ECS - Entity Component System

Build your own Game-Engine based on the Entity Component System concept in Golang.

Features

• Provide an easy-to-use framework to build a game engine from scratch.
• No dependencies to other modules or specific game libraries - Feel free to use what fits your needs.
• Minimum overhead - use only what is really needed.

Example engine

See engine-example for a basic implementation using raylib.

Walkthrough

Project layout

At first we create a basic project layout:

mkdir ecs-example
cd ecs-example
go mod init example
mkdir components plugins systems

Next we create a main.go with the following content:

package main

import (
    "github.com/andygeiss/ecs"
)

func main() {
    em := ecs.NewEntityManager()
    sm := ecs.NewSystemManager()
    de := ecs.NewDefaultEngine(em, sm)
    de.Setup()
    defer de.Teardown()
    de.Run()
}

The execution of the program leads to an endless loop, as our engine is not yet able to react to user input.

The movement system

A system needs to implement the methods defined by the interface System. So we create a new file locally at systems/movement.go:

package systems

import (
    "github.com/andygeiss/ecs"
)

type movementSystem struct{}

func (a *movementSystem) Process(em ecs.EntityManager) (state int) {
    // This state simply tells the engine to stop after the first call.
    return ecs.StateEngineStop
}

func (a *movementSystem) Setup() {}

func (a *movementSystem) Teardown() {}

func NewMovementSystem() ecs.System {
    return &movementSystem{}
}

Now we can add the following lines to main.go:

sm := ecs.NewSystemManager()
sm.Add(systems.NewMovementSystem()) // <--
de := ecs.NewDefaultEngine(em, sm)

If we start our program now, it returns immediately without looping forever.

The player entity

A game engine usually processes different types of components that represent information about the game world itself. A component only represents the data, and the systems are there to implement the behavior or game logic and change these components. Entities are simply a composition of components that provide a scalable data-oriented architecture.

A component needs to implement the methods defined by the interface Component. Let's define our Player components by first creating a mask at components/components.go:

package components

const (
    MaskPosition = uint64(1 << 0)
    MaskVelocity = uint64(1 << 1)
)

Then create a component for Position and Velocity by creating corresponding files such as components/position.go:

package components

type Position struct {
    X  float32 `json:"x"`
    Y  float32 `json:"y"`
}

func (a *Position) Mask() uint64 {
    return MaskPosition
}

func (a *Position) WithX(x float32) *Position {
    a.X = x
    return a
}

func (a *Position) WithY(y float32) *Position {
    a.Y = y
    return a
}

func NewPosition() *Position {
    return &Position{}
}

Now we can add the following lines to main.go:

em := ecs.NewEntityManager()
em.Add(ecs.NewEntity("player", []core.Component{ // <--
components.NewPosition().
    WithX(10).
    WithY(10),
components.NewVelocity().
    WithX(100).
    WithY(100),
})) // -->

Extend the movement system

Our final step is to add behavior to our movement system:

func (a *movementSystem) Process(em ecs.EntityManager) (state int) {
    for _, e := range em.FilterByMask(components.MaskPosition | components.MaskVelocity) {
        position := e.Get(components.MaskPosition).(*components.Position)
        velocity := e.Get(components.MaskVelocity).(*components.Velocity)
        position.X += velocity.X * rl.GetFrameTime()
        position.Y += velocity.Y * rl.GetFrameTime()
    }
    return ecs.StateEngineStop
}

The movement system now moves every entity which has a position and velocity component.

We can replace ecs.StateEngineStop with ecs.StateEngineContinue later if we add another system to handle user input.

A rendering system is also essential for a game, so you can use game libraries such as raylib or SDL. This system could look like this with raylib:

// ...
func (a *renderingSystem) Setup() {
    rl.InitWindow(a.width, a.height, a.title)
}

func (a *renderingSystem) Process(em core.EntityManager) (state int) {
    // First check if app should stop.
    if rl.WindowShouldClose() {
        return core.StateEngineStop
    }
    // Clear the screen
    if rl.IsWindowReady() {
        rl.BeginDrawing()
        rl.ClearBackground(rl.Black)
        rl.DrawFPS(10, 10)
        rl.EndDrawing()
    }
    return core.StateEngineContinue
}

func (a *renderingSystem) Teardown() {
    rl.CloseWindow()
}