What is PHPolygon?

PHPolygon is a standalone PHP-native game engine. The primary authoring tool is Claude Code. Worlds, characters, and game logic are written entirely in PHP - no external 3D modelling tools (Blender, Maya, etc.) and no imported model files (.fbx, .obj, .gltf) are part of the workflow.

Core Principles

• PHP is the source of truth - scenes, components, geometry, and game logic are all PHP code
• Code-driven worlds - geometry is generated procedurally, not imported from external tools
• AI-first authoring - Claude Code generates and iterates on game content directly
• Backend-agnostic rendering - game code builds a RenderCommandList; backends execute it
• Visual editor - the PHPolygon Editor (phpolygon/editor) provides a NativePHP desktop app for visual scene editing

Production Status

The 2D renderer is production-ready with VIO as the primary backend (Metal/Vulkan/D3D12 via php-vio) and NanoVG/OpenGL as fallback (via php-glfw). Code Tycoon is the first game built with PHPolygon's 2D pipeline.

The 3D renderer is in active development with multiple backend options.

Render Backends

Backend	Status	Target
OpenGL 4.1 via php-glfw (2D/NanoVG)	Production	2D games
OpenGL 4.1 via php-glfw (3D)	In development	3D games
Metal via php-glfw (MoltenVK)	In development	3D games (macOS)
Vio (hardware)	Production	2D + 3D
Vulkan via php-vulkan	Phase 8	3D production

Architecture Overview

Game Code / Scene
      ↓  (builds)
RenderCommandList        ← pure PHP data, no GPU calls
      ↓  (executed by)
┌──────────────────┬──────────────────┬──────────────────┬──────────────────┐
│ VioRenderer3D  │ OpenGLRenderer3D │ MetalRenderer3D  │ VulkanRenderer3D │ NullRenderer3D │
│  (primary)     │    (fallback)    │ (macOS/MoltenVK) │    (planned)     │ (headless/CI)  │
└──────────────────┴──────────────────┴───────────────┴──────────────────┴────────────────┘

Games are built in separate repositories and require phpolygon/phpolygon via Composer.

Engine Features

Beyond rendering, PHPolygon includes:

• Audio - multi-channel audio with Master/Music/SFX/UI/Voice channels
• Physics - 2D and 3D collision detection with BVH acceleration, rigid bodies, character controllers, hinge and linear joints
• Save system - slot-based save/load with autosave support
• Scene management - scene loading (single/additive), lifecycle events, prefab registry, JSON scene transpiler
• Input mapping - action and axis bindings for keyboard, mouse, and gamepad
• Environment - day/night cycle, weather (rain/snow/storm), seasons, atmospheric simulation, wind
• Prefabs - procedural builders for doors, furniture, roofs, palm trees
• Threading - parallel subsystems for physics, audio, AI, and asset streaming via ext-parallel
• Localization - locale management with fallback chains
• UI - immediate-mode and retained-mode widget toolkit

Distribution

Games compile to standalone executables with an embedded PHP runtime:

game-binary          ← native launcher
runtime/php          ← static PHP binary (all extensions included)
game.phar            ← engine + game logic (Opcache bytecode)
assets/              ← sounds, JSON scenes, UI layouts
resources/           ← shaders (GLSL + SPIR-V), fonts
saves/               ← user data (JSON)
mods/                ← open: PHP + assets