Entity-Systems for typescript based games

This post is also available on my blog where I plan to write more about game development with typescript if you are interested :).

For my latest game project Frozzen I want to explore how an external UI, build with Angular, would work for a browser based game. Since Angular is written in Typescript that means ideally the game should also use the same.

I have used Artemis ODB as framework for a Java based game in the past and liked it a lot. Entity-Systems are much better introduced by any of the huge amount of articles out there (for example the classic on T=Machine but I feel they are especially well suited to Javascript/Typescript development.

If you work with a strict separation of logic into systems and data only into components there is a very natural way to serialize components, JSON. Whole levels can be expressed as an array of JSON data that is used to set up components. That is why I prefer a very basic but strict implementation like artemis over similar frameworks like PhaserJS.

I started my development with artemists, a Typescript port of artemis by darkoverlordofdata. Unfortunately the code is a bit outdated and does not use import/export and can not be directly imported for newer Typescript versions (since it extends the built-in Array).

With darkoverlordofdata’s permission I did a quick update to the Typescript parts of the code only, adding import/export support and fixing the build for newer Typescript versions. You can find the updated version here. If you are looking for an example of that framework in action you can play an example level of Frozzen here.

About Me

I am a full stack developer and digital product enthusiast, I am available for freelance work and always looking for the next exciting project :).

You can reach me online at https://heltweg.org.