You can get fun things to happen with few lines of code. The whole API fits into your head, and together with Lua's simplicity this is a powerful combo. Any complexity in code comes from your side. With live reloading, development happens in tight loop with running environment, and this easily drags you into the zone.
At the same time the framework is low level. The included functions cover only interfacing HW and rendering graphical primitives. It's just a thin abstraction layer that greatly simplifies accessing OS features. Everything else like scene management, AI navigation, live code reloading, skeletal animation, common graphics shaders, tile maps, sound management, UI, that's all left out of the framework. Numerous Lua libraries were made to fill in the missing stuff.
You get to pick from different solutions and glue them together with script code. This is very consistent with general Lua mindset. Neither functional constructs nor OOP are not included in Lua, but both can easily be brought in with any of dozen libraries. It creates fractured space and it's kind of bazaar of different tech stacks that are same but different.
Other frameworks and engines (Defold, Solar2D, Roblox) that use Lua all take integrated approach where more of functionality is crammed into engine itself. This is a more closed solution where you aren't supposed to extend the engine much, just script inside it.
That’s hard to read.
Example project online: https://kaboomjs.com/examples#level
And just to add, if anyone has been using love2d or other frameworks like it, give GoDot a try.
I started using it a few weeks ago and it's amazing how much I'm getting done with my game.
Animate also exports to Adobe's AIR runtime — which isn't just "that weird Adobe thing you had to install on your PC once to run a business presentation", but much more importantly translates to the ability to export a project to a native mobile app for iOS/Android, since these platforms have AIR-runtime implementation as libraries you can link into an app project.
Not sure why everyone seems to have forgotten it existed. It's not like it went unmaintained or anything, the way Fireworks was for a while before its death. Animate is still a great and modern tool, with new features being added all the time. It's become a first-in-class tool for animation studios to produce cartoons with — thus the updated name/branding. People just seem to have lost, in the process of that rebrand, all awareness of the fact that it can still be used to make games/interactive experiences. Which is a shame.
Not that pirating is the right solution nor that Adobe doesn't have a right to make money from their software, but that Adobe is missing a possibly huge audience they could attract with more "middle options" than super locked down Creative Cloud accounts such as for kids without access to the family's purse strings, for lower income and education use, for try before you buy needs, etc.
Flash had a nice dev-to-executable experience, too bad it was soured by its browser inclusion. It could've been a great alternative to Java/Electron as the build once run anywhere lang. Adobe was a bit too early with Air
(https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvOT6zBnJyYF3FzmfXz2QXM...)
Otherwise, honestly it's a great little engine and like you say, if you're pretty new to programming and want to try making games for fun, lua and love2d is a great way to go.