Getting Started

Get LÖVE

Download the latest version of LÖVE from the website, and install it. If you're on Windows and don't want to install LÖVE, you can also just download the zipped binaries and extract them anywhere.

Running Games

LÖVE can load a game in two ways:

• From a folder.
• From a .love file (a renamed .zip-file).

In both cases, there must be a file called main.lua on the root. This file will be loaded when LÖVE starts. If this file is missing, LÖVE will not recognize the folder or .love file as game, and you will be presented with the standard no-game screen.

On the command line, you can use love like this:

love mygame

For instance:

love /home/bob/mygame
love /home/bob/packagedgame.love
love C:\games\mygame
love C:\games\packagedgame.love

You can inspect the version like this:

love --version

On Windows, there is a special option which will attach a console to the Window. This allows you to see standard output.

love --console

If you are running Windows and you want an easy way to play your applications, you can create a shortcut to the LÖVE executable in the folder above your LÖVE game. When you want to try the game, just drag and drop the folder to the shortcut, and it will run. There's also the Scite option.

On Mac OSX, you can simple double-click a .love file to run it.

Making a Game

To make a minimal game, create a folder anywhere, and open up your favorite code editor. Notepad++ is a pretty good one for Windows, and it has Lua support built in. Create a new file in the folder you just created, and name it main.lua. Put the following code in the file, and save it.

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

Windows

On Windows, the easiest way to run the game is to drag the folder onto love.exe, or a shortcut to love.exe. Remember to drag the folder containing main.lua, and not main.lua itself.

Linux

On Linux, you can use the command line. (Of course, you can use the command line in Windows too, if you prefer).

love /home/path/to/game

Mac OSX

On Mac OSX, a folder or .love file can be dropped onto the Love.app application bundle. On the Mac OSX Terminal (commandline), you can use love like this (assuming it's installed to the Applications directory):

open -a love mygame

In some cases it may be faster to invoke the love binary inside the application bundle directly via the following:

/Applications/love.app/Contents/MacOS/love mygame

You can setup an alias in your Terminal session to call the binary when you use love by adding an alias to your ~/.bash_profile (open -a TextEdit ~/.bash_profile):

# alias to love
alias love="/Applications/love.app/Contents/MacOS/love"

Now you can call love from the commandline like Linux and Windows:

love /home/path/to/game

Next steps

• Tutorial:Callback_Functions will teach you the basic structure of a love game.
• Category:Tutorials are the next piece of reading