LÖVE

Why do you use LÖVE?

Why do you not use something "lower-level", which gives you more control?

Why do you not use something "higher-level", which allows you to do more in less time?

If you have made a commercial or otherwise largeish-scale game with LÖVE, would you still choose to make it with LÖVE if you could go back in time? Why or why not?

> Why do you use LÖVE?

It's adequate for many of the purposes I use it for.

> Why do you not use something "lower-level", which gives you more control?

Sheepolution makes it clear in the first section here:

http://www.sheepolution.com/learn/book/4

Simpler code = { less potential points of error, more productivity }

Also, LÖVE programs are automatically multiplatform. Coding in a lower level language usually means a portability hell.

I may need more power in certain cases. I'm considering Amulet for some projects, because it doesn't seem to make things so difficult as LÖVE does when trying to work with 3D. Other projects need brute power that LuaJIT does not provide. Recently I discovered LoveFS, which provides one of the missing features in Lua.

> Why do you not use something "higher-level", which allows you to do more in less time?

I probably would, if there was one that was FOSS and allowed me to do the same things that LÖVE does. I'm wary of systems I can't compile by myself, and I'm a supporter of software freedom. And "higher-level" usually comes at the cost of specialization, which means reduced power. Even LÖVE suffers from that specialization, in that it's designed for 2D.

> If you have made a commercial or otherwise largeish-scale game with LÖVE, would you still choose to make it with LÖVE if you could go back in time? Why or why not?

Yes. It was the most adequate tool for the task. Things may change if I discover another "higher level" tool, as you say, with the same power, but as things are now, it's not beaten.

Love2D is that High-Level that I prefer.
migrated here from Cocos2D HTML5

Löve is high-level enough for me with how I screw around. I came from QuickBASIC, HTML5/JavaScript, TNTBasic and Power Game Factory. Löve is by far the easiest and most flexible out of those for me. TNTBasic was so underpowered, not accelerated, limited to heck, even after it was open sourced. PGF was just for platformers and was limited too, built in RealBasic (So it was Mac only) and missed a lot of important stuff. I don't understand most JavaScript so I didn't get far with HTML5. QuickBASIC was the most fun I had but of course had really bad limitations, namely RAM limits.

The other developer I'm working with is really comfortable with Love, so I'm using it to work with him. (I also like Lua)

Löve gives me enough on the low-level front that i don't need to implement anything like that myself, and if i would really need to, for whatever reason, there's LuaJIT's FFI, allowing me to use C vars and/or require in C code. It also has a graphics module, again removing most of the coding gruntwork i'd need to do to create a GUI application (actual menus, etc. notwithstanding, i still need to do those ofc., or use a lib).
Anything higher level would be detrimental to me though, if it wouldn't allow me to go below the hood, so to speak; that i'd find limiting.
Also i prefer lua's syntax and keywords, not only because i learned pascal before, which i did "enjoy" in a sense that i enjoy looking around at a scenic location.
These were my major points -now-, but originally, the fact that it allowed me to code either high or a bit lower level unlike some other engines i tried at the time (construct/2) just didn't really feel powerful enough to do something great with.

For me personally LÖVE's community is a big plus.

I also like Lua as a language - it's minimalistic approach has something which "connects" with me. I prefer it to something like C/C++ because the only way to work with those lower-level languages is to be continually thinking about things I am usually not interested about (like "this pointer is not aligned with the end of this array" or "this piece of memory might be deallocated before I use it"). I find that very tiresome. I have not tried something "higher level" like Unity because I like working in a terminal, with my own editor and the command line.