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DownDraft

Installation

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”

Before installing DownDraft Engine, ensure you have the following tools installed:

Bun

Section titled “Bun”

DownDraft uses Bun as its package manager and default JS runtime — games execute against the native platform library via runtime-adapted FFI (bun:ffi under Bun). Node+tsx (koffi) and Deno (Deno.dlopen) are also supported hosts via draft dev --runtime=node|deno and as packaged runtimes via draft release --runtime=node|deno (linux), but Bun is required regardless for dependency installation (bun.lock), bun test, and as the packager’s own host.

Terminal window
curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash

Rust (optional, for native modules)

Section titled “Rust (optional, for native modules)”

Rust is only needed if you’re building the platform or audio native libraries from source.

Terminal window
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Get the Source

Section titled “Get the Source”
Terminal window
git clone https://github.com/knackstedt/downdraft-engine.git
cd downdraft-engine

Install Dependencies

Section titled “Install Dependencies”
Terminal window
bun install

This installs all workspace dependencies via Bun workspaces. Games are separate repos — if you develop a game alongside the engine under games/, run bun run link:games to link @downdraft/* packages into each game’s node_modules.

Verify Installation

Section titled “Verify Installation”

Scaffold a game and run it to verify everything works:

Terminal window
draft new my-game
cd my-game
draft dev

This launches the game on the native runtime via its src/native-entry.ts entrypoint. You should see a native window with the WebGPU-rendered scene and devtools overlay.

Running an Existing Game

Section titled “Running an Existing Game”
Terminal window
cd <game-directory> && draft dev

Next Steps

Section titled “Next Steps”