New to Game Development and could use some guidance.

[Minky]

Hello All,

I am currently trying to get into game development as a hobby. However I am at stuck on what I should use! I have limited my choices to LÖVE, SFML, and XNA. I keep switching back and forth between all of them, and I really never get anything done because of it, haha. I mostly work with C# but have a decent amount of experience with C++, however something about XNA does not feel right to me and I don't know what it is. I find myself questioning my choice every step of the way. As for SFML, although easier to pick up than some things it seems more time intensive than I would like. Then LÖVE, which I only found out about a few days ago seems to look fun. Although I am hesitant about learning Lua as I have never really seen Lua used elsewhere. I also worry about the performance issues that poor Lua coding could bring to the code (when to use local and not to use local. I have seen some good class libraries but I am still unsure). I guess my hesitation comes from the performance that I would have to keep in mind.

So I currently don't know which way to go. I have three very good choices with different features I like and don't like. Does anyone have any experience or insight they could shed on me?

Thanks,

Happy LÖVEin'

[Robin]

I also worry about the performance issues that poor Lua coding could bring to the code (when to use local and not to use local. I have seen some good class libraries but I am still unsure). I guess my hesitation comes from the performance that I would have to keep in mind.

Don't worry. Especially not about locals and things like that. Lua is very, very fast. And I'm not talking about complicated, hyperoptimised incomprehensible code: clean, readable Lua is usually just as fast.

If something is not fast enough in Lua, it probably wouldn't be fast enough if you wrote it in C# or C++ either.

So for now just focus on having fun and building things, and start worrying about performance (which could possibly be never).

Good luck!

[richapple]

Actually, several month ago I was struck by the same problem: which game engine to use? I was doing some stuff on flash, but it didn't satisfy me enough.

I wanted to use XNA but my graphics card doesn't support it.
I wanted to try SFML, but C++ is too complicated and at maximum I could do was crappy falling sand clone with SDL (I'm learning C++ atm but that's an another story).

And then I saw LÖVE. Some screenshots made me think "Meh, worth a try". And I didn't understand why haven't I seen it earlier. It was really surprising that you could draw images and text with only 5 - 6 lines. Can other libraries do that? Don't think so. Oh, and yeah, perfomance - forget about that. As Robin said, Lua is fast. Have you seen this in action? It's beautiful. Built-in physics library, particle systems, Pixel effects(lövelified GLSL) and other very neat things made me choose LÖVE. And till today, I don't regret that choice.

tl;dr LÖVE.

[baconhawka7x]

Although I am hesitant about learning Lua as I have never really seen Lua used elsewhere.

Just to help convince you that Love2d is amazing, here are a few things that pop up off the top of my mind.
The UI in World Of Warcraft(Correct me if I'm wrong!)

and Mojang, creators of minecraft, are making a new game with Lua!

MARI0! ~ Love2d ( http://stabyourself.net)

Z0mb3h Ga3m;) ~ Love2d ( http://sockmunkee.com/zombiegame.html )
feel free to add more. Because I clearly left out a lot:)

[Frantz Elias]

Although I am hesitant about learning Lua as I have never really seen Lua used elsewhere.

Just to help convince you that Love2d is amazing, here are a few things that pop up off the top of my mind.
The UI in World Of Warcraft(Correct me if I'm wrong!)

and Mojang, creators of minecraft, are making a new game with Lua!

MARI0! ~ Love2d ( http://stabyourself.net)

Z0mb3h Ga3m;) ~ Love2d ( http://sockmunkee.com/zombiegame.html )
feel free to add more. Because I clearly left out a lot:)

My son and his friends absolutely love Minecraft. I like that it gives them a break from the usual first person shooter games. Don't get me wrong, the shooter games are cool too but it's nice to see them having to solve different types of problems and use a different part of their brains.

[Lafolie]

I always think this is awesome every time I see it.

Code: Select all

function love.draw()
    love.graphics.print('Hello World!', 400, 300)
end

3 lines gets you a window, rendered text, 'game loop', and probably a load of other things I don't realise yet. If you know other languages, and the hello world example is 3 lines long, you should definitely check it out because you'll probably find it quick and easy to get into and try it properly.

[cleaner]

Hi,

I have some knowledge in PHP, Javascript, HTML. Is it enough to start using Love software?
Do I need some certain programming skills ?

[SnowflakeBlue]

How does Lua and love do when it comes to MMO development?

[Jasoco]

How does Lua and love do when it comes to MMO development?

I'd say Löve is only limited by how much you are trying to handle at once. Löve can do networking and you could concievably have many players connecting to a server and the game updating each of them, but it really depends on how many you plan on having connected at once and how much you will be updating at once. For each thing that needs to update, you need to loop through it. You'd probably have a list of currently connected players excluding yourself and you'd loop through each one to draw them at their new locations. Basically other players would in essence just be another object to deal with. One that instead is manipulated by data being transmitted from a server. Data that is being controlled by another human elsewhere.

Networked games have already been done. MMO's just have more players. It's really about what kind of stuff do you want to do in the game world.

Or something.

[Davidobot]

How does Lua and love do when it comes to MMO development?

Networked games have already been done.

Examples?