Hey there! I'm a free-time gamedev (and full time software engineer) escaping the clutches of reddit and wanted to introduce myself over here. I'm coming back to game development after a longer break due to lack of energy. One job change later and I'm at it again :) I'm currently prototyping a minimalistic action rpg, trying to focus on item crafting (with a mod system similar to but simpler than Diablo 2, Path of Exile, Last Epoch) and some simplified action gameplay. This is my first time trying out ECS as a design paradigm, so far I'm liking it, although there are some mistakes I keep making that start to annoy me. I'll be looking into unit testing in gamedev as that seems to be pretty easy in ECS, has anyone had any experience with that?
I try to regularly upload a build to itch.io if you want to take a look at my progress.
Feel free to comment or write me a message if you have any interesting inputs/ideas or maybe know of a game that tries to achieve something similar.
~dragbone
What is ECS, if I may ask?
Of course! ECS is Entity Component System. In short: separat your code into logic (=systems) and data (=components) attached to game objects (=entities). It enables you to add different behaviors to your game objects by composing different components together. An example: I have a system called RenderSpriteSystem which automatically renders every entity that has a PositionComponent and SpriteComponent attached.
This is interesting, thank you! I'm myself working on an oldschool text-based game framework, and I'm shopping around for design paradigms and patterns that are worth adopting. This is helpful.
I'm not sure how much of ECS you can apply in that case... If you have something like game objects/entities then it might work/be useful.
I looked into it. I do have objects, and soon will have entities. My architecture is very object-oriented however, and the more I read about ECS the less I think the paradigm would work for how I'm approaching my framework.
If at all curious, here is the repo. Very much in infancy, but coming right along.