Starting With love - advice

[Dubforce]

Hey, guys. I'm just about to start an indie game venture with a coworker from the job I just left. He and I are both programmers. I've done a lot of games in different frameworks before, but I didn't feel like anything was "right." I started downloading a bunch of different engines and frameworks to get a decent idea of what all the popular 2d engines were like. I'm pretty sure we are going to use love at this point, because its actually a very good framework. I just wanted to introduce myself because I'm going to be around pretty often I'd imagine, and I also have a few things I could use advice about from other developers.

Out of curiosity, do you guys have any tip for working with art if you have no artistic abilities? I bought a wacom intuos tablet so I can get started, but I'm dreadful at anything creative. Honestly I can draw pretty much anything, but I don't have the ability to imagine something and draw it. I need a template usually. I did a clone of the character sprites from A link to the past, but I had to look at the original art every few seconds to keep going. I wouldn't have managed without seeing the source.

And as far as programming games goes, are there any other frameworks/engines you guys would recommend taking a look at before I dive in headfirst? This is going to be a funded, serious project that we are spending a lot of time on (every day after work, from roughly 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.), so I don't want to go with love if it is going to be a mistake later. Just looking for advice, thanks guys.

[easy82]

Welcome!

I can only speak for myself. I have used some very good engines in the past (Dark Basic, Blitz Basic, Revolution3D, Irrlicht, SFML) and also have tried many others (Ogre, MonoGame, Haxe, Stencyl, Godot, Monkey X, etc.), and here is my review on LÖVE:

• - extremely easy to start and to learn
  - very good documentation
  - clean and logical design
  - active and friendly community
  - development and rendering is quick in it
  - it scales very well (have a look at Hawkthrone, Mari0, or the upcoming Concerned Joe)
  - basic features: graphics, fonts, sound, music, joystick, keyboard, mouse, windowing, file system
  - extra features: batch drawing, render textures, shaders, net, physics, threading support
  - high quality, ready to use libraries: vector math, classes, animation, GUI, pathfinding, collision system, camera handling, game states, debugging, live coding, serialization, level loading, dungeon generation, etc.
  - cross-platform: Linux, Mac, Windows are supported from the same codebase
  - work-in-progress Android, iOS ports
  - experimental ports for the Web
  - native support in ZeroBrane Studio

Generally, it represents a good balance of all the features I've ever wanted. It's widely used for prototyping and for game jams, and it's also ready for creating great indie commercial games.

[Dubforce]

Thanks for the reply!

What are your favorite 2D game engines/frameworks of the ones you have used? Did any stand out above the rest?
I have a feeling we are going to use love, but I wouldn't mind checking out any other if you have any recommendations.

[easy82]

What are your favorite 2D game engines/frameworks of the ones you have used? Did any stand out above the rest?
I have a feeling we are going to use love, but I wouldn't mind checking out any other if you have any recommendations.

My favourite engine was BlitzBasic, but it was 3D, and it's stuck in the past (it used DX8 and it's Windows only). It was so good that people still use it. For me LÖVE is very similar to that engine because both are great fun to use. I also really liked Revolution3D, but it's long gone. For 3D these days I'd recommend Leadwerks engine if you'd like to stick with Lua.

SFML is a really good 2D engine, you could check out that one, if you don't mind C++ (M.A.R.S. a ridiculous shooter, and Project Black Sun was made with it). If you want to develop not only for desktops, but for consoles and mobiles too, check out Monkey X (although it's development has stopped) or any Haxe related engines, like OpenFL, HaxeFlixel, or HaxePunk (they resemble ActionScript). Papers please and Rymdkapsel was made with OpenFL. Try out MonoGame if you want to create something bigger (like Bastion, or FEZ).

[Murii]

You can use Love because the community is friendly and big.But i would suggest to NOT i repeat to not use box2d because the performance is awful !

[jjmafiae]

You can use Love because the community is friendly and big.But i would suggest to NOT i repeat to not use box2d because the performance is awful !

Yeah, if you just need a basic physics system it's easier to code make your own.

[Automatik]

You can use Love because the community is friendly and big.But i would suggest to NOT i repeat to not use box2d because the performance is awful !

Yeah, if you just need a basic physics system it's easier to code make your own.

It depend. If you want to have realistic physics(Like in Concerned Joe), or you're unable to have a perfect collision system, it's appropriate, and it's also easier in that case to just use box2d instead of doing your own physics engine.
Also, the performance isn't awful. I never had any perf' problems with box2d. It's probably not what you want if your game is already bloated, or if you want to make a mobile game, but otherwise...

[jjmafiae]

Well it depends, some laptops may have problems because of slow mobile processors or as you said phones.

[Plu]

Out of curiosity, do you guys have any tip for working with art if you have no artistic abilities?

If you mean "I suck at drawing", make games without images in them. If you really mean "I suck at art", then you'll probably need the help of a game-designer to come up with a game for you

Games are art in and of themselves, even without any imagery involved; if you're bad at visual art, make games with limited visual art. Consider a vector-look like that of Vector TD or Super Laser Racer; both very pretty games that use no images at all. Or something along those lines.

[jjmafiae]

Well pixel art is very easy and you can also find some good drawing guides on the internet