Okuzeka
Game Development vocabulary · Game Engines & Tools

Game loop

Meaning in game development, with examples

nounCommon term

In game development, game loop means: The code cycle at the heart of every game that runs many times per second: read the player's input, update the game world, then draw the new frame.

In Turkish: oyun döngüsü, game loop

How it is used

A programming term. In an engine you rarely write it yourself; instead you put code in functions the loop calls, such as Update in Unity or Tick in Unreal. Physics often runs in a separate loop with a fixed time step.

Example sentences

  1. Anything heavy inside the game loop will hurt the frame rate.

  2. For our course project, we wrote our own game loop in C++ without an engine.

Common collocations

  • main game loop
  • fixed time step
  • update loop
  • inside the game loop
  • game engineA software framework that gives developers ready-made systems for graphics, physics, sound, input and scripting, so they can build a game without writing everything from scratch.
  • frame rateThe number of images a game draws on the screen each second, measured in frames per second (fps). A higher, steadier frame rate makes the game look and feel smoother.
  • core loopThe main set of actions a player repeats again and again in a game, for example explore, fight, collect loot and upgrade, then explore again.
  • physics engineThe system that simulates real-world physics in a game, such as gravity, collisions, friction and forces, so objects fall, bounce and push each other believably.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Game Engines & Tools

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: