10 ms·

I have to say, LÖVE 2d holds a special place with me because it's the first 'real programming game engine' (as in language only no accompanying ide or such) I e

I have to say, LÖVE 2d holds a special place with me because it's the first 'real programming game engine' (as in language only no accompanying ide or such) I ever actually developed anything that I would consider a fully fledged completed program I made entirely by myself with. This looks pretty awesome and all but I can't see the benefits over something like unity or unreal or the amazing for the cost and features Godot. I really like Lua. I've always recommended it to beginners or anyone curious about programming for fun over every other language. I've used it myself extensively But in this day and age, I can't really see recommendating this or even LÖVE2d anymore to anyone interested in getting into game programming. There's just too many high quality alternatives these days.

paraph1n 5y ago
Please share the alternatives.
- evv 5y ago
  Open Source alternative? grawprog mentioned Godot
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- get52 5y ago
  Godot is great
andrewmcwatters 5y ago
If you're interested in graduating from LÖVE, try Planimeter's Grid Engine[1], which is based on Quakeworld architecture and comes with fully client-side predicted multiplayer out of the box.[2] In that regard, it's a lot easier than Unity 2D, which doesn't. It also has commercial support, uses pretty standard de facto formats, like Tiled, for its levels, and has been in development for several years. It's the most starred Lua game engine on GitHub to my knowledge.[3] Planimeter also publishes lgf[4], which is a LÖVE 11.3 drop-in replacement which provides PBR support, among other things, out of the box for those concerned with advanced workflows. [1]: https://www.planimeter.org/grid-sdk/ https://www.planimeter.org/grid-sdk/ [2]: https://www.planimeter.org/grid-sdk/api/Tick_rate_and_bandwidth https://www.planimeter.org/grid-sdk/api/Tick_rate_and_bandwi... [3]: https://github.com/topics/game-engine?l=lua https://github.com/topics/game-engine?l=lua [4]: https://github.com/Planimeter/lgf https://github.com/Planimeter/lgf
- nonbirithm 5y ago
  I was wondering, are there any games that use Grid? I would be curious to see some real-world examples using the engine, especially the multiplayer component.
  - andrewmcwatters 5y ago
    Planimeter dogfoods by working on Grid Engine: Sandbox which is a sort of non-game Garry's Mod 2D sandbox which is where the development team makes features production-ready. We integrate with Steamworks for consulting purposes, but will probably not end up publishing there ourselves, and really advise clients to not do it. We're a bit tied up with with some consulting projects at the moment, so Grid Engine 10 has been in slower development than the last few years. We're planning on providing commercial licenses for small studios at something like a one-time $999/license with things like out-of-the-box community server support and at-cost multiplayer infrastructure, which is something like $15/yr for roughly 1,000 concurrent players at 20-tick. I find it to be a competitive advantage that we provide community server browsers in the engine directly (think Source or further back, Gamespy/Quakespy) and no one else seems to do this? We also use the common Gamespy server browser protocol, which is also a de facto standard. I would be curious as to why major studios don't also do the same, but the answer is that most of them want to control the servers today and not let you run your own communities anymore. Unity allows Multiplay to basically own that, which I think is telling that they don't care about that developer experience. Godot has no answer to any of this. You also have to roll your own multiplayer entirely. Planimeter doesn't compete with Unity 2D mobile games. We try and stay away from that sort of image. Our software and licensing is intended to compete with desktop 2D games.
    - nonbirithm 5y ago
      So there are no released titles? Or at least ones that are publicly playable? I don't see any search results for Grid Engine: Sandbox.
      - andrewmcwatters 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dxuh 5y ago
