FIle organisation

[mongrol]

Hi,
I'm moving from C++/SFML to Lua/Love in order to speed my development along (Dad of two kids, hardly any time to code). With C++ I generally followed the standard of making .h and .cpp files for every class and starting the whole shebang off from a main.cpp. I'm assuming at this stage that since we're all making games then a class system is going to be used in any moderately sized project. What's the general standard for Lua game development? How do you organise your files?

[bartbes]

I usually end up doing something like

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+ Root
+-- main.lua
+-- conf.lua
+-+ lib
  +-- slither.lua (my class lib of choice)
  +-- misc libs
+-+ class
  +-- all of my classes
+-+ state
  +-- any game states
+-+ gfx
  +-- graphics
+-+ sfx
  +-- sound

and anything else I might have forgotten.

[kikito]

I'm assuming at this stage that since we're all making games then a class system is going to be used in any moderately sized project. What's the general standard for Lua game development? How do you organise your files?

There is no standard whatsoever. Also there's no default class system. There are several class implementations . Whichever you choose will depend on your personal preferences regarding syntax and functionality. (Disclaimer I am the developer of one of them, MiddleClass)

LÖVE provides some minimal requirements - you must at least have a main.lua file to start things out (a conf.lua will be handy, too).

From what I've seen other people do, it's generally a good principle to separate the code of the game from the "external libraries" that it uses. Usually this is done via a "lib" folder, with the library files/folders inside of it. It's also usual to have the media (images, sounds, etc) separated from the sourcecode in separate folders.

Appart from that, I think every project is a beautiful flower. The file structure of the game source code should reflect what the game looks like. For example, in some games it might make sense to have a "levels" folder, but in others it will not.

[monsieur_h]

I ended up with a pretty similar to bartbes' :

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main.lua
conf.lua
+lib //external libs folder
+class
+data //all data that is textual for the game
--+levels
--+pnj
--+shader
--+i18n
+gamestate//all my gamestates
+res //all resources loaded in the game that aren't data
--+images
--+fonts
--+sounds
--+music

Also I'm curious of what you're putting in gfx and sfx bartbes?

[xXxMoNkEyMaNxXx]

@monsieur_h
'gfx' and 'sfx' stand for graphics and sound effects.

I'd be curious as to what you're putting in i18n and pnj

[monsieur_h]

i18n contains localisation for my texts. And about PNJ I forgot to translate it: it stands for NPC in english
My bad!

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+i18n
--fr.lua
--en.lua
--es.lua
...
+pnj(NPC)
--a_character.lua
--a_boss.lua