Löve (game engine)


LÖVE is an open-source cross-platform engine for developing 2D video games. The engine is written in C++ and uses Lua as its scripting language. It is published under the zlib license.
The API provided by the engine gives access to the video and sound functions of the host machine through the libraries SDL and OpenGL, or since version 0.10 also OpenGL ES 2 and 3. Fonts can be rendered by the FreeType engine. A version of the engine called piLöve has been specifically ported to Raspberry Pi.
It also provides a basic "sandbox" management of the files in order to avoid giving access to all its disk to the executed games.
LÖVE is still maintained by its original developers.
This engine is frequently found in the compositions of video game development competitions, such as the international competition Ludum Dare.
In July 2018, it was the 10th game engine most used by independents on the site itch.io.

History

Lutro is a Lua game framework for libretro, a partial port of the LÖVE API. ChaiLove follows a similar path by offering an implementation in ChaiScript, an embedded and cross-platform scripting language for C++.

Features

These features come with the game engine:
LÖVE is cross-platform.
Application compatibility is not ensured between different LÖVE versions.

Additional libraries

There are various libraries to improve basic functions, such as object-oriented programming with inheritance and overloading, interpolations, camera management, network multiplayer management, game state management, configuration, etc.
The Simple Tiled Implementation library allows users to load levels as tiles, edit using Tiled and display them in games. It works in conjunction with Box2D for collision management with this decor.
The anim8 library allows users to load animations, for characters for example, from an image grid into a bitmap file.
There is also a free platform called LIKO-12, inspired by the PICO-8 fantasy console and using LÖVE, allowing to develop applications in a limited resolution, backup/restore in the modified PNG format, in the same way as the video game cartridges of the game consoles or some of the first microcomputers, and export them to HTML5 or to systems supported by LÖVE.