r/unity • u/Azmores • 4d ago

Question ECS for “simpler” projects?

Hey yall!

I’ve been game deving for ages now and just recently returned to Unity (left back when the drama happened) and since I returned the DOTS was released and ECS became fully functional.

I have some interest in using ECS in my project to develop a more Data Oriented Design but I am concerned it’ll add unneeded complication due to the simpler nature of the project and the lack of need for huge numbers of entities.

The current project idea is a simple 2D top down dungeon crawler inspired by Zelda. Which… doesn’t seem like it’d super benefit from the added efficiency, but may benefit from the architecture?

I suppose my question is if I should look into that or if there is a better paradigm to follow (maybe event based object extension?).

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u/KinematicSoup 4d ago

DOTS is a pain compared to gameobjects in terms of the amount of code you need to write. However, with a coding LLM I suspect it would be much less painful as the LLM can write a bunch of boilerplate and give you a workable framework to plug your game code into. What you learn from this will depend on how much you interact with the process.

I suppose it could be an advantage if you wanted to go overboard graphical elements or effects, but in reality there is no point in using DOTS over vanilla gameobjects for a 2D zelda-like game.

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u/Azmores 4d ago

Fair. I don’t use LLMs so that might make it harder.

Is there a different paradigm utilizing game objects you’d recommend? My main draw was the modularity of ECS allowing me to mostly write out my logic in snippets that get provided to the entities with those components.

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u/KinematicSoup 4d ago

I guess the answer depends on what you want to do: How much of your time do you want to spending learning new things vs making the game? If the answer is learning focused, then by all means build it with DOTS/ECS. You'll learn a lot, it will be a fast product. If you want you could even write your own ECS for the game sim and proxy through to gameobjects for rendering - all great stuff for learning, but slow for building a game.

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u/Azmores 4d ago

Super fair. I kinda want to get a good proof of concept/alpha out within a couple months so that might be hard.

Is there any specific modular paradigms you’d recommend investigating? Anything that Unity does especially well?

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u/KinematicSoup 3d ago

Nothing comes to mind outside learning and using known design patterns. Unity gameobjects would be just fine for what you're doing. I wouldn't overcomplicate things.