Explore the Engine

S&box uses a scene system to create games. We feel this is the easiest system for people to pick up, while still being powerful.

The Scene System

Scenes

A Scene is your game world. Everything that renders and updates in your game at one time should be in a scene. Scenes can be saved and loaded to disk.

GameObjects

A scene contains multiple GameObjects. The GameObject is a world object which has a position, rotation and scale. They can be arranged in a hierarchy, so that children GameObjects move relative to their parents.

Components

GameObjects can contain Components. A component provides modular functionality to a GameObject. For example, a GameObject might have a ModelRender component - which would render a model. It might also have a BoxCollider component - which would make it solid.

The game developer ultimately creates games by programming new Components and configuring scenes with GameObjects and Components.

Play Testbed

Start s&box (not the editor) and find the game called testbed. This game is used by us to exhibit and test certain engine features, to make sure they work and keep working.

When you enter the game you'll find a menu of scenes. Each scene tests a different engine feature.

Click a scene to enter it, have a play around, press escape to return to the main menu. You can hold escape to completely leave any game.

Next Steps

Now that you understand the basics, explore these areas of the documentation:

• Scenes & GameObjects — Deep dive into the scene system
• Code — C# programming in s&box
• Editor — Learn the editor tools
• Systems — Input, networking, audio, and more