LÖVE is an awesome framework you can use to make 2D games in Lua. It's free, open-source, and works on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS.
Documentation
We use our wiki for documentation. If you need further help, feel free to ask on our forums, our Discord server, or our IRC channel #love on OFTC.
Repository
We use the 'main' branch for patch development of the current major release, and therefore it should not be considered stable. There may also be a branch for the next major version in development, which is named after that version.
We tag all our releases (since we started using mercurial and git), and have binary downloads available for them.
Experimental changes are developed in a separate love-experiments repository.
Builds
Files for releases are in the releases section on GitHub. The site has links to files and additional platform content for the latest release.
There are also unstable/nightly builds:
- Builds for some platforms are automatically created after each commit and are available through GitHub's CI interfaces.
- For ubuntu linux they are in ppa:bartbes/love-unstable
- For arch linux there's love-git in the AUR.
Contributing
The best places to contribute are through the issue tracker and the official Discord server or IRC channel.
For code contributions, pull requests and patches are welcome. Be sure to read the source code style guide. Changes and new features typically get discussed in the issue tracker or on Discord or the forums before a pull request is made.
Compilation
Windows
Follow the instructions at the megasource repository page.
*nix
Run platform/unix/automagic from the repository root, then run ./configure and make.
$ platform/unix/automagic
$ ./configure
$ make
When using a source release, automagic has already been run, and the first step can be skipped.
macOS
Download or clone this repository and copy, move, or symlink the macOS/Frameworks subfolder into love's platform/xcode/macosx folder.
Then use the Xcode project found at platform/xcode/love.xcodeproj to build the love-macosx target.
iOS
Building for iOS requires macOS and Xcode.
LÖVE 11.4 and newer
Download the love-apple-dependencies zip file corresponding to the LÖVE version being used from the Releases page,
unzip it, and place the iOS/libraries subfolder into love's platform/xcode/ios folder.
Or, download or clone this repository and copy, move, or symlink the iOS/libraries subfolder into love's platform/xcode/ios folder.
Then use the Xcode project found at platform/xcode/love.xcodeproj to build the love-ios target.
See readme-iOS.rtf for more information.
LÖVE 11.3 and older
Download the ios-libraries zip file corresponding to the LÖVE version being used from the Releases page,
unzip it, and place the include and libraries subfolders into love's platform/xcode/ios folder.
Then use the Xcode project found at platform/xcode/love.xcodeproj to build the love-ios target.
See readme-iOS.rtf for more information.
Android
Visit the Android build repository for build instructions.
Dependencies
- SDL2
- OpenGL 2.1+ / OpenGL ES 2+
- OpenAL
- Lua / LuaJIT / LLVM-lua
- FreeType
- ModPlug
- mpg123
- Vorbisfile
- Theora