# Handmade Hero by Casey Muratori

24 Hacker News commenters recommended Handmade Hero by Casey Muratori and 10 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a free, detailed video course for learning low-level programming and game development, with source code and line-by-line explanations. Critics note it trails off without a finished game.

## Why people recommend it

- Free, clear educational videos (5 comments): "I highly recommend the Handmade Hero series to folks in his situation. Casey has put up an absurd amount of material for everyone for free." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46938698)) "Casey Muratori's Handmade Hero series has several excellent explainers aimed at aspiring game developers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46495517)) "Some of the best programming educational content available, in my opinion." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46238485))
- Teaches low-level graphics and systems (3 comments): "The early windows platform layer stuff in the handmade hero series demonstrates doing so without anything like Cygwin or MinGW." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46643136)) "there is a ton to learn about the low level graphics and input systems" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47851421)) "has invigorated interest in low-level programming" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46664874))
- Influenced other developers and games (4 comments): "Animal Well wouldn't exist without Handmade Hero, Billy himself said it in an interview." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49506537)) "I was heavily influenced 7 years ago from learning from HandmadeHero" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50227789)) "Billy Basso was hugely inspired by the Handmade Hero series" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49502343))
- Takes beginners from zero (3 comments): "It actually teaches you almost everything you need to know both from a language perspective" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49562181)) "it turned that it really helped people to go from zero to "hero"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46666535)) "served as an educational platform for a lot of programmers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46058019))

## What people warn about

- Never finishes or ships a game (4 comments): "the fact that Handmade Hero just trails off and doesn't end up producing a finished video game is a problem" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49500952)) "was abandoned over two years ago, after not really getting anywhere over the course of 9 years" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46057839)) "he took pre-orders for it before eventually abandoning development" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46666434))
- Tangents and slow progress (3 comments): "I stopped caring about Handmade Hero because he just never got out of the global illumination rabbit hole." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49501718)) "Watching Handmade Hero (by Casey Muratori) for example was a little frustrating" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46974334)) "The deeper it gets into the game, the worse it gets." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46314504))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Andrej Karpathy YouTube videos](https://hackerapproved.com/p/youtube-videos.md): 24 recommend
- [Essence of Linear Algebra by 3Blue1Brown](https://hackerapproved.com/p/essence-of-linear-algebra.md): 16 recommend
- [Ask an Astronaut](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ask-an-astronaut.md): 9 recommend
- [Terence Tao explains 6 essential mathematical concepts](https://hackerapproved.com/p/terence-tao-explains-6-essential-mathematical-concepts.md): 7 recommend
- [Digital Show & Tell by Monty Montgomery](https://hackerapproved.com/p/digital-show-tell.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Handmade Hero by Casey Muratori", https://hackerapproved.com/p/handmade-hero/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).