The first incarnation of EEL was in the form of a simple parser for structured audio definitions, used in the sound engine of the Free and Open Source game Kobo Deluxe, an SDL port of the X11 game XKobo.
In December 2003, EEL was split off into a stand-alone project and subject to a major rewrite, in order to be used for real time scripting in an embedded rheology application.