Library like LÖVE for iOS & OSX?

[Eamonn]

The title might be kind of vague, but I'll explain! I own a Mac, so I can develop iOS apps. Though I like LÖVE's extreme simplicity! Is there a library like LÖVE for iOS? I am aware of Cocos2d, but is it as good as LÖVE? I know Cocos2d-x has a Lua version, but I think it's buggy and unfinished and undocumented. So if anyone has any experience with Cocos2d for iPhone, please let me know if it's as simplistic as LÖVE.

Yes, I'm aware that it's £100 a year to submit an app to the App store(s), but I'd like to get started with App development and I do have £100 to try the developer thing for a year. I just wanna get my hands dirty in Obj-C development for OSX and iOS development!! I'm not gonna just learn Lua+LÖVE, I wanna "broden my horizons" so to speak.

Thanks! Any replies are appreciated!!

[raidho36]

Are you sure you even want it? I mean, Mr. Ballguy level games aren't exactly demanded on iOS market.

[Eamonn]

Are you sure you even want it? I mean, Mr. Ballguy level games aren't exactly demanded on iOS market.

[veethree]

Are you sure you even want it? I mean, Mr. Ballguy level games aren't exactly demanded on iOS market.

Dude you seriously need to chill with the attitude.

[raidho36]

What? The dude can't make diamond-polished game, and there's no use to even get to market without having game polished that hard. It would be a waste of his spare money. He could buy an RC helicopter instead. Those are super-fun, yeah. And if you're skilled you can hunt butterfiles with it. Or birds, if it's large enough. Avian gladiator fight, hell yeah!

[jasonisop]

Thats not his point. What does it matter to you what he does, or how he spends his money. Your posts are not helping him in any way, and are discouraging.

[raidho36]

What are you, think we all here should encourage the guy to flush his $100 down the crapper? If anything, I call that not helpful.

Seriously though, cocos2d is fine. It's simlple enough, but you'd have to learn some language other than Lua. Unless you want big time messing with low-level libraries that give you nothing but bare minimum then it's your choice.

[scutheotaku]

The title might be kind of vague, but I'll explain! I own a Mac, so I can develop iOS apps. Though I like LÖVE's extreme simplicity! Is there a library like LÖVE for iOS? I am aware of Cocos2d, but is it as good as LÖVE? I know Cocos2d-x has a Lua version, but I think it's buggy and unfinished and undocumented. So if anyone has any experience with Cocos2d for iPhone, please let me know if it's as simplistic as LÖVE.

Yes, I'm aware that it's £100 a year to submit an app to the App store(s), but I'd like to get started with App development and I do have £100 to try the developer thing for a year. I just wanna get my hands dirty in Obj-C development for OSX and iOS development!! I'm not gonna just learn Lua+LÖVE, I wanna "broden my horizons" so to speak.

Thanks! Any replies are appreciated!!

Well, you have a few options for Lua frameworks (or frameworks that support Lua scripting) with iOS support.

Corona SDK ( http://www.coronalabs.com/products/corona-sdk/ ) is probably the most popular. It is closed source. It has a large community, and has plenty of high quality and commercial titles under its belt. Until recently, it was fairly expensive, but there is now a free version called "Corona SDK Starter": http://simluator.coronalabs.com/blog/20 ... ining-pro/

Gideros is another, though I believe that it is ONLY for mobile (iOS and Android). It is closed source. There are both free ("community") and costly versions of it, and I'm not really sure what the difference is, so you'll have to look into it more. http://www.giderosmobile.com/

Polycode, which is completely free and open source, will probably be the best choice (at least for my tastes) in the future, but it's not quite done yet. While you can definitely make a complete game with it as-is, I wouldn't recommend using it unless you are willing to do a lot of trial and error and code digging (e.g., looking at the examples), especially the docs are pretty incomplete too (they'll get you started, but not much further). It has plenty of awesome features though, including support for 3D and 3D physics and a built-in level editor. http://polycode.org/

