted to take advantage of. Our Kickstarter campaign for Linux support was very successful, reaching over 200% of its goal. This coincided with a successful Greenlight campaign to bring Leadwerks Game Engine to Steam in the newly-launched software section. The following month Valve announced the development of SteamOS, a Linux-based operating system for the Steam Machine game consoles. Because of our work in Linux and our placement in Steam, I was fortunate enough to be in close contact with much of the staff at Valve Software.
The Early Days of VR
It was during one of my visits to Valve HQ that I was able to try out a prototype of the technology that would go on to become the HTC Vive. In September of 2014 I bought an Oculus Rift DK2 and first started working with VR in Leadwerks. So VR has been something I have worked on in the background for a long time, but I was looking for the right opportunity to really put it to work. In 2016 I felt it was time for a technology refresh, so I wrote a blog about the general direction I wanted to take Leadwerks in. A lot of it centered around VR and performance. I didn't really know exactly how things would work out, but I knew I wanted to do a lot of work with VR.
A month later I received a message on this forum inquiring about use of Leadwerks Game Engine for virtual reality applications for NASA projects. Now, Leadwerks Software has a long history of use in the defense and simulation industries, with orders for software from Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, the British Royal Navy, and probably some others I don't know about. So NASA making an inquiry about software isn't too strange. What was strange was that they were very interested in meeting in person.
Trip to Goddard Space Center
I took my first trip to Goddard Space Center in January 2017 where I got a tour of the facility. I saw robots, giant satellites, rockets, and some crazy laser rooms that looked like a Half-Life level. It was my eleven year old self's dream come true. I was also shown some of the virtual reality work they are using Leadwerks Game Engine for. Basically, they were taking high-poly engineering models from CAD software and putting them into a real-time visualization in VR. There are some good reasons for this. VR gives you a stereoscopic view of objects that is far superior to a flat 2D screen. This makes a huge difference when you are viewing complex mechanical objects and planning robotic movements. You just can't see things on a flat screen the same way you can see them in VR. It's like the difference between looking at a photograph of an object versus holding it in your hands.
CAD models are procedural, meaning they have a precise mathematical formula that describes their shape. In order to render them in real-time, they have to be converted to polygonal models, but these objects can be tens of millions of polygons, with details down to threading on individual screws, and they were trying to view them in VR at 90 frames per second! Now with virtual reality, if there is a discrepancy between what your visual system and your vestibular system perceives, you will get sick to your stomach. That's why it's critical to maintain a steady 90 Hz frame rate. The engineers at NASA told me they first tried to use Unity3D but it was too slow, which is why they came to me. Leadwerks was giving them better performance, but it still was not fast enough for what they wanted to do next. I thought "these guys are crazy, it cannot be done".
Then I remembered something else people said could never be done.
So I started to think "if it were possible, how would I do it?" They had also expressed interest in an inverse kinematics simulation, so I put together this robotic arm control demo in a few days, just to show what could be easily be done with our physics system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4gZpiXquzM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMLApThAcpo With the extreme performance demands of VR and my experience writing optimized rendering systems, I saw an opportunity to focus our development on something people can't live without: speed. I started building a new renderer designed specifically around the way modern PC hardware works. At first I expected to see performance increases of 2-3x. Instead what we are seeing are 10-40x performance increases under heavy loads. During this time I stayed in contact with people at NASA and kept them up to date on the capabilities of the new technology.
At this point there was still nothing concrete to show for my efforts. NASA purchased some licenses for the Enterprise edition of Leadwerks Game Engine, but the demos I made were free of charge and I was paying my own travel expenses. The cost of plane tickets and hotels adds up quickly, and there was no guarantee any of this would work out. I did not want to talk about what I was doing on this site because it would be embarrassing if I made a lot of big plans and nothing came of it. But I saw a need for the technology I created and I figured something would work out, so I kept working away at it.
Call to Duty
Today I am pleased to announce I have signed a contract to put our virtual reality expertise to work for NASA. As we speak, I am preparing to travel to Washington D.C. to begin the project. In the future I plan to provide services for aerospace, defense, manufacturing, and serious games, using our new technology to deliver VR simulations with performance and realism beyond anything that has been possible until now.
My software company and relationship with my customers (you) is unaffected. Development of the new engine will continue, with a strong emphasis on hyper-realism and performance. I think this is a direction everyone here will be happy with. I am going to continue to invest in the development of groundbreaking new features that will help in the aerospace and defense industries (now you understand why I have been talking about 64-bit worlds) and I think a great many people will be happy to come along for the ride in this direction.
Leadwerks is still a game company, but our core focus is on enabling and creating hyper-realistic VR simulations. Thank you for your support and all the suggestions and ideas you have provided over the years that have helped me create great software for you. Things are about to get very interesting. I can't wait to see what you all create with Leadwerks Game Engine and future technologies we develop.
Bladequest: The First Chapter is a short, but highly atmospheric first person game experience, Powered by Leadwerks Game Engine and inspired by games like The Elder Scrolls, or the Gothic Series. It is called the “The First Chapter”, because it is one, in a series of games, creat
Bladequest: The First Chapter [GOLD] is a short, but highly atmospheric first person game experience, Powered by Leadwerks Game Engine and inspired by games like The Elder Scrolls, or the Gothic Series. It is called the “The First Chapter”, because it is one, in a series of games, created to directly test existing game mechanics in field and step by step craft an awesome game from your feedback! Watch the roadmap graphic for more information!