The real alternatives to löve are not Unity, Unreal or Godot, but maybe raylib or other much smaller libraries (not engines). löve is much different than Godot and good for entirely different projects and different people. The people that would probably end up löving löve in the long run would not be too interested in using Godot at all (such as me and many other löve users that I know). I don't use it much at all anymore (though I have heavily in the past), but I would still recommend it to everyone for which it would be a great fit. If you just want to have a game running asap, then yes, maybe Godot is a better fit, but it's not categorically.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
bodge5000 5y ago
I've used pretty much every engine there is. Unity for about 10 years, Unreal for not all that long, probably in total about a year (it seems to be the most artist orientated, and with the best will in the world I'm not sure I fit into that camp), and most recently Godot for about 2 years. But recently, I've been really interested in the idea of a framework over an engine. For my non game-dev job, I of course don't use an engine, I use an editor like everyone else, and the idea of having that kind of workflow for game dev seems really appealing to me. I've been trying to learn Bevy or maybe Raylib, but LOVE always interested me the most for its incredible combination of performance and ease of use, but didn't want to typecast myself to only 2D. Maybe now, that can change. If someone wants to get into game dev, I'd recommend Godot or Unity, or possibly Unreal if they're the right sort of person, but if Im talking to another game dev, my first recommendation would be to look into a framework.
- w_t_payne 5y ago
  Have you tried Panda3D, because I've been experimenting with it recently, and it seems to work pretty nicely ...
  - bodge5000 5y ago
    I haven't, but its on my growing todo list. From what I've seen of it, it has a smaller community than LÖVE (which was part of my problem with some of the raylib bindings), but does look very nice. Personally for me, the dream is a framework that can do 2D and 3D. The game I'm currently working on will most likely be 2D, but I'm experimenting with 3D and its nice to be able to do all that with the stuff framework. I think Bevy is currently my favourite, but I'm always looking for others as well
- edflsafoiewq 5y ago
  LOVE can do 3D now too.
  - bodge5000 5y ago
    Really? Is that in the way that 2D engines can often "fake" 3D (like someone making a 3D game with pico8) or can it actually handle 3D content?
pasabagi 5y ago
Really? I feel like löve is just amazingly well designed, both in terms of API, and fundamentals. The basic concept of luajit + c++ core is nice, then the API is so straightforward and consistent that you can basically guess most method names and they do what you expect. What is it missing? I'm honestly racking my brains here trying to think of stuff I've tried to do that was unexpectedly hard, and I can't think of anything. Maybe passing large arrays of vertexes to be drawn can be awkward.
otikik 5y ago
I am a somewhat LÖVE veteran but I have gone in the opposite direction: LÖVE is *too powerful* me :). I gave PICO-8 a try and ... I found peace. The strict limitations are strangely liberating. Asset production (one of the most time-consuming parts of game development for me) is a breeze when you are limited to a 8x8 image and a 16-color palette. A similar thing happens with sound and music. It is the missing link between developing a text-based roguelike and LÖVE. Then there are a lot of small details like the fact that sin and cos return numbers in the 0..1 range instead of 0..2Pi range. And there is a reason for that (most things in Pico-8 work on the 0..1 range, it saves tokens). And there are "secrets" as well. It might not be something that I would use to create a commercial product, but it is FUN.
- pvitz 5y ago
  > Then there are a lot of small details like the fact that sin and cos return numbers in the 0..1 range instead of 0..2Pi range. The [0,2pi) interval is rather strange for an output or do you mean the arcus functions?
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  It's fun until PICO-8 says "that's enough. I forbid you from adding any more code/sprites/etc." And then you realize you are being strangled by artificial, arbitrary limits that don't actually have any reason nor justification for existing. Thankfully TIC-80 offers almost the exact same experience with more lenient restrictions.

paraph1n 5y ago

Please share the alternatives.

evv 5y ago
Open Source alternative? grawprog mentioned Godot
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
get52 5y ago
Godot is great

