LÖVE

The block of text below is a personal bit, but this is a TL;DR for those that don't care if I'm Bill friggin' Gates.

I know very basic jargon and have poor understanding of programming in general-- have done some C++ but truly only know syntax of basic commands.

So can you help me out by pointing out some useful beginner resources? Sadly, I don't know what to do with the Wiki, I am that illiterate within the programming atmosphere.

Hello everyone, I've been looking into LÖVE for about a month now but haven't done anything out of sheer panic and fear. I have very limited experience in programming which champions my HTML header to a website I wrote in sixth-grade and an introductory C++ class in college. Sadly, the C++ course was an applied science course and dealt very little with theory, what the hell Object Oriented even means and anything that wasn't syntax to be honest.

In essence I am here to ask you, the community, to give someone that is so far out of this galaxy a bit of a guide to living this life. I was raised by games in a more literal sense than you would like to imagine and they have taught me so much as a person that I want to return that magic to the kids/people of this generation. I feel AAA game design has gone downhill largely because it is becoming an industry and not an artform. I love games for the two-way road that they are, the artist that makes the game shares it with the player-- who in turn expresses just as much as the creator in decoding the world set before them. No other media truly has this power and I wish to learn to harness it, even if I can't make a fully operational game in 6 months time, I need to learn.

Most importantly, thank you for the help-- or even the consideration. Utmost thank you for your time.

I am also fairly new to programming (5 weeks) and my first suggestion is for love is to try simple tutorials such as https://love2d.org/wiki/Tutorial:Hamster_Ball
Small projects like these can help you figure out the syntax and look around in the wiki every now and then to see if something interests you and try to use the function, Hope this helps

Programming in Lua is traditionally recommended.

I've also written a guide, that may answer some questions about how things like variables, values and memory work in Lua (and many other programming languages).

There is also Learn Python the Hard Way, which is about Python rather than Lua, but it provides many insights that are transferable to Lua.

Search up Löve Tutorials on YouTube, there are some pretty good ones, for Lua I recommend the excellent series on learning Lua by Sonic2kk (Know on here as Eamonn).

Thanks David!

On topic:

I just want to tell you: You can't expect to watch a tutorial and BOOM! Instant game developer. Everyone learns differently. I learn pretty fast(I was using LÖVE for about 2-3 weeks and had my first game ready the next week), but you might not learn as fast as I do. So, if it takes you a year to make your first LÖVE game, but it takes Joe Bloggs a day to make his, it doesn't matter. I gave similar advice to someone else the other day, and they were struggling, but now they're going good with their first project. So, just some general advice: Take your time. Don't rush. Eventually you'll get going. You will get somewhere eventually. You might have to make 999,999 projects just to get your 1,000,000th one right!

Now, as for help: Like you, as a tutorial I didn't like the wiki. As a reference it is amazing, but as a tutorial... not so much. I learn better from visual guides. So, PiL(Programming in Lua) wasn't much help to me at first, and also there was the fact that I wasn't good at programming. So, PiL wasn't much help either. There weren't many video tutorials on Lua(probably because everyone used PiL, at least everyone has told me that), but I decided to make Lua tutorials. You can check them out on my YouTube Channel. </selfpromotion>. There are also a lot of LÖVE tutorials on the web, including my own. Just look for it on my channel(it isn't on the wiki). It's in a playlist.

Hope this helps! Good luck and have a great day

Aamer13: I happened across that same Tutorial via someone else's thread but thought nothing of it because the guy that needed help wanted to know how to move a player. Your input makes me feel like it isn't a task beyond me and I should probably try it out.

Robin: I've seen a lot of posts around here from you, thanks for the constant attention on the boards. People like you made LÖVE what it is-- the community thanks you. I have bookmarked your guide, it seems like the sort of thing that would sort out a speedbump in the middle of work as a reference.

Davidobot: Your input greatly increases my willingness to take part in Eamonn's tutorials, thank you!

Eamonn: This seems like the most viable route for me as a total beginner, thank you for the input I hope to post some time with a more involved topic related to LÖVE and not basic programming.

Thank you.

(for networking, keep in mind its pretty hard to use) lua socket: http://w3.impa.br/~diego/software/luasocket/home.html

lua first edition: http://www.lua.org/pil/contents.html


tuts:

sockmunkee's tuts: http://www.youtube.com/user/sockmunkeedevelopmen

goature's tuts: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL924F20B05A624D91


other:

free game resources: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12


a hint for you:

making a good bullet system requires "Tables"

Shameless plug: My LÖVE tile tutorial

goatures, and sockmunkee's tutorials are fairly good.
search them both up on youtube!