--- title: On Box2D & Legends of California | Erin Catto | daily.dev description: Erin Catto, creator of Box2D, shares his journey from tinkering with an Atari 600XL and programming games on an HP48 calculator to working at Crystal Dynamics... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/on-box2d-legends-of-california-erin-catto-gzgxaprrc twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: On Box2D & Legends of California | Erin Catto | daily.dev og:description: Erin Catto, creator of Box2D, shares his journey from tinkering with an Atari 600XL and programming games on an HP48 calculator to working at Crystal Dynamics... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/on-box2d-legends-of-california-erin-catto-gzgxaprrc og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/GZgxAPRrC.png og:image:alt: On Box2D & Legends of California | Erin Catto og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # On Box2D & Legends of California | Erin Catto **[Game Engineering Podcast](https://daily.dev/sources/game_eng_podcast)** · 127 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Erin Catto, creator of Box2D, shares his journey from tinkering with an Atari 600XL and programming games on an HP48 calculator to working at Crystal Dynamics on Tomb Raider and Blizzard on Diablo. He explains how Box2D originated as a 200-line tutorial sample demonstrating stable box stacking via temporal coherence and sequential impulses, and how it grew into a widely used open-source 2D physics engine. Key technical topics include the challenges of physics solvers, continuous collision detection, the advantages of a flat C API with opaque handle/generation-based lifetime management over C++ APIs, multi-threading and data-oriented design in Box2D v3, and the Solver2D side project for comparing solver algorithms. He also discusses the unsolved problem of physics sandbox games where content is uncontrolled. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Announcing Box3D :: Box2D](https://daily.dev/posts/announcing-box3d-box2d-mu8ehdvki) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#c](https://daily.dev/tags/c) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/on-box2d-legends-of-california-erin-catto-gzgxaprrc) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"On Box2D & Legends of California | Erin Catto","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/on-box2d-legends-of-california-erin-catto-gzgxaprrc","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/on-box2d-legends-of-california-erin-catto-gzgxaprrc"},"datePublished":"2026-07-25T16:05:35.371Z","dateModified":"2026-07-25T16:05:55.726Z","description":"Erin Catto, creator of Box2D, shares his journey from tinkering with an Atari 600XL and programming games on an HP48 calculator to working at Crystal Dynamics...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DQNqo2xtq6U/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DQNqo2xtq6U/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Game Engineering Podcast","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Game Engineering Podcast","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--8NEw2a0s--/f_auto/v1735917032/logos/game_eng_podcast","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/game_eng_podcast"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/on-box2d-legends-of-california-erin-catto-gzgxaprrc","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"c","timeRequired":"PT127M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"On Box2D & Legends of California | Erin Catto","description":"Erin Catto, creator of Box2D, shares his journey from tinkering with an Atari 600XL and programming games on an HP48 calculator to working at Crystal Dynamics...","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DQNqo2xtq6U/sddefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-07-25T16:05:35.371Z","duration":"PT127M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/GZgxAPRrC","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/DQNqo2xtq6U"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Game Engineering Podcast","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/game_eng_podcast"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"On Box2D & Legends of California | Erin Catto"}]} ```