title: LÖVE-ing the Android
date: 2013-07-16, 13:11:35
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I recently decided to try video game development again.
I almost decided to waste this inspiration by diving head deep into the SDL and SFML syntax, and once again come out with (at best) monolithic and shoddy simple games. Instead I looked around, and found something wonderful: LÖVE, one of my favorite and most successfully utilized game engines, has a working (and native!) android port.
What this means is that while using LÖVE used to mean my games would be able to be played on GNU/Linux, Windows, and OS/X, it now meant I could also carry them in my pocket, or run them on things like the Ouya and other game-specific systems. This was a very good thing, and prompted me to install LÖVE again.
Doing so on SalixOS is easy. In fact, it all comes down to running a single command (as root):
#: slapt-src -i OpenAL lua DevIL physfs libmodplug love
For those on stock Slackware, these should pretty much be the dependencies as well.
For those on other GNU/Linux distributions, there is a fairly decent list here.
Once that is finished with, You should have a complete and total LÖVE set up. All You need to do now is learn.
LÖVE uses lua, a scripting language I enjoy immensely. Notably, it is also the scripting language used in a number of other games (wesnoth, for instance.) Learning Lua is very well documented: in addition to a very active community page, there are also a few good tutorials.
Once You have those basics down (or before you do, it is really easy to pick up, honest) You can start perusing the LÖVE tutorials, and look for some games to mess around with.
See, when a game is distibuted for love, it comes in a .love file. This is simply a renamed .zip file, which allows You to look inside of it, usually. Most popular LÖVE games also have their source freely available, so there is that, too.
I chose to download the very-popular Mari0. It is a mix between the original Super Mario Bros and Portal. And it is Free.
My first project will be something simple, maybe a snake game or a pong clone. Details on my experiences with the actual code to come soon!
Time for me to get back to work. Comments are always appreciated!
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