Question to game programmers - löve 2d game "engine"?

[idoido]

Hi all - first time poster here!

I'm an amateur indie game programmer with a couple of small free games under my belt. I have recently decided to try something a bit bigger as my next project (an Eschalon-esque RPG, but much smaller of course).

In my search for an easy way to make 2d games, I have stumbled upon löve.

Did anyone here try it?

It's a 2d game "engine" (more like a collection of libs) that uses lua, sdl and a bunch of other open source libs.

So what is your opinion - good/bad/ugly?

I've only skimmed through the tutorials & manual but it seems pretty neat till now

-Ido.

[Evnissyen]

Hey, I wonder . . . what does that word actually mean? Anyone? Does it even exist? I wonder... the developer didn't really just . . . no, no, impossible.

Löv, yes, it means "leaf" in Swedish. A løve apparently is a lion in... Danish? But a ø character is obviously not the same as the vowel ö. Different languages.

Hmm... .

Next question: What does this program actually do? I looked at the website really quickly and I suppose I'm in an impatient mood at the moment.

From what I see, it looks like it's some sort of sub-interface that allows you to easily program games, and then... what, I suppose not need to compile the code into an OS-readable language? Do I have that about right? If so, I suppose it can be useful.

(I'm not knocking it, I'm just curious. Honest.)

[idoido]

The word doesn't mean anything, it's just love with an ö and was meant as a joke (mocking the likes of motörhead I guess).

What it is, is a neatly packed set of libraries that allow you to more easily program games in a language called lua (which is platform independent and does not need to be compiled to different platforms).

I guess that means you don't know enough about it to have an opinion

[Evnissyen]

I guess that means you don't know enough about it to have an opinion

Heh, I guess not.

Personally, I think they should've either stressed their pun better (if it was a pun) or else just stuck with Love.

Maybe they were worried about copyright infringement? Love is, after all, well . . . popular . . . and dangerous. Who knows who might get jealous and sue you over it?

Anyhow... it sounds like my description of it was relatively accurate? A game-coding software you don't need a compiler for? It could be useful, seeing how annoying it is to get a code compiled.

"But it doesn't have any errors! You intimated as much yourself when you ran the program flawlessly! Many, many times! Won't you please please please compile? Please? ...Dammit! Alright, alright, what's the compiler upset about? Okay, fixed that one . . . dammit! Okay, now what? I see absolutely nothing wrong with this code!"

It never works to plead with a compiler. In the end you'll always be hunting down inexplicable errors.

(But I suppose the inexplicable part was my own fault for not knowing enough about coding. Oh, well.)

...Hmm... You know, I think that's where Love and Lua come in?

Sorry . . . Löve.

You know, I think I sort of get it . . . see: Love is just too dangerous to pronounce. You've gotta alter it. Give it two syllables and make the first one hard for an American to pronounce. Ahah! And once you've done that: hassle-free game-developing! In a way, it kind of works.

(By the way, I'm not a developer . . . I've only dabbled in this stuff when I was younger and was rather more obsessed with programming. So I don't know much more about that than whatever qualifies me to have an opinion, heh . . . since much of my programming knowledge sort of slipped away out of disuse.)

[idoido]

You should be happy for compiler errors - better have the compiler catch them for you then having to track them down yourself at runtime!

[Evnissyen]

Yeah, I'm sure you're right... but damn, that stuff used to drive me crazy.

[Sslaxx]

Hi all - first time poster here!

I'm an amateur indie game programmer with a couple of small free games under my belt. I have recently decided to try something a bit bigger as my next project (an Eschalon-esque RPG, but much smaller of course).

In my search for an easy way to make 2d games, I have stumbled upon löve.

Did anyone here try it?

It's a 2d game "engine" (more like a collection of libs) that uses lua, sdl and a bunch of other open source libs.

So what is your opinion - good/bad/ugly?

I've only skimmed through the tutorials & manual but it seems pretty neat till now

-Ido.

Hello there. You on the LÖVE forums, by any chance?

Yeah, I'm getting to grips with LÖVE here myself. Looks quite a nice little tool. For 0.5.x, it ain't at all bad. Thinking of trying a rudimentary RPG approach with it, too. Or maybe a Sonic fangame (except using real physics). Should be real nice to use by 1.0!

[Devon]

looks like a fine lua framework. i've used pygame and this looks similar.