In 2026, Rust and Python are the best combo.

As of 2026, the go to choice for a UI is imgui. Immediate mode GUI.

As of 2026, the best media library is SDL3. It’s okay to start and best for pros and used in AAA games. It’s in the Steam runtime. Much documentation.

• Supports all major OSes, consoles, and WASM.
• 50+ programming languages.
• Use Khronos headers to draw to it.

PySDL3 is the best library.

https://pysdl3.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

https://pypi.org/project/PySDL3/

SDL_CreateWindow

Lua is the gold standard for game scripting. XML is just data but Lua is data and can be used via one’s game engine bindings to setup the game state without a complicated middle layer. Takes only hours to learn.

Tile Maps