Slightly off topic:
Is D a good language for creating tiny windows or Linux executables?
There is an upcoming game jam (4mb jam 2025) which gives extra points for game submissions <= 8KB.
With c you can fit a window with graphics update in an executable of less than 900 bytes[0]. Granted it's using crinkler for linking which does some compression.
0: https://gist.github.com/ske2004/336d8cce8cd9db59d61ceb13c1ed...
Yes. Just use the “better C” mode
... which is not D any more though.
What essential features are missing for you?
For game development? I imagine having to use only structs but not classes would be something that forces a "non idiomatic D" experience. Dynamic arrays sound like something that's very useful for a game. I don't know, there are plenty of features that are incompatible with better C that makes D, D. Generally speaking, garbage collection would be the biggest in my opinion.