Murder is an open-source, pixel-art–focused, entity-component-system (ECS) game engine built on top of FNA (a reimplementation of MonoGame). The engine aims to give developers a solid, flexible foundation for building 2D games with a retro/pixel-art aesthetic, while leaning into modern ECS architecture to separate data (components) from behavior (systems). Because Murder is in active development and still relatively young, the authors warn that breaking changes are possible — but this also means the engine is evolving rapidly as features are added and refined. Using Murder, you get a lot of the low-level plumbing handled: rendering, input, update-loop, resource loading — so you can focus on actual game logic, art, and design instead of boilerplate. It powers projects like games built by its creators and even won a game-jam with one of those, demonstrating that despite its youth, it's already production-capable. For developers comfortable working in C# and aiming for indie 2D games.
Features
- Pixel-art–optimized rendering and game loop backed by FNA
- Entity-Component-System architecture for clean separation of data and logic
- Support for 2D games (sprites, tilemaps, etc.) with retro / pixel-art style
- Handles resource loading, rendering, input and update-loop so developers focus on game logic
- Open-source and actively evolving; good for indie developers or jam projects
- Baseline project/template (like “HelloMurder”) to quickly start new games
Project Samples
