Separate __parent from the metatable

GameState.lua

local enabledFunctions = require("gamestates/enabledFunctions")

local function emptyFunction() end

local function index(t, key) return t.__parent[key] end
local function indexMeta(t, k) return enabledFunctions[key] and emptyFunction end

local function call(self) return setmetatable({__parent = self}, {__index = index}) end

local GameState = setmetatable({}, {__index = indexMeta, __call = call})

return GameState

{__index = index} Does this creates a new metatable each time?