https://gitlab.com/alexjgriffith/min-love2d-fennel shows a basic setup that enables the repl too.
The only drawback is that it is a little bit too minimalistic for situations like shorter game jams where people with more kitchen-sink engines like Godot will have a much easier time. For example there is no native way to support multiple resolutions/fullscreen as well as lack of accessibility features. These things can be easily implemented or you can find libraries but it is definitely a concern.
On the other hand, learning Love2d first, paid huge dividends in my game dev journey because I learned how to actually program instead of relying on cobbling together engine features. 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.
a few reasons why I love it
-Both the IDE and the framework are lightweight enough to run comfortably even on an RPI.
-The single best documentation I've ever used for any piece of development tool. Lots of examples, concise and made for max velocity.
-Excellent forum with friendly people. It has taken a bit of a backseat to project Discord, which I find a bit sad. But everyone is helpful there too.
-Great ecosystem of just about any library you can ask for.
It has kind of spoiled software development for me. I tried getting the hang of similar technologies many times without success. Atleast now I understand the people who still go on about how great their QuickBASIC / TurboPascal workflow was back in the days.
That being said there ARE a few areas in LÖVE that leave things to be desired:
- I feel like the devs are a bit too trigger happy to make API changes. Though fixing a big chunk of these are a matter of a few search + replaces.
- The rendering can feel oddly slow?? Especially on Android I kept bumping into weird scenarios where I felt like it should hit 60 FPS no problem, even with the Lua JIT inactive.
- There aren't many resources about how to make good use of threading features to speed up common performance problems. There is definetly room for a "LÖVE2D Performance Necronomicon" to be written by someone who is more knowledgeable in CompSci fundamentals than me. :^)