LÖVE

I have no choice.

I saw it reviewed on an Indie game development blog and at the time was dabbling in game programming with QuickBASIC (In DOSBox with the speed turned way up) and JavaScript (Before HTML5 based JS game dev libraries were even available) and needed something simple to learn but powerful. And TNTBasic (Which I paid $25 for before it went open-source) was dead (And Mac only) and Power Game Factory (Which I paid $45 for) was also dead and limited to platformers but was still limited. (And was Mac only)

Löve is fast and easy to learn. But not limited like a lot of other game development SDK's and not confusing to script like some others.

mickeyjm wrote:Mainly I chose LOVE because it was in Lua, which I learnt in 2009 on ROBLOX (Do not recommend)

Ditto.

kikito wrote:Simplicity, Lua, 2D-focused, Open source, Multi Platform, and friendly community.

Ditto once more.

Was looking for a language to learn over winter break 2011. Found out about Lua through /r/gamedev, read a book, then wanted to make a game. Recently switched to Ubuntu, so needed something Linux-compatible. LOVE was just an apt-get away.

I was originally drawn to it because it was a nice middle ground between something like GameMaker and programming everything from scratch. I wanted to learn a new language, and LÖVE is real programming, with a "real" language (plus Lua is wonderful), but I don't have to get involved with messing with boring stuff like setting up low-level graphics, sound or input support or worrying about getting it to work on multiple platforms. And if I decide I want to move on to coding everything from scratch, I can still use Lua as a scripting language, which I wouldn't be able to with a proprietary game maker language.
Of course, after starting to use it I found out about all the third-party libraries and the fact that pretty much any question you might have has already been answered on the forums, and those are definitely a plus too!

Initially I selected it because I was looking for a well-documented game development environment that would let me maximize my existing scripting skills without forcing me to overcome basic programing obstacles to get even a small project off the ground. Basically I wanted something that allowed me to feel productive on day one.

I've continued to use it because practically every question I could ever think to ask has already been answered in some way on these forums, and as a result I'm well on the way to my very first working game prototype. I couldn't ask for anything more.

-well-documented wiki
-nice forum (people/colors)
-lua is easy to lern/hard to master
-easy cross-platform
-good binary builds without too much dependencies and size
-focus is 2d

-still missin: official mobile support (love-android, iOS), official web support (love2d-webplayer)

- LUA
- Well docs & wiki
- Good community
- Box2D physics
- Cross-platform
- Open source

One of the best strengths of LÖVE is that it doesn't force you to code in a specific way. It's very flexible and doesn't try to force its own solutions in your face.

When working with other game engines, I've always felt that you're much more restricted in how you code in order to get stuff to work properly.

The community is of course also a huge plus.

It's perfect for prototyping...