Giggy

A handcrafted ECS in Zig, built the hard way while making a fun game (hopefully). Heavily inspired by Bevy.

This ECS uses:

• Archetype-based storage
• Struct-of-Arrays (SoA) layout
• Compile-time reflection for components and metadata
• Explicit APIs with minimal hidden behavior

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Setup project

If you do not have raylib installed, which you can do by taking a look at raylib-supported-platforms, then run:

REPO=$PWD
mkdir -p third_party

# clone and compile raylib
cd third_party
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/raysan5/raylib.git raylib
cd raylib/src
make clean || exit 1
make PLATFORM=PLATFORM_DESKTOP || exit 1
mkdir -p $REPO/third_party/raylib/lib
mkdir -p $REPO/third_party/raylib/include
cp libraylib.a $REPO/third_party/raylib/lib/
cp *.h $REPO/third_party/raylib/include/

# now build project
cd $REPO
zig build run

Otherwise you can just run:

zig build run

Example targets:

zig build example-blob
zig build run-example-blob
zig build examples

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Philosophy

• Build a real game, not a framework demo
• Favor clarity and explicitness over abstraction
• Accept refactors when real pain appears
• ECS exists to serve gameplay, not the other way around

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Zen

$ zig zen

 * Communicate intent precisely.
 * Edge cases matter.
 * Favor reading code over writing code.
 * Only one obvious way to do things.
 * Runtime crashes are better than bugs.
 * Compile errors are better than runtime crashes.
 * Incremental improvements.
 * Avoid local maximums.
 * Reduce the amount one must remember.
 * Focus on code rather than style.
 * Resource allocation may fail; resource deallocation must succeed.
 * Memory is a resource.
 * Together we serve the users.

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License

Source code is licensed under Apache-2.0 (see LICENSE).

Third-party dependencies/assets may be under their own licenses (for example resources/gltf/LICENSE).

This project uses raylib (zlib/libpng license). If you redistribute builds that include raylib, include raylib's license text alongside your third-party notices.