Learning Strategy / Tutorials for Löve 0.10.0

[ianfitz]

Hi All,

I'm new here, and could use some guidance on a learning path for Löve.

Here's where I am so far: I spent a few days getting familiar with Lua (coming from Python) and that went smoothly. Next, I went through OSMstudio's Your First LÖVE Game in 200 Lines tutorial, and that went really well too. Even got gamepad support going.

I went in search of an intermediate tutorial next, so I tried out Headchant's Platformer Tutorial, but found that the libraries it used were either deprecated (Advanced Tile Loader) or APIs had drastically changed (Hardon Collider). Which was sort of good from a troubleshooting/debugging perspective, I managed to switch STI in for Advanced Tile Loader.

But I'd really like to try and figure out a learning plan that involves a little less figuring out what's deprecated and what's not, and is at a more intermediate level. Any recommendations/stories about how you went about this?

I know one response will be "depends on what kind of game you are making", but I'm willing to try on any game for purposes of learning. I am aiming for general familiarity, so when I dive into the docs I have a more grounded basis from where to do so.

Also, a few questions on Löve's official tutorials on the wiki. It seems like there should be a list of internal tutorials here but they are missing? Anyone know how I can find the list? I found this one and several others via google results. If I could just get a list of all these tutorials and go through them, that might get me quite a ways towards where I need to be.

Also the Category:Tutorials page links to examples.love, which looks super useful but...where is the source code for these tutorials? The .love file is compiled, so I can't see them, right....again having the source for these examples is pretty much exactly what I need I think.

Edit: Nevermind, .love files are simply zip files with a .love extension. I renamed it to .zip, uncompressed, and was able to see these example files.

Okay, sorry for the length first post. Really enjoying Löve and Lua so far!

[bobbyjones]

Since 0.10.0 was just released there aren't too many tutorials. There is one tutorial here tho lua.space it should still be on the front page.
EDIT: the best way to learn is to just do it. Or at least that is the best for me. Lua and love is so simple all you have to do is code. What I recommend is just trying something you think is extremely easy. And then finish that and ramp up the difficulty level as you go along. You will have to get familiar with reading docs tho. You would be doing a lot of that. But doing that you will eventually become better and better.

[s-ol]

...and is at a more intermediate level. Any recommendations/stories about how you went about this?

I think there really isn't anything to do except read the wiki for an overview, try to do things you want to do and come back to the wiki for specifics. Make sure to read the examples, they can be really useful at times.

I've started löve one and a half years ago (woah it's really been that long?!) and I never read or watched a tutorial (-series). I took a look at a few ludum dare entries and a stabyourself game, but I didn't really learn much from them as they used outdated libraries and weren't really "compatible" with the way I find myself building games in löve now. In the end I learned almost everything in learning by doing.

edit: I agree with bobbyjonebobbyjones, the löve api is so tiny and basic there isn't a lot to learn and know about. There's tons of ways to do everything so you need to work on your own to develop your own style, tricks and idioms. Of course seeing other people's solutions can be inspiring and useful but you need some experience of your own.

[ianfitz]

Hi, thanks for your responses.

One follow up, I'm not looking for any 0.10.0 specific tutorials, I know it just came out. I more meant just tutorials that aren't completely broken by 0.10.10 is all. (I don't mind figuring out a little deprecated -> new way stuff, but if that's all I'm doing through the whole tutorial it makes it kind of seem pointless).

Maybe I should be a little more specific in what I'm asking here too. If you could know of any:

1. Games with source code you found particularly helpful to read
2. Know where the list of tutorials on the wiki are
3. Can point me to any other intermediate level example code that would be useful to read

That would be awesome.

I can totally dive into individual docs, and I agree it's small and comprehensible. The trouble for me is getting the 1000 foot view and knowing where to dig into. I'm really just looking for a little more orientation on that level, before I dive into my own game (which, you are both totally right, is ultimately how you learn a thing) as I've found when learning frameworks before...just having a little more orientation at the beginning can save you a little time bashing you head against the wall when you are working on your own project.

Hope that seems reasonable!

[CaptainMaelstrom]

I don't think there's any wrong way about it. And it all depends on what game you want to make first. I don't think I've ever really found any of the source for other games too informative. Just think about what problem you're trying to solve and see if either the libraries on the wiki, or the framework itself provide a solution. If not, see if you can roll your own.

Game programming is much like programming in general--you're just taking one big problem: making a game--and turning it into many smaller problems. You can do just about anything with love.graphics.print, love.graphics.draw, and some 'if then else end' statements. You'll discover all the clever stuff along the way.

Eventually, you will understand enough to dig a little deeper. Find and learn how to use an OOP, a tweening, a serialization, and maybe a messaging/queue library. I recommend middleclass, flux, TSerial, and beholder respectively. You don't necessarily need to do this right away because you will not know even what problems they solve for you.

[ianfitz]

Okay you've all convinced me . I'm just going to make a couple of small games and work through learning what I need to as I go, organic-like.

Maybe I'll post back to this thread one day and give an update of how it went.

[zerocoolisgod]

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... bRnj2zWcUH

New one. I've found it to be pretty helpful. More about general game structure. Most of the love tutorials I've found just show you how to dump framework functions into the callbacks.

[murks]

I agree that the documentation in the wiki is good, and so is the documentation of most libraries.
I also agree that the remaining problem is game structure. It is at the same time the strength and the weakness of löve that it imposes almost no structure on you. It is pretty much the opposite to something like rpgmaker or gamemaker.
The consequence is that you need to structure your game yourself, which can be hard.

I suggest to look outside of the löve-world and see how things are done, then translate them to löve.
For example, I came across the concept of an entity component system and found that interesting.
It is basically just another (non-OOP) way to handle game objects. That's just one part of the (technical) structure of a game.

I read up on it, (specifically here http://t-machine.org/index.php/2007/09/ ... nt-part-1/), found out some libraries exist for löve that they work differently than I would like them to and now start to design and roll my own.
Will this improve my little game? Maybe, maybe not. But it is definitely a lot of fun and a huge learning experience.

Just pick some challenges, things you want to do, be them technical or game related and try it.