LÖVE distribution website

[Robin]

Whenever someone wants to release a game to the unsuspecting public, they face a challenge. That challenge is the fact that LÖVE is relatively unknown, and therefore not many people have it installed. So there are two main options:

1. Provide a .love and point people to love2d.org to download LÖVE.
   Disadvantage: gamers are lazy. They don't want to find and install LÖVE separately first.
2. Provide binaries with the .love tacked on.
   Disadvantage: lovers are lazy. They don't want to create binary distributions for each and every platform LÖVE runs on, and to provide less platforms is to risk ignoring part of your audience.

How can we deal with this?

My idea is a specialised website, to which you can upload a .love, and it provides binaries for every project you could possibly want.

Plain-text website mockup:

Code: Select all

Game
	[ Upload .love ]
Platforms
	Windows
		[ ] 32-bit
		[ ] 64-bit
	OS X
		[ ] UB
	Linux
		[ ] Ubuntu package
		[ ] Plain binaries (32-bit)
		[ ] Plain binaries (64-bit)
	nLÖVE
		[ ] ...
Security
	(x) Vanilla LÖVE
	( ) SELÖVE
	( ) Both

It would automatically determine the right version of LÖVE to use, and if it can't, it will use some sensible default, such as the latest stable release.

It would be very useful for quick game-making competitions in particular, I imagine.

I want to make this website myself, possibly together with the community, if there is enough interest for it. Things like hosting might be a bit of a problem for me, as well as a nice looking front-end.

So, what do you think?

[thelinx]

This has been on my "things I want to do" list for quite some time, but my attempts to get Django to work with the phpBB user database have not been fruitful.

[Jasoco]

Do you really need 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows and Linux versions? Are those OS' not smart enough to run either one like OS X?

[Tesselode]

This would be great. Especially since there's no instructions on how to make deb packages for love games.

[kalle2990]

Windows
[ ] 32-bit
[ ] 64-bit

Do you really need 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows and Linux versions?

Is there even a 64-bit Windows version?

[slime]

This would be incredibly helpful!

[TechnoCat]

This sounds cool.

And I would be willing to help over the Summer if it will be open source.

[Robin]

This has been on my "things I want to do" list for quite some time, but my attempts to get Django to work with the phpBB user database have not been fruitful.

You wanted to make it a part of the main site? That's possible as well. I don't get why it would need Django, actually.

Are those OS' not smart enough to run either one like OS X?

No. In fact, I don't think OS X is, for that matter. They just include both. (Which is why the OS X distribution of LÖVE is so large compared to the others.)

And I would be willing to help over the Summer if it will be open source.

I cannot think of a reason why it should not be open source.

[bmelts]

Actually, the OS X version is so large because it includes both Intel and PPC copies of everything required. There's no 64-bit Mac version.

As far as I know there's no 64-bit Windows build either...

[nevon]

I don't want to make any promises, but I can probably make a nice looking front-end. I could probably do the back-end as well, but I don't have the time or energy to do that.

Good idea though!