Estella

A fast 2D game engine powered by WebAssembly and ECS

Website • Getting Started • Documentation • Discord • QQ群: 481923584

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What is Estella?

Estella is a 2D game engine with a TypeScript SDK driven by a high-performance C++/WebAssembly backend. It ships with a visual editor for scene editing and project management, and outputs games that run in web browsers, on the desktop, in WeChat MiniGames, as single-file playable ads, and as native Android / iOS apps.

_{Celestial Heights — an action-RPG scene in the Estella editor, with the full scene graph in the outliner.}

Why Estella?

• Fast — C++ rendering pipeline compiled to WebAssembly, not interpreted JS
• Type-safe — First-class TypeScript SDK with defineSystem, defineComponent, and Query
• Data-oriented — Entity-Component-System architecture for scalable game logic
• Visual editor — Scene hierarchy, inspector, asset browser — no JSON editing
• Cross-platform — One codebase, deploy to web, desktop, WeChat MiniGames, playable ads, and native mobile
• Spine & Physics — Built-in Spine animation and physics support

Features

Feature	Description
Visual Editor	Scene editor with hierarchy, inspector, and asset management
ECS Architecture	Compose entities from reusable components, drive behavior with systems
WebGL / WebGPU Rendering	Sprites, cameras, Spine animations, custom shaders — all in WebAssembly
TypeScript SDK	Type-safe API: defineSystem, defineComponent, Query, Commands
Cross-Platform	One project → web, desktop, WeChat MiniGames, playable ads, and native Android / iOS
Native mobile	A real arm64 app rendering through an embedded Dawn (Metal / Vulkan) — not a WebView

Getting Started

Install

Download the editor for Windows or macOS from estellaengine.com — served from the project's mirror, always the newest release. Every build is also on the releases page.

Create a Project

1. Open the editor and click New Project
2. Enter a project name, select a location, and click Create

The editor creates a project with a default scene containing a Camera entity.

Write Game Logic

Add entities and components in the scene editor, then write systems in TypeScript:

import {
    defineComponent, defineSystem, addSystem,
    Query, Mut, Res, Time, LocalTransform
} from 'esengine';

const Speed = defineComponent('Speed', { value: 200 });

addSystem(defineSystem(
    [Res(Time), Query(Mut(LocalTransform), Speed)],
    (time, query) => {
        for (const [entity, transform, speed] of query) {
            transform.position.x += speed.value * time.delta;
        }
    }
));

Press F5 in the editor to preview.

Documentation

Full documentation: estellaengine.com/docs

• Introduction
• Installation
• Quick Start
• ECS Architecture
• Components
• Systems
• Building & Exporting
• Android & iOS

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please read the Contributing Guide before submitting a Pull Request.

License

Estella is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

You may use, modify, and distribute it for any purpose, including commercial use, free of charge. There is no separate commercial license and no noncommercial restriction. We follow Semantic Versioning and keep a CHANGELOG.

Two things to keep in mind:

• Trademarks. Apache-2.0 grants rights to the code, not to the "Estella" / "ESEngine" names or logos. You may state that your project uses Estella, but please don't imply endorsement or ship a fork under the Estella name.
• Spine is separate. The bundled Spine Runtimes are not open source. If you ship a game that uses Estella's Spine integration, you need a valid Spine license from Esoteric Software — independent of Estella's Apache-2.0 license. See NOTICE.

How the project sustains itself (sponsorship, optional hosted/pro add-ons, marketplace, and support) is described openly in BUSINESS_MODEL.md.