Building Endeavor: A Deep Space Game with Rust and Bevy

For the past year, I’ve been working on Endeavor, a procedurally generated deep space game built entirely with Rust and the Bevy Engine. Here’s what I’ve learned along the way.

Why Rust for Game Development?

Coming from a background in TypeScript, Python, and C++, Rust offered something unique:

  • Memory Safety: No null pointer crashes or data races
  • Performance: Zero-cost abstractions with C++-level speed
  • Fearless Concurrency: Easily parallelize game systems
  • Great Tooling: Cargo makes dependency management a breeze

The Bevy Engine

Bevy is a data-driven game engine that uses an Entity Component System (ECS) architecture. Some highlights:

ECS Benefits

// Define components
#[derive(Component)]
struct Velocity(Vec3);

#[derive(Component)]
struct Position(Vec3);

// Systems automatically process entities with matching components
fn movement_system(
    time: Res<Time>,
    mut query: Query<(&mut Position, &Velocity)>,
) {
    for (mut pos, vel) in query.iter_mut() {
        pos.0 += vel.0 * time.delta_seconds();
    }
}

This architecture makes it easy to:

  • Add new behaviors without modifying existing code
  • Parallelize systems automatically
  • Serialize/deserialize game state

Procedural Universe Generation

One of Endeavor’s core features is infinite procedural generation:

  • Seeded RNG: Consistent universe across sessions
  • Chunk Loading: Dynamic spatial partitioning
  • Star Systems: Procedurally placed stars, planets, stations
  • Sentient Entities: AI-driven ships with emergent behavior

Challenges and Solutions

1. Ship Combat Complexity

Initial combat was too complex. Solution:

  • Simplified to energy management system
  • Clear visual feedback for weapon status
  • Predictable enemy behavior patterns

2. Cross-Platform Rendering

Different hardware capabilities required:

  • Dynamic quality settings
  • Shader variants for different platforms
  • Graceful degradation on low-end systems

3. Physics Simulation

N-body physics for realistic orbital mechanics:

  • Barnes-Hut algorithm for O(n log n) complexity
  • Fixed timestep for deterministic simulation
  • Interpolation for smooth rendering

What’s Next?

Current focus areas:

  • Steam release preparation
  • Multiplayer foundation (using Lightyear)
  • More variety in procedural content
  • Enhanced AI for sentient entities

Try It Out

Endeavor is available now:

Follow development updates on Twitter and Discord.

Questions about Rust game dev or Bevy? Feel free to reach out!