Scenery - A dead simple Love2D SceneManager

[Paltze]

Scenery is a dead simple Löve2D SceneManager. It can be found at https://github.com/paltze/scenery. Love2D does not have scene or state system and I loved it when I used to develop in https://phaser.io. And so I used a variation of this library for a long time when I used to develope in Löve. I know any experienced dev, with a bit of time, will be easily able to write it; but not everyone is experienced in this world. And everyone likes being lazy . I hope, in sharing this library, that it will be helpful to the lövely people who use Löve2D.

[pauljessup]

Not sure how yours work, but here's one I've been using on my own that I created awhile back.

Here's how it works, this would be a file named scenes.lua.

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return{
    states={},
    focus={},
    action={switch=false, push=false, pop=false, newid=0},
    init=function(self, start_state)
        --gets all the game states from the game states directory
        for i,v in ipairs(love.filesystem.getDirectoryItems("scenes")) do
            if string.find(v, ".lua") then
                self.states[string.gsub(v, ".lua", "")]=require("scenes." .. string.gsub(v, ".lua", ""))
            end
        end
        if start_state then
            self:push(start_state)
        end
    end,
    push=function(self, state)
        self.states[state]:init()
        self.focus[#self.focus+1]=state
    end,
    pop=function(self)
        local cfocus=self:currentFocus()
        if #self.focus>1 then
            if(self.states[cfocus].close~=nil) then
                self.states[cfocus]:close()
            end
            self.focus[#self.focus]=nil 
        end
    end,
    switch=function(self, state)
        for i,v in ipairs(self.focus) do
            self.focus[i]=nil
        end
        self.focus={}
        self:push(state)
    end,
    currentFocus=function(self)
        return self.focus[#self.focus]
    end,

    update=function(self, dt)
        self.states[self:currentFocus()]:update(dt)
    end,

    draw=function(self)
        for i,v in pairs(self.focus) do
            self.states[v]:draw()
        end
    end,
}

and you would do something like

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Scenes=require "scenes"
function love.load(args)
    Scenes:init("start") --or whatever your first state is called. This is the same name as the .lua file.
end

function love.update(dt)
    Scenes:update(dt)
end

function love.draw()
Scenes:draw()
end

In the same directory as you main.lua, create a folder named scenes. Every .lua file in this folder gets automatically loaded, no need to have a path or file name or set it. As long as you call Scenes:init(), it will autoload everything and get it ready to be called when you need to switch scenes.

Put scenes in the folder, scenes are just lua files, that look like this-

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return {
            init=function()

            end,
            update=function(dt)

            end,
            draw=function()

            end,
}

And that's it. Now, when you want to switch states you just call

Scenes:switch("newSceneName")

It's all stack based, so you can push onto the stack and have it return to the last state by popping it, using
Scenes:push("newSceneName")
and then when you're done
Scenes:pop()
goes to the last state loaded. Very handy for in game GUI's.

Hopefully this little snippet of code can be of use to you, and has stuff you can add to your own library.

[Paltze]

Your idea of automatically loading scenes is indeed excellent, but that forces the users to change their workflow and store their scenes in a particular folder. But I think I can find a way where they can choose whether to load automatically or not. Thank you for your valuable inputs.

[pauljessup]

Of course! I wasn't expecting you to use my code or not, but I figure some of what I've done might be helpful to you, and if that's the case, excellent. And if now, no big deal at all.

I'm glad it gave you some ideas, though. Yay for that

[gold3nmoon]

Even in 2024 it continues to be useful, thanks for sharing your code.