Minecraft Clone: raylib-go

• Minecraft clone written in Golang with raylib-go
• Minimal Minecraft-like voxel prototype in Go using raylib-go.
• Features: WASD + mouse look, jump/gravity, heightmap terrain, culling + LOD so it runs smoothly on modest hardware.

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Requirements

• Go 1.21+ (CGO enabled)
• raylib (native C library)
• A working C toolchain and pkg-config

macOS (Homebrew, incl. Apple Silicon)

brew install cmake pkg-config
brew install raylib
# If pkg-config can't find raylib on Apple Silicon:
# export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/opt/homebrew/lib/pkgconfig"

Debian/Ubuntu

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y build-essential git pkg-config cmake
sudo apt-get install -y libraylib-dev

Windows (MSYS2 / MinGW64 shell)

1. Install MSYS2: https://www.msys2.org/
2. In MSYS2 MinGW64 shell:

pacman -S --needed mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc mingw-w64-x86_64-pkgconf mingw-w64-x86_64-raylib

3. Ensure C:\msys64\mingw64\bin is on your Windows PATH when running go run.

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Quick Start

git clone git@github.com:basperheim/minecraft-clone-raylib-go.git
cd minecraft-clone-raylib-go
go mod tidy

# Run
go run .

# Build
go build -o voxel-minecraft .
./voxel-minecraft   # Windows: .\voxel-minecraft.exe

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Controls

• W/A/S/D: move
• Mouse: look around (cursor locked by default)
• Space: jump
• Shift: sprint
• Tab: toggle mouse lock
• P: print camera position/yaw/pitch to console

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What's implemented

• Heightmap terrain (value-noise "good enough" for a prototype)

• Gravity & jump with ground sampled from the terrain under the player

• Culling + LOD:

  • Near radius → draw full columns (chunky)
  • Mid radius → top block only
  • Far → skipped

• Simple height-based tint (makes columns readable even without a shader)

• Frame-rate independent movement/physics (GetFrameTime())

Why not goroutines for draw? Drawing is GPU-bound; goroutines help later for worldgen + chunk meshing, not for issuing more draw calls.

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Performance knobs

Open main.go and tweak:

const nearR = 18    // draw full columns within this radius
const midR  = 36    // draw only the top block out to here
const farR  = 48    // skip beyond this
const minDot float32 = -0.15 // view-cone culling (raise toward 0.2 to cull harder)

Tighten radii and raise minDot for higher FPS.

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Roadmap

• Chunk meshing (exposed-face extraction, one VBO per chunk)
• Greedy meshing (merge coplanar faces to slash triangles)
• Frustum culling via chunk AABBs
• Texture atlas (dirt/grass/stone) + basic directional light shader
• Collision with AABB instead of heightmap-only ground
• Streaming chunks and background meshing via goroutines
• Optional: wasm build (Emscripten) to run in browser

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Troubleshooting

• Undefined references / linker errors → ensure raylib is installed and pkg-config --libs raylib returns flags.
• CGO disabled → go env -w CGO_ENABLED=1.
• Apple Silicon → set PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/homebrew/lib/pkgconfig.
• Windows → run commands from MSYS2 MinGW64 shell or ensure MinGW64 bin on PATH.

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Credits

• Go bindings: https://github.com/gen2brain/raylib-go
• Raylib (C): https://github.com/raysan5/raylib
• Raymath cheatsheet: https://www.raylib.com/cheatsheet/raymath_cheatsheet.html