I can see the value in C, especially for API wrappers and such, but it's entirely possible to just use a minimal set of C++ and avoid bloat. Simple templates, a vector math library with operator overloads, function overloads and std::vector alone are most of what you'll probably want to use from C++. Maybe std::unordered_map as long as you preallocate space for it. It doesn't have to be hairy.