camus

An absurd Entity Component System for LÖVE.

Table of Contents

1. About
2. Installation
3. Other Resources
   1. LÖVE[ly] Entity Component Systems
   2. On Entity Component Systems

About

camus is a Lua module for the LÖVE game framework, and it lets you write simple, performant, and manageable game logic through the Entity Component System (ECS) paradigm. To be precise, camus is targeted at LÖVE and its version of LuaJIT. camus is capable of working outside of this environment with modifications--though it is not tested outside of this environment.

Installation

To use camus in your project, drop the camus/ folder into your location of choice and require it like so:

local camus = require "path.to.camus"

local Context = camus.Context
local System  = camus.System

Additionally, camus unashamedly borrows from other ECSs within the LÖVE ecosystem and provides convenient namespace functions:

local camus = require "path.to.camus"
camus.globalize()

-- camus' modules, Context, System, ComponentArray, and so on, are now
-- accessible in the global namespace!

local context = Context()

Other Resources

LÖVE[ly] Entity Component Systems

This project was born from wanting to learn how to make an ECS and having some gripes with others already in the LÖVE ecosystem. These gripes are lazy, petty, and not actually worth rolling your own. While camus is performant and pleasing to use, the following modules are (1) mature and (2) may better fit your particular use-case.

• Concord: A feature-complete ECS library
• nata: Entity management for Lua.
• lovetoys: A full-featured Entity-Component-System framework for making games with Lua.
• tiny-ecs: ECS for Lua.

On Entity Component Systems

The following are resources I consulted or encountered in the course of making this module. These are the time-tested pages who have an excessive count of backlinks throughout the Web and novel pages who provide unique insights.

• Concord: Tjakka5 provides a brief introduction into ECSs in the README.md of his project page. It is concise, and it provides everything you need to know if you are quick to get your hands dirty.
• Wikipedia: If encyclopedic prose is your preference, the Wikipedia page provides a history, description, and tangential information concerning ECSs.
• Sander Mertens' ECS FAQ: Mertens not only presents an extensive FAQ answering common questions, but also provides selected resources to understand ECSs and their motivations.
• ECS Back and Forth: Part 2: Michele "skypjack" Caini introduces readers to entity management in ECSs and the two dominant approaches.
• ECS Back and Forth: Part 3: Caini discusses the necessity of recycling entity identifiers and his approach to the problem.
• ECS Back and Forth: Part 9: Caini describes the "sparse set" data structure and its applications to ECSs.
• Data-Oriented Design: The selected chapters of the paid, physical version of Data Oriented Design by Richard Fabian. This is beyond excessive if you're looking to just create a minimal ECS, but it incredibly useful if you look to develop more mature frameworks and work with similar data structures in other projects.