Moai SDK (not to be confused with Moai Cloud, which is another, interconnected service) is another, and is one that some great commercial and high quality games have used. It has a lot of great features and, like Polycode, is completely free and open source. That being said, this is by far the most complicated of the four. In a lot of ways, it is the most like Cocos2D. http://getmoai.com/

To get a feel for the frameworks above and how one goes about using them to make games, check out these articles:
http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/201 ... -Moai.aspx
http://polycode.org/wiki/index.php?n=Main.Tutorials
http://www.gamefromscratch.com/page/Moa ... -Moai.aspx

It should be noted that LOVE is probably the easiest and simplest (in a good way) of those four. Well, apparently Corona SDK and Gideros is easier in some ways, though not so much in others. What LOVE is good at though is not constraining you to any particular style or workflow - something that all of the above do (Polycode the least). Anyway, if I were you, I'd download all of them and spend a solid day or two with each. That way you'll be able to make an informed decision on which to go with (if you choose to go with any!).

Are you sure you even want it? I mean, Mr. Ballguy level games aren't exactly demanded on iOS market.

Be nicer to people. He was asking a question; either help out or move on.

EDIT:

What are you, think we all here should encourage the guy to flush his $100 down the crapper? If anything, I call that not helpful.

Yes, because NOBODY releases free games in the App Store, and NOBODY releases game because they enjoy sharing their creations with people and seeing them play them, and NOBODY who can't yet put out a perfectly polished game should have the "privilege" of releasing for a mobile platform... Grow up.

As a side note: in my opinion, Cocos2D is an absolute mess. The only reason it's worth anyone's time is because of the community (and documentation) around it. There are much better options.

[Eamonn]

The title might be kind of vague, but I'll explain! I own a Mac, so I can develop iOS apps. Though I like LÖVE's extreme simplicity! Is there a library like LÖVE for iOS? I am aware of Cocos2d, but is it as good as LÖVE? I know Cocos2d-x has a Lua version, but I think it's buggy and unfinished and undocumented. So if anyone has any experience with Cocos2d for iPhone, please let me know if it's as simplistic as LÖVE.

Yes, I'm aware that it's £100 a year to submit an app to the App store(s), but I'd like to get started with App development and I do have £100 to try the developer thing for a year. I just wanna get my hands dirty in Obj-C development for OSX and iOS development!! I'm not gonna just learn Lua+LÖVE, I wanna "broden my horizons" so to speak.

Thanks! Any replies are appreciated!!

Well, you have a few options for Lua frameworks (or frameworks that support Lua scripting) with iOS support.

Corona SDK ( http://www.coronalabs.com/products/corona-sdk/ ) is probably the most popular. It is closed source. It has a large community, and has plenty of high quality and commercial titles under its belt. Until recently, it was fairly expensive, but there is now a free version called "Corona SDK Starter": http://simluator.coronalabs.com/blog/20 ... ining-pro/

Gideros is another, though I believe that it is ONLY for mobile (iOS and Android). It is closed source. There are both free ("community") and costly versions of it, and I'm not really sure what the difference is, so you'll have to look into it more. http://www.giderosmobile.com/

Polycode, which is completely free and open source, will probably be the best choice (at least for my tastes) in the future, but it's not quite done yet. While you can definitely make a complete game with it as-is, I wouldn't recommend using it unless you are willing to do a lot of trial and error and code digging (e.g., looking at the examples), especially the docs are pretty incomplete too (they'll get you started, but not much further). It has plenty of awesome features though, including support for 3D and 3D physics and a built-in level editor. http://polycode.org/

Moai SDK (not to be confused with Moai Cloud, which is another, interconnected service) is another, and is one that some great commercial and high quality games have used. It has a lot of great features and, like Polycode, is completely free and open source. That being said, this is by far the most complicated of the four. In a lot of ways, it is the most like Cocos2D. http://getmoai.com/

