ECSx_Game_Development

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[[Game_Development]]

A new approach to game development in Elixir.

Why is Elixir Not Used For Gamedev?

Standard Answers:

Elixir is bad at math
- Can be overcome with NIFs or NX
Elixir is Immutable
- Requires copying game struct
  - Can break up the data structure to make it more manageable

Entity-Component-System

What is Entity-Component-System

Patter for where entities composed of components of data with systems which operate entities' components
- Tick Rate -
- Component is basically an attribute (Height, Material,Wood, Velocity, ect)
Entities are not restricted as to the type of components they can have
Systems - Contributes the behavior to entities
Tags - A component that provides information about the entity
- eg IsHuman

ECSx Generators

ecsx.setup
ecsx.gen.component(ComponentName type)
ecsx.gen.system(SystemName)
ecsx.gen.tag()

ECSx.Manager

Runs all systems
Owner of all data tables and updates components
Auto-updates with generators
setup and startup
- startup block - runs once
- setup - Runs every time the manager runs

Persistance

Data is saved across reboots
- HitPoints.add(char_id, @start_hp)
- HitPoints.add(char_id, @start_hp, persist: true)
Backup frequency is configurable
- Defaults to file system
- can use ecsx_persist_ecto

Frontend Integration

Clients have read-only access to Components
- ECSx.ClientEvent.add(entity_id, event) where event is eg a keydown event
- [{entity, event}, ...] = ECSx.ClientEvent.get_and_clear()

ECSx LiveDashboard

Adds an additional page to the Phoenix LiveDashboard
Optional Dependency
Tracks run times for each System
Allows inspection of Component tables

What's Next?

Optimizations
Turn-based games vs Ticks per second model
Expand tutorial project