In this adventure you help your brave companion Veronica to find a cure for her brother, who has been struck by a terrible disease. Explore a sinister castle ruin, infested by the undead and face the dark Shadowlord. Dominate your enemies with axe and shield, longsword, or bow, to once and for all send them back to hell! Jump into this exciting Adventure and safe the life of Veronica’s brother. She needs you NOW!
FEATURES WAITING FOR YOU
Highly atmospheric game experience
Charming Polygon-Look
Carefully handcrafted dungeon rooms
Full-blown first person combat system
Undead infested castle
Different weapon types
Different color schemes to adjust the appearance of the game to your needs
EXTRA FEATURES IN THE GOLD EDITION
2 unique additional weapons
Ultra difficulty setting
2 additional color schemes (“Supernatural” and “Poisoned”)
Summer is here, and you know what that means! Yes, it is time for another LEGENDARY game tournament. This year the theme is "Retro Gaming". Create a modern take on an arcade game hearkening back to the days of NES, Neo Geo, Sega, or just make anything you want. Either way, you ge
Summer is here, and you know what that means! Yes, it is time for another LEGENDARY game tournament. This year the theme is "Retro Gaming". Create a modern take on an arcade game hearkening back to the days of NES, Neo Geo, Sega, or just make anything you want. Either way, you get this totally radical poster as a prize!
How does it work? For one month, the Leadwerks community builds small playable games. Some people work alone and some team up with others. At the end of the month we release our projects to the public and play each other's games. The point is to release something short and sweet with a constrained timeline, which has resulted in many odd and wonderful mini games for the community to play.
WHEN: The tournament begins Thursday, June 21, and ends on July 31st at the stroke of midnight.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE: Publish your retro-or-other-themed game to the Games Showcase before the deadline. You can work as a team or individually. Use blogs to share your work and get feedback as you build your game.
Games must have a preview image, title, and contain some minimal amount of gameplay (there has to be some way to win the game) to be considered entries. It is expected that most entries will be simple, given the time constraints.
This is the perfect time to try making a VR game or finish that idea you've been waiting to make!
PRIZES: All participants will receive a limited-edition 11x17" poster commemorating the event. To receive your prize you need to fill in your name, mailing address, and phone number (for customs) in your account info.
At the end of the tournament we will post a roundup blog featuring your entries. Let's go!
We've added a new website feature called Projects to help teams collaborate on their games. A project can be created with several privacy features so you can use this for public open-source games everyone can participate in, or for your team's secret project. You can add a forum,
We've added a new website feature called Projects to help teams collaborate on their games. A project can be created with several privacy features so you can use this for public open-source games everyone can participate in, or for your team's secret project.
You can add a forum, blog, and downloads section to your project and use it to host files, carry out discussions, and post updates to your team. The project creator can also moderate the content and has the ability to invite and approve new members.
If you don't have a Leadwerks account, why not sign up for one now? It only takes a moment and you can sign up with your email address, Facebook account, or Steam account.
We've added a new website feature called Projects to help teams collaborate on their games. A project can be created with several privacy features so you can use this for public open-source games everyone can participate in, or for your team's secret project. You can add a forum,
We've added a new website feature called Projects to help teams collaborate on their games. A project can be created with several privacy features so you can use this for public open-source games everyone can participate in, or for your team's secret project.
You can add a forum, blog, and downloads section to your project and use it to host files, carry out discussions, and post updates to your team. The project creator can also moderate the content and has the ability to invite and approve new members.
If you don't have a Leadwerks account, why not sign up for one now? It only takes a moment and you can sign up with your email address, Facebook account, or Steam account.
An update is available on the beta branch on Steam that adds support for multiplayer games with the following features: NAT punch-through with relay server fallback. Connectionless peer-to-peer UDP messages with multiple channels and optional reliable flag. Public server list of
An update is available on the beta branch on Steam that adds support for multiplayer games with the following features:
NAT punch-through with relay server fallback.
Connectionless peer-to-peer UDP messages with multiple channels and optional reliable flag.
Public server list of available games to play.
Voice-over-IP for in-game chat (and taunts!).
The new multiplayer system will open up a new range of game types that can be easily created with Leadwerks Game Engine.
These features are still being tested and are only available in the Windows build right now.
An update is available on the beta branch on Steam that adds support for multiplayer games with the following features: NAT punch-through with relay server fallback. Connectionless peer-to-peer UDP messages with multiple channels and optional reliable flag. Public server list of
An update is available on the beta branch on Steam that adds support for multiplayer games with the following features:
NAT punch-through with relay server fallback.
Connectionless peer-to-peer UDP messages with multiple channels and optional reliable flag.
Public server list of available games to play.
Voice-over-IP for in-game chat (and taunts!).
The new multiplayer system will open up a new range of game types that can be easily created with Leadwerks Game Engine.
These features are still being tested and are only available in the Windows build right now.