To get a feel for the frameworks above and how one goes about using them to make games, check out these articles:
http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/201 ... -Moai.aspx
http://polycode.org/wiki/index.php?n=Main.Tutorials
http://www.gamefromscratch.com/page/Moa ... -Moai.aspx

It should be noted that LOVE is probably the easiest and simplest (in a good way) of those four. Well, apparently Corona SDK and Gideros is easier in some ways, though not so much in others. What LOVE is good at though is not constraining you to any particular style or workflow - something that all of the above do (Polycode the least). Anyway, if I were you, I'd download all of them and spend a solid day or two with each. That way you'll be able to make an informed decision on which to go with (if you choose to go with any!).

Are you sure you even want it? I mean, Mr. Ballguy level games aren't exactly demanded on iOS market.

Be nicer to people. He was asking a question; either help out or move on.

EDIT:

What are you, think we all here should encourage the guy to flush his $100 down the crapper? If anything, I call that not helpful.

Yes, because NOBODY releases free games in the App Store, and NOBODY releases game because they enjoy sharing their creations with people and seeing them play them, and NOBODY who can't yet put out a perfectly polished game should have the "privilege" of releasing for a mobile platform... Grow up.

As a side note: in my opinion, Cocos2D is an absolute mess. The only reason it's worth anyone's time is because of the community (and documentation) around it. There are much better options.

You know what? You actually helped me! I wanna point something out though! I said I had £100 or $100 or whatever currency you use to spend, but I didn't say I was going to release it right away! I wanted to 'get my hands dirty' in mobile programming. Some people makes a free game, but those games either have ads or premium content. So technically those games are still generating money.

VeeThree made a valid point too!

Are you sure you even want it? I mean, Mr. Ballguy level games aren't exactly demanded on iOS market.

Dude you seriously need to chill with the attitude.

And so did jasonisop

Thats not his point. What does it matter to you what he does, or how he spends his money. Your posts are not helping him in any way, and are discouraging.

So yeah! Thanks everyone, except the obvious You don't need £100 to get XCode. I have XCode 4 and I don't have a registered Apple App Store account.

As far as I'm aware, Corona isn't a programming library and is a 'maker'. I haven't checked out others but I've just seen Polycode by googling and haven't thought to look into it.

[scutheotaku]

You know what? You actually helped me! I

Glad I could help

As far as I'm aware, Corona isn't a programming library and is a 'maker'. I haven't checked out others but I've just seen Polycode by googling and haven't thought to look into it.

Corona is billed as a "development platform." You could say it's a "maker," but not in the sense of something like Construct or even Game Maker. It's more like how Torque 2D used to be before it went open source, or how Unity is now (actually, not even that).

Here's an example script from Corona:

Code: Select all

-- HelloWorld sample

-- Load audio file
local song = audio.loadSound("../../Media/Ride_of_the_Valkyries.mp3")

-- set volume to 50%
audio.setVolume(0.5)

-- play audio file, looping forever
audio.play(song,{ channel=1,loops=-1})


-- create text to display on screen in 72point font
local helloText = display.newText("Hello World!",0,0,native.systemFont,72)

-- center to screen
helloText.x = display.contentWidth/2
helloText.y = display.contentHeight/2

-- red
helloText:setTextColor(255,0,0)

-- function to handle touch event, move helloText to the touch location
function onTouchHandler(event)
    helloText.x = event.x
    helloText.y = event.y
end

-- register touch function to respond to global touch events
Runtime:addEventListener("touch",onTouchHandler)

That's taken from the "Battle of the Lua Game Engines" article I linked to before. While it paints LOVE in a slightly negative light, it should be useful to you since it directly compares the code of four engines: http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/201 ... -Moai.aspx

Also, here are some code samples which compare Corona to Flash/Actionscript 3:
http://www.coronalabs.com/products/coro ... -vs-flash/

Anyway, Corona is a worth a download, I think. You may like it, or you may not