Distributing your games (making a .love file)

[mike]

As much as I hate myself for doing this, I've made another video tutorial to explain how to make a love file. It takes one minute to watch and will make our lives a lot simpler when you show off your games on the forum. If you hate my face. don't want to navigate away from this page or don't have Windowze XPizzle, here are the instructions:

1. Create a zip file
   (this is built into XP, but Mac/*nix users may have to get a program for it)
2. Copy all of your files into the zip file, retaining directory structure and making sure that the main.lua file is in the root directory
   (if you make a zip file containing a folder with your stuff in it, then it's not going to work)
3. Rename the file extension from .zip to .love
4. ????
5. Annual revenue stream

We could make a program for doing this for you, but that is for the LÖVE IDE, planned to be released in March 2142.


Stickied because I can

[bartbes]

(this is built into XP, but Mac/*nix users may have to get a program for it)

Don't know about all Linux distro's but at least Ubuntu has inbuilt file-roller support.
Using that it's as easy as selecting everything that should go in the root of the zip, right mouse, Create archive, name it, and change the extension.
(Sounds a lot harder when I see it here )

[qubodup]

I have road signs hanging around too. I wonder how many tickets and/or deaths people like us cause in a year.

Awesome, you could try Zero Puntuation style next time if you want to save on time.

Added it to the Wiki!

[Skofo]

Oh man, is this partially sparked up because of me? I just completely forgot to change the file extension there, sorry.

Also, a how-to for *nix command line:

1. Go to your project directory a la cd ~/Projects/EpicGame
2. Run zip -r ../${PWD##*/}.love *
3. Your fully-prepared .love file shall be located right outside of your project directory
4. Cake!

Also, I made a lovely bash script which you can simply put inside your project folder and run it to easily make a .love file out of the directory, conveniently excluding the script itself. http://willhostforfood.com/files4/6468604/lovify.sh

I'd make a batch file for Windows-users but apparently there isn't a standard way to zip files through the Windows terminal.

Happy LOVING!

[mike]

I have road signs hanging around too. I wonder how many tickets and/or deaths people like us cause in a year.

I actually found mine lying in a ditch. Under some snow and leaves. And they had been there for a few months. I REFUSE TO FEEL GUILT OVER MY WALL ADORNMENTS!

Oh man, is this partially sparked up because of me? I just completely forgot to change the file extension there, sorry.

Partially, but you're not the only person who insists on uploading zip files. Of course it's not hard to do it ourselves, but when you just want to see a small demo of a game its so much easier to just open it directly from the page rather than deal with the hassle of unzipping, re-zipping and then extensioning. Hopefully new visitors will see this thread and instantly know what to do.

[philnelson]

Is there any way to package them with the Love launcher, so the user only has to download one file? Otherwise it can be confusing on the user end. Why would they need this Love thing? What does it do? These are questions the end user shouldn't need to ask.

[mike]

Is there any way to package them with the Love launcher, so the user only has to download one file? Otherwise it can be confusing on the user end. Why would they need this Love thing? What does it do? These are questions the end user shouldn't need to ask.

There is a way, but it won't result in a single file because LÖVE uses a lot of DLLs, but if you package it all into an installer it shouldn't be a problem for anyone. For more information, check the doc: http://love2d.org/docs/GameDistribution.html

On that note. Does anybody WANT an application that reads a folder and creates a .love file or automatically creates the executable? Since you're all developers and know how to do things (thanks to dubious video tutorials) there shouldn't be a need for an auto-packer... but I could be wrong.

[farvardin]

for my part I put in my project folder a simple "make_distrib.sh" script which zip and delete extra source files, like this:

Code: Select all

zip -r ../myproject.love ./
zip -d ../myproject.love "*-src.png"
zip -d ../myproject.love "*.svg"
zip -d ../myproject.love "*.xcf"

[philnelson]

I'm a mac user, so I'm coming at it from what is probably a slightly different perspective than the rest of you.

For a platform like Mac OS X there shouldn't be more than one file that a user has to drag and drop into their ~/Applications folder to install the game. That is what Mac users expect, and the Love distribution for OS X works just like that, so I'm wondering why that can't easily be replicated but with a main.lua file that it runs automatically.

[mike]

I'm a mac user, so I'm coming at it from what is probably a slightly different perspective than the rest of you.

For a platform like Mac OS X there shouldn't be more than one file that a user has to drag and drop into their ~/Applications folder to install the game. That is what Mac users expect, and the Love distribution for OS X works just like that, so I'm wondering why that can't easily be replicated but with a main.lua file that it runs automatically.

Maybe you'll understand when you get yourself a real computer.

Hehe, just kidding. I'm just bitter because I don't have a Mac myself and I have NO idea how it works. How do .love files work in Mac? Do they work at all?