Wanting to create with LÖVE

General discussion about LÖVE, Lua, game development, puns, and unicorns.
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SynfigMaster91
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Wanting to create with LÖVE

Post by SynfigMaster91 »

Hi, everyone :)

I'm new on this forum and I want to learn to make 2D games with this framework. I tried by myself using tutorials, but due to not understanding some things and being so hard to know stuff, I threw the towel literally and gave up.

Time passed and now my urge to make videogames made me to give a second chance to Love.

Is there someone who could give me tutorials (decent ones) or help to get nice results for the future?

I would be glad to know it :)

Thanks and have a good day.
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erasio
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Location: Germany

Re: Wanting to create with LÖVE

Post by erasio »

Game development as well as programming are pretty huge topics.

What exactly do you need help with? There's no general "learn to make game tutorial" tutorial that will teach you all you need to know.

Regardless of your answer to the question above I can recommend the discord server. There's a bunch of people on there (many active on the forum as well) who are happy to help out with specific issues or point you in the right direction.
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Sulunia
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Re: Wanting to create with LÖVE

Post by Sulunia »

Here is a quick getting started... assuming you already installed Love on your machine.

1) With a working web browser, access and leave this open/consult as you code: https://love2d.org/wiki/Main_Page
The wiki has all information initially needed to properly use and understand the tools provided by Love. Use it!

2) Set up a project folder with a main.lua and an optional configuration conf.lua file placed on it's root.
Usually, this is the main.lua file where I usually start working with:

Code: Select all

function love.load()
--Code that runs once at game startup
end

function love.update(dt)
--Game logic updates go here
end

function love.draw()
--Game drawing code goes here
end
You can find an example conf.lua in the wiki.

3) Choose an IDE for programming your game.
There are several options here, from Notepad++ to Atom to Visual Studio. For starters, I'd seriously recommend using Zerobrane Studio since it's easy to set up and code right away.
Other IDEs are also available, search around if you're unsure how to set these up.

4) Begin your programming adventures!
I'd start telling you to get used with everything first, so I'd start out trying to:
- Draw a Blue rectangle anywhere on the screen. :3
- Allowing the player to move such rectangle around using arrow keys. :ultrahappy:
- Loading a music and playing it. :megagrin:
- Drawing some text to the screen using a custom font. :brows:

After getting a bit more familiar with it, I'd attempt to:
- Make a Pong clone. :huh:
- Make a Snake clone. :shock:
- Make a very simple space shooter. :halloween:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you did all this, congratulations! Chances are you probably know at very least what you're doing, and you're probably more confident by now. Which also means you'll probably have a better view of what you don't understand or want to exactly talk/ask about! :awesome:
Don't check my github! It contains thousands of lines of spaghetti code in many different languages cool software! :neko:
https://github.com/Sulunia
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xNick1
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Location: Rome, Italy

Re: Wanting to create with LÖVE

Post by xNick1 »

I found it easy to start!
I don't like GUI editors and I don't have time to learn them.
I started fucking around reading the wiki and trying to make a pong clone.
Then I followed sheepolutions' written tutorials on his website.
Love's API is great and easy to learn and Lua is an easy scripting language.
Once you're able to structure a project correctly everything will become easier.
Just try to see someone elses work and try to learn from it.
Just grab .love files in the game section or even .exes made with love by merging the .love package + the exec file and open them with 7zip to see how other people are doing stuff.

I love Love cause it's insanely fast to prototype stuff and it can be used in bigger projects too if you manage to organize stuff correctly!
Plus not having a GUI editor, it lets you decide your best way of doing things
SynfigMaster91
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Posts: 17
Joined: Thu Nov 23, 2017 4:46 pm

Re: Wanting to create with LÖVE

Post by SynfigMaster91 »

Thanks to everyone for your hints ^^

I'll try my best to follow them and learn. I'm still learning to use Lua and the functions.
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