Release notes

KroysEngine 0.1 Preview - the first public preview of the engine. It is early: expect rough edges, and please report what you find.

Added

• The download: one zip with the editor, the player, the game packager, the dedicated server and the command-line tools, plus everything they need - the .NET SDK for C# scripts and plugins, the shader compiler for custom materials, the Visual C++ runtime, the project templates, the plugin samples and SDKs and the documentation. Unzip it and start KroysEngine.exe; nothing else is installed. A SHA-256 checksum file comes with it.
• Project templates: Blank, First Person, Third Person, Action Arena and Game Module; each sample game plays right away and shows its rules as C# scripts.
• Editor: dockable panels, a command palette, workspaces for each kind of work, drag-and-drop placement with a preview, undo for every edit and Play mode that runs the game with the same rules as the shipped build.
• Materials: node-graph materials that compile to GPU shaders in the background, material instances and a live preview.
• Rendering: physically based lighting in physical units, camera exposure, shadows, reflection probes and probe volumes, and quality presets.
• Characters and animation: an Animator with state machines, blend trees, layers and events, previewed live; rigid bodies, colliders, triggers and character controllers.
• Effects and game UI: VFX Studio for particle effects with its own preview and profiler, and a UI editor for menus and HUDs with styles and input bindings.
• Image tools: paint textures in the editor and build procedural textures and flipbooks from node graphs.
• C# scripting: scripts on entities with a clear lifecycle, coroutines, a fixed-step simulation and shared class libraries; the editor rebuilds and reloads scripts when you save.
• Worlds: navigation meshes for characters and bots, and world streaming that loads cells around the player.
• Multiplayer: a dedicated server running the same engine without a window, game rules and bots in C#, client prediction, lag compensation and network condition simulation for testing.
• Editor plugins: in C# (panels, commands, settings, importers, exporters, asset types, viewport tools) with hot reload and samples, and a C/C++ plugin SDK for native plugins.
• AI assistants: the optional KroysMcp plugin lets an AI assistant read a project, make undoable changes, build scripts and package the game, through the Model Context Protocol.
• Shipping: Build & Export cooks the content, compiles the scripts and writes a game folder and zip that players run without installing anything; packages are audited for source files and developer paths.
• Documentation: a manual and the C# scripting and plugin API references, offline in the editor's Help menu and with F1 over any panel.

Known limitations

• Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit) only.
• A graphics card and driver with Vulkan 1.2, descriptor indexing (bindless) and dynamic rendering are required; the editor names a missing feature when it starts.
• The programs are not code-signed yet. Windows SmartScreen may say "Windows protected your PC": choose More info, then Run anyway.
• Unzip the engine into a folder you can write to (for example C:\KroysEngine), not into Program Files.
• This is an early preview: file formats and APIs may still change between versions, and some tools are unfinished.