ESE: Entity Sprite Engine

A modern 2D game engine built with C/C++ and Lua scripting, featuring an Entity-Component System (ECS) architecture with cross-platform support for macOS and Linux.

🚀 Features

Core Engine

• High Performance C/C++ Core: Fast, lightweight engine written in C with C++ extensions for graphics
• Entity-Component System: Flexible ECS architecture for modular game object design
• Lua Scripting (LuaJIT): Fast LuaJIT integration for game logic and rapid prototyping
• Cross-Platform: Native support for macOS (Metal) and Linux (OpenGL/GLFW)

Graphics & Rendering

• Sprite System: Animated sprites with frame-based animation support
• Shader Support: Custom GLSL pipeline (glslang/SPIR-V + SPIRV-Cross for Metal) for advanced effects
• Tilemap Rendering: Efficient tilemap system with support for multiple map types (grid, hexagonal, isometric)
• Camera System: 2D camera with viewport management
• Draw Lists: Optimized rendering with z-index depth sorting

Game Systems

• Collision Detection: Rectangle-based collision system with component integration
• GUI System: Style-driven GUI primitives and theming
• HTTP Client: Async HTTP requests exposed to Lua
• Job Queue: Asynchronous job queue for background work
• Audio: Platform audio playback (CoreAudio/AudioToolbox on macOS, OpenAL on Linux)
• Asset Management: Centralized asset loading for textures, sprites, maps, and scripts
• Input Handling: Cross-platform input state management
• Memory Management: Custom memory allocator with garbage collection for Lua

Platform Support

• macOS: Native Metal rendering with Cocoa window management
• Linux: OpenGL rendering with GLFW window management
• Asset Loading: Platform-agnostic filesystem abstraction

🏗️ Architecture

Entity-Component System

ESE uses a true ECS architecture where:

• Entities: Simple containers that hold components
• Components: Data structures that define entity properties and behaviors
• Systems: Process entities with specific component combinations

Available Components

• SpriteComponent: Handles visual rendering and animation
• ColliderComponent: Manages collision detection and physics
• MapComponent: Renders tilemaps and world geometry
• TextComponent: Renders on-screen text
• ShapeComponent: Renders simple shapes; includes path variant
• LuaComponent: Links entities to Lua scripts for game logic

Core Systems

• RenderSystem: Processes all visual components
• CollisionSystem: Handles collision detection and response
• ScriptSystem: Executes Lua scripts for entity behavior
• AssetSystem: Manages loading and caching of game resources

📦 Building

Prerequisites

• CMake 3.16 or higher
• C/C++ compiler with C99 and C++11 support
• LuaJIT (vendored; built automatically)
• Linux only: OpenGL, GLFW3, GLEW, OpenAL development packages

Build Commands

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/zaun/entity-sprite-engine.git
cd entity-sprite-engine
# Create build directory
mkdir build &&cd build
# Configure and build
cmake ..
make

Platform-Specific Builds

macOS

# Force macOS build (uses Metal rendering)
cmake -DFORCE_PLATFORM_MAC=ON ..
make

Linux

# Force Linux build (uses OpenGL/GLFW)
cmake -DFORCE_PLATFORM_LINUX=ON ..
make

🎮 Getting Started

Running the Example

The examples/simple directory contains a working demo that showcases:

• Entity creation and component management
• Sprite rendering and animation
• Collision detection
• Tilemap rendering
• Lua script integration

# From the build directory# macOS (app bundle)
open examples/simple/simple_demo.app
# Linux (executable)cd examples/simple
./simple_demo

Basic Entity Creation

-- Create a new entitylocalplayer=Entity.new()
-- Add a sprite componentlocalsprite_comp=EntityComponentSprite.new()
sprite_comp.sprite="game:player_idle"player.components.add(sprite_comp)
-- Add a collider componentlocalcollider_comp=EntityComponentCollider.new()
collider_comp.rects.add(Rect.new(0, 0, 32, 32))
player.components.add(collider_comp)
-- Add Lua script for behaviorlocalscript_comp=EntityComponentLua.new()
script_comp.script="player.lua"player.components.add(script_comp)

Asset Loading

-- Load sprite atlasifasset_load_atlas("game", "player.json", true) thenprint("Player sprites loaded successfully")
end-- Load map dataifasset_load_map("game", "level.json") thenprint("Level map loaded successfully")
end-- Load and set shadersifasset_load_shader("game", "shaders.glsl") thenset_pipeline("game:vertexShader", "game:fragmentShader")
end

📁 Project Structure

ese/
├── src/
│ ├── core/ # Engine core, asset management
│ ├── entity/ # ECS implementation
│ ├── graphics/ # Rendering and sprite systems
│ ├── platform/ # Platform-specific code (macOS/Linux)
│ ├── scripting/ # Lua engine integration
│ ├── types/ # Core data structures
│ └── utility/ # Helper functions and data structures
├── examples/
│ └── simple/ # Working demo application
├── docs/ # API documentation
└── CMakeLists.txt # Build configuration

🔧 Development

Adding New Components

1. Create component header and implementation files in src/entity/components/
2. Implement required component interface functions
3. Add Lua bindings in the component's Lua integration file
4. Register the component type in the Lua engine

Platform Abstraction

The engine uses platform-specific implementations for:

• Window management
• Rendering (Metal on macOS, OpenGL on Linux)
• Filesystem operations
• Time and input handling

Memory Management

• C-style memory management for engine core
• Automatic garbage collection for Lua objects
• Custom memory allocator with safety checks

📚 Documentation

Detailed API documentation is available in the docs/ directory:

• global.md - Global engine and Lua APIs
• entity.md and entitycomponent.md - Entity and component system
• display.md and gui.md - Rendering/display and GUI
• map.md and mapcell.md - Map and map cell systems
• point.md, rect.md, vector.md, ray.md, tileset.md, uuid.md - Core types

🤝 Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Add tests if applicable
5. Submit a pull request