Zonk

A 2D game library for Zig inspired by Ebiten.

Features

• Hardware-accelerated 2D rendering via WebGPU
• Input handling (keyboard, mouse)
• Image loading and manipulation (PNG, JPEG)
• Text rendering with FreeType and HarfBuzz
• Fixed timestep game loop (60 FPS default)
• Optional uncapped framerate

Integration

Add to your build.zig.zon:

zig fetch --save git+https://github.com/braheezy/zonk

Include in your build.zig:

const zonk_dep = b.dependency("zonk", .{
    .target = target,
    .optimize = optimize,
});

exe.root_module.addImport("zonk", zonk_dep.module("zonk"));

Architecture

Zonk implements the Ebiten core concept of separating game logic from rendering:

1. update() - Game logic, called every frame
2. draw(screen) - Rendering, called after update
3. layout(width, height) - Window resize handling

Implement a struct with these methods and zonk will call them for you.

Game Interface

const YourGame = struct {
    // State fields here

    pub fn update(self: *YourGame) void {
        // Update game state
    }

    pub fn draw(self: *YourGame, screen: *image.RGBAImage) void {
        // Render to screen buffer
    }

    pub fn layout(self: *YourGame, width: usize, height: usize) void {
        // Handle resizing
    }
};

Running Your Game

pub fn main() !void {
    var game = YourGame{};

    try zonk.run(
        YourGame,
        &game,
        std.heap.page_allocator,
        .{
            .title = "Your Game",
            .width = 800,
            .height = 600,
            .vsync = true,
            .uncapped_fps = false,
            .enable_text_rendering = true,
        },
    );
}

Rendering

Zonk uses the zpix library for color support and image operations:

// Clear screen
screen.clear(.{ .rgba = .{ .r = 0, .g = 0, .b = 0, .a = 255 } });

// Draw rectangles
var d = Drawer.init(screen);
const rect = Rectangle{
    .min = .{ .x = 10, .y = 10 },
    .max = .{ .x = 50, .y = 50 },
};
d.fillRect(rect, color.Color{ .rgba = .{ .r = 255, .g = 0, .b = 0, .a = 255 } });

// Render text
zonk.print("Score: {d}", .{score}, 10, 10, [4]f32{ 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0 }) catch unreachable;

Input Handling

// Check key state
if (zonk.input_state.isKeyDown(.space)) {
    // Space bar is pressed
}

// Check previous frame state
if (zonk.input_state.isKeyJustPressed(.enter)) {
    // Enter key was just pressed this frame
}

Examples

The Pong example in examples/pong demonstrates core Zonk concepts including:

• Game loop implementation
• Collision detection
• Input handling
• Rendering and text display

Run it with zig build pong.

Attribution

The text rendering comes from zig-text-rendering, thank you for your work tchayen!

The contents of pkg/ are from Ghostty because they are the most mature project that maintains these packages for the latest Zig. They say this about the pkg directory:

If you want to use them, you can copy and paste them into your project.

Very generous of the Ghostty team, thank you!