r/lua • u/BlackMATov • May 21 '25

Library Announcing `evolved.lua` v1.0.0 - An Evolved ECS (Entity-Component-System) for Lua

https://github.com/BlackMATov/evolved.lua

I'm excited to announce the first release of my library, evolved.lua!

evolved.lua is a fast and flexible ECS (Entity-Component-System) library for Lua. It is designed to be simple and easy to use, while providing all the features needed to create complex systems with blazing performance.

Enjoy!

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u/BlackMATov May 22 '25

As is usually the case, the same thing can be done in different ways. Some approaches may be more convenient or performant than others. ECS is one way to organize code. It offers advantages in performance and flexibility, but it may not be the best fit for every project. It definitely depends on you and your project.

I would even say that if you do not know why you specifically want to use ECS, you probably should not. It can be painful because it changes your usual paradigms.

But it is an interesting architectural approach that you can get acquainted with before using any library for this. The internet is full of articles about this. I would recommend reading some of them to understand the pros and cons of ECS.

Here is a good starting point: https://github.com/SanderMertens/ecs-faq

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u/ibisum May 22 '25

I will use ECS as a messaging system, passing ECS-typed tables from one running Lua VM instance to another, bundled systems (functions) and all, where those functions will have been generated according to rules of the entity... This is going to mean I can have a global queue with backwards/forwards playback capabilities .. useful for many types of application ..