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#GameDev #DearImGui #MonoGame
If you’ve ever been frustrated by setting breakpoints just to check a variable while your game is running — Dear ImGui is the answer. In this episode, Andy and Stacey walk through what Dear ImGui is, how to drop it into your .NET game project, and how to build debug tooling that runs inside your game.
Dear ImGui is perfect for game developers working in C# and .NET frameworks (MonoGame, Unity, Godot, custom engines) who want faster debugging and in-game editor tooling — without pulling in a full UI framework.
🚀 What You’ll Learn
• What Dear ImGui is and why immediate mode UI is a great fit for game tooling.
• How to get the .NET bindings (ImGui.NET, Hexa.NET.ImGui) and a renderer for your engine.
• How to display live game state without stopping execution.
• How to build in-game editors: move sprites, change shading, pause simulations.
• How ImGui is used beyond game dev (ImHex hex editor demo).
⏱️Chapters
00:00 Intro – The “Bug” Problem in Game Development
0:31 Why Debugging Games is So Hard
1:23 Introducing Debug Layers for Games
1:34 What is a Debug Layer? (Concept Explained)
2:06 Introducing Dear ImGui
2:23 What is Dear ImGui? (High-level Overview)
3:09 Why ImGui is Powerful (Flexible + Engine-Agnostic)
4:09 When NOT to Use ImGui (Not for Player UI)
4:45 Demo: ImGui in a MonoGame Project
5:04 Language Bindings & Setup (C++, .NET, etc.)
7:03 ImGui Demo Window (Widgets Overview)
8:05 UI Components: Buttons, Inputs, Sliders
9:18 Advanced Widgets & Color Pickers
10:40 Binding UI to Data (How It Works)
11:04 Writing ImGui Code (Under the Hood)
11:56 Hot Reload & Immediate Mode Explained
13:13 How ImGui Handles State (Immediate Mode vs Retained UI)
14:16 Building UI in Real Time (Live Edit Demo)
15:30 How to Integrate ImGui (Renderer + Bindings)
17:29 Binding UI to Game Data (Practical Example)
20:08 Drag-and-Drop + Built-in Interactivity
22:20 Demo: Debug Layer for Sprite Editing
25:14 Building Debug Tools for Designers & Level Editing
25:57 Demo: Ant Simulation with Debug Layer
26:50 Using Debug Layers to Reproduce Bugs
27:54 Testing Edge Cases (Walls, Movement, AI Behavior)
30:09 Investigating a Real Bug (Debugging Workflow)
31:17 Why Debug Layers Make You Faster
32:04 Bonus: Adding Gameplay Debug Features (Kill / Signals)
33:24 Example App Built with ImGui (Hex Editor)
34:45 Cross-Platform Benefits of ImGui
35:05 Final Thoughts & Wrap Up
🔗 Links & Resources
Dear ImGui (official repo): https://github.com/ocornut/imgui
Hexa.NET.ImGui bindings: https://github.com/HexaEngine/Hexa.NET.ImGui
ImGui.NET bindings: https://github.com/ImGuiNET/ImGui.NET
MonoGame: https://monogame.net
📺 Watch the full series: aka.ms/Quest-to-Compile
#GameDev #DearImGui #MonoGame #CSharp #IndieGameDev #GameDevTools #dotnet #ImGui
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