LÖVE: a framework to make 2D games in Lua

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on news.ycombinator.com

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  • mojoAL

    An SDL2-based implementation of OpenAL in a single C file.

    Ah, I think I've missed this commit when testing a while ago: https://github.com/icculus/mojoAL/commit/47b22d002ae4d02d758...

    It says "AL_PITCH support in MojoAL should still be considered experimental!" though.

  • SaaSHub

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  • Fennel

    Lua Lisp Language

    May be used with Fennel if you prefer a more lisp-alike programming language.

    https://fennel-lang.org/

    https://wiki.fennel-lang.org/Codebases

  • TIC-80

    TIC-80 is a fantasy computer for making, playing and sharing tiny games.

    Main differences are: 16:9 aspect ratio, no cpu limits and many languages to tinker with: lua, js, squirrel, wren, janet, wasm, ... and just recently - a Python support was added.

    https://tic80.com

  • load81

    SDL based Lua programming environment for kids similar to Codea

    And also Load81 by Antirez: https://github.com/antirez/load81 (Lua).

  • love

    LÖVE is an awesome 2D game framework for Lua.

  • Hanappe

    Hanappe is a game framework for MOAI SDK.

    I wish MOAI had managed to survive the onslaught of App-store policies designed to kill it. It was a really fun way to build apps.

    I wonder if anyone has ported Hanappe, which is a GUI framework on top of MOAI, to LOVE yet ...

    https://github.com/makotok/Hanappe

    Maybe its time to revive MOAI and bring some heat to these frameworks ..

  • lovr

    Lua Virtual Reality Framework

  • makelove

    A build tool for löve games

    There are some packaging tools that help with distribution (like https://github.com/pfirsich/makelove/ - I made this). What would you like improved?

  • ktx

    Kotlin extensions for the libGDX game framework

    I liked working with it (the library) but learned I hate working with Lua just slightly less than I hate working with JS. At least in JS we now have TS and things like Elm.

    I ended up moving to https://github.com/libktx/ktx for that little project.

  • raylib

    A simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogames programming

    I love love2D. It's really a breath of fresh air. I've made many little games and prototypes with it. Lua is fun, and the doco is great.

    If you're looking in that realm I also have to mention RayLib [1]. It might remind you of the XNA days, except it runs on many platforms and it actually works! (sic.)

    Final plug is of course PICO8.[2] Very different style once again but so much fun!

    [1] https://www.raylib.com/

    [2] https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php

  • lunarcraft

    Minecraft clone in lua

    I love LOVE! Have made many cool projects and prototypes with it. My favorite is my Minecraft clone, which has full 3D.

    https://github.com/brennop/lunarcraft

  • stride-website

    This repository hosts the source code for the official Stride 3D engine website. Contributors can follow the build instructions provided to run the website locally.

    I forgot Stride: https://www.stride3d.net

    It was not completely open source, but it is now (if I didn't read it wrong).

  • pyxel

    A retro game engine for Python

  • tiny

    Tiny is a lightweight 2D game engine that allows developers to easily create games using the Lua programming language. (by minigdx)

  • corona

    Solar2D Game Engine main repository (ex Corona SDK) (by coronalabs)

  • sdk

    Core functionality needed to create .NET Core projects, that is shared between Visual Studio and CLI (by dotnet)

    That's a twisted and wrong narrative

    Unity like refers to a Editor driven approach

    Unity became popular with its moonscript language (javascript like), they then ditched it to focus on C#, but what propelled unity to what it is today is the Editor driven approach, not c#, not DOTS

    They are forced to transpile C# to C++ via IL2CPP as a result to target consoles/mobiles

    C# is a disease when it comes to console/mobile support

    It's a substantial dependency, quite heavy

    And you are not free of unity like fuck ups, it's a microsoft language after all:

    https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/issues/22247

    And let's not forget when they changed the license of their debugger overnight to prevent people from using it in their products (jetbrains for example)

    And them deprecating open source tooling to a proprietary/closed one for vscode (c# devkit)

    Let's be careful when we recommend evil as an alternative to evil ;)

  • You can also use Emacs and fennel-mode and then M-x fennel-repl to get a live repl from your Emacs session and then use lisp-eval-last-sexp, doc lookup and other Lisp conveniences.

    https://gitlab.com/alexjgriffith/min-love2d-fennel shows a basic setup that enables the repl too.

  • nuklear

    A single-header ANSI C immediate mode cross-platform GUI library (by Immediate-Mode-UI)

    > And for the right project, especially those where a predefined engine structure does not not fit, it can still be the most productive choice.

    Right on. While interning at an oil refinery, I developed an application in LÖVE that processes and displays data from spectrometers. In hindsight it may not have been the wisest choice, but hand rolling all the GUI elements I couldnt force out of the Nuklear[0] bindings for LÖVE gave me a strange sense of satisfaction.

    [0]: https://github.com/Immediate-Mode-UI/Nuklear

  • hawkthorne-journey

    Digital Estate Planning: The Game

    Oh Man I haven't heard of this framework in years!

    There was this amazing fan game made to mimic an episode of this tv show called Community. The show is about a group of community college students getting into all sorts of hijinks and one episode had all of them go into this video 8 bit video game world....so LÖVE was used to recreate the game exactly as you see in the show.

    Unfortunately it is running on a very old version at this point and I hear due to how the framework has changed upgrading is not straightforward. It interesting to see how software changes and grows over time. Fortunately the last version released still seems to work fine on modern machines. (at least it runs on my M1 Mac)

    [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzhuvOqfmC4

    [2]: http://projecthawkthorne.com/

  • jngl

    Easy to use cross-platform 2D game library for C++

    Pitch not working for example. This was the main reason I've switched to custom audio mixing in C++: https://github.com/jhasse/jngl/pull/97

  • picolove

    PICO-8 Reimplementation in Love2D. Chat: https://discord.gg/jGEMUse6RM

NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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