https://matthewberger.dev/articles Experienced software engineer with a passion for graphics and Rust en https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/write-an-archetype-ecs-in-300-lines-of-rust/ https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/write-an-archetype-ecs-in-300-lines-of-rust/ Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 An archetype ECS built from nothing: generational handles, struct-of-arrays tables, runtime component migration, and two caches. Then the engine layer on top. No proc-macros, no unsafe, std only. https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/breakout-as-plain-data-power-ups/ https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/breakout-as-plain-data-power-ups/ Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Multi-ball, a widening paddle, slow motion, burning bricks, lasers. Every power-up is the same move: a bit more data plus one small system, and nothing already written changes. https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/breakout-as-plain-data-components-systems-resources/ https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/breakout-as-plain-data-components-systems-resources/ Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 A whole Breakout, modeled with no objects. Bodies are plain data structs, behavior is free functions over queries, and the game's globals are a handful of resources. Part 1 builds the base game. https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/gpu-picking-in-nightshade/ https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/gpu-picking-in-nightshade/ Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 How nightshade answers "what is under the cursor, where in the world is it, and what is the surface normal there" using a multiple-render-target mesh pass, a compute shader that samples a 5x5 window of the depth and entity-id textures, and an async readback. https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/build-your-own-retained-ui-wgpu-rendering/ https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/build-your-own-retained-ui-wgpu-rendering/ Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Turning a laid-out tree into pixels. Instanced rect rendering with an SDF shader for rounded corners and borders, a bitmap font atlas for text, and the render-graph pass that ties it into a wgpu application. https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/build-your-own-retained-ui-layout-interaction/ https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/build-your-own-retained-ui-layout-interaction/ Sat, 02 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Resolving the tree into screen-space rectangles, anchors, row and column flow layout, hit testing, per-entity interaction state, and the event queue that makes buttons clickable. https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/build-your-own-retained-ui-components/ https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/build-your-own-retained-ui-components/ Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 A retained UI built on top of an archetype ECS. Part 1 lays down the components, the tree, and a small builder that produces a working widget hierarchy. https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/building-a-static-site-generator-in-rust/ https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/building-a-static-site-generator-in-rust/ Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 How bamboo is shaped: the SSG I wrote in Rust and use to build this site. Content walks, frontmatter, syntect, Tera, shortcodes, parallel rendering, and incremental rebuilds. https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/build-your-own-ecs-events-changes-tags-commands/ https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/build-your-own-ecs-events-changes-tags-commands/ Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 The four subsystems that turn the storage layer into something a real game engine can sit on top of. A watermark-based change detector, sequence-numbered event channels, sparse-set tags, and a deferred command buffer. https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/build-your-own-ecs-structural-change/ https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/build-your-own-ecs-structural-change/ Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Adding and removing components at runtime by migrating entities between archetypes, walking tables to satisfy queries, and the two caches that make both operations fast. https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/build-your-own-ecs-archetype-storage/ https://matthewberger.dev/articles/posts/build-your-own-ecs-archetype-storage/ Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 An ECS, built from nothing, in three posts. Part 1 lays down the storage. Generational entity handles and archetype tables in struct-of-arrays layout.