andrewmcwatters 5y ago

If you're interested in graduating from LÖVE, try Planimeter's Grid Engine[1], which is based on Quakeworld architecture and comes with fully client-side predicted multiplayer out of the box.[2] In that regard, it's a lot easier than Unity 2D, which doesn't. It also has commercial support, uses pretty standard de facto formats, like Tiled, for its levels, and has been in development for several years. It's the most starred Lua game engine on GitHub to my knowledge.[3] Planimeter also publishes lgf[4], which is a LÖVE 11.3 drop-in replacement which provides PBR support, among other things, out of the box for those concerned with advanced workflows. [1]: https://www.planimeter.org/grid-sdk/ https://www.planimeter.org/grid-sdk/ [2]: https://www.planimeter.org/grid-sdk/api/Tick_rate_and_bandwidth https://www.planimeter.org/grid-sdk/api/Tick_rate_and_bandwi... [3]: https://github.com/topics/game-engine?l=lua https://github.com/topics/game-engine?l=lua [4]: https://github.com/Planimeter/lgf https://github.com/Planimeter/lgf

nonbirithm 5y ago
I was wondering, are there any games that use Grid? I would be curious to see some real-world examples using the engine, especially the multiplayer component.
- andrewmcwatters 5y ago
  Planimeter dogfoods by working on Grid Engine: Sandbox which is a sort of non-game Garry's Mod 2D sandbox which is where the development team makes features production-ready. We integrate with Steamworks for consulting purposes, but will probably not end up publishing there ourselves, and really advise clients to not do it. We're a bit tied up with with some consulting projects at the moment, so Grid Engine 10 has been in slower development than the last few years. We're planning on providing commercial licenses for small studios at something like a one-time $999/license with things like out-of-the-box community server support and at-cost multiplayer infrastructure, which is something like $15/yr for roughly 1,000 concurrent players at 20-tick. I find it to be a competitive advantage that we provide community server browsers in the engine directly (think Source or further back, Gamespy/Quakespy) and no one else seems to do this? We also use the common Gamespy server browser protocol, which is also a de facto standard. I would be curious as to why major studios don't also do the same, but the answer is that most of them want to control the servers today and not let you run your own communities anymore. Unity allows Multiplay to basically own that, which I think is telling that they don't care about that developer experience. Godot has no answer to any of this. You also have to roll your own multiplayer entirely. Planimeter doesn't compete with Unity 2D mobile games. We try and stay away from that sort of image. Our software and licensing is intended to compete with desktop 2D games.
  - nonbirithm 5y ago
    So there are no released titles? Or at least ones that are publicly playable? I don't see any search results for Grid Engine: Sandbox.
    - andrewmcwatters 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

dxuh 5y ago

The real alternatives to löve are not Unity, Unreal or Godot, but maybe raylib or other much smaller libraries (not engines). löve is much different than Godot and good for entirely different projects and different people. The people that would probably end up löving löve in the long run would not be too interested in using Godot at all (such as me and many other löve users that I know). I don't use it much at all anymore (though I have heavily in the past), but I would still recommend it to everyone for which it would be a great fit. If you just want to have a game running asap, then yes, maybe Godot is a better fit, but it's not categorically.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

bodge5000 5y ago

I've used pretty much every engine there is. Unity for about 10 years, Unreal for not all that long, probably in total about a year (it seems to be the most artist orientated, and with the best will in the world I'm not sure I fit into that camp), and most recently Godot for about 2 years. But recently, I've been really interested in the idea of a framework over an engine. For my non game-dev job, I of course don't use an engine, I use an editor like everyone else, and the idea of having that kind of workflow for game dev seems really appealing to me. I've been trying to learn Bevy or maybe Raylib, but LOVE always interested me the most for its incredible combination of performance and ease of use, but didn't want to typecast myself to only 2D. Maybe now, that can change. If someone wants to get into game dev, I'd recommend Godot or Unity, or possibly Unreal if they're the right sort of person, but if Im talking to another game dev, my first recommendation would be to look into a framework.

w_t_payne 5y ago
Have you tried Panda3D, because I've been experimenting with it recently, and it seems to work pretty nicely ...
- bodge5000 5y ago
  I haven't, but its on my growing todo list. From what I've seen of it, it has a smaller community than LÖVE (which was part of my problem with some of the raylib bindings), but does look very nice. Personally for me, the dream is a framework that can do 2D and 3D. The game I'm currently working on will most likely be 2D, but I'm experimenting with 3D and its nice to be able to do all that with the stuff framework. I think Bevy is currently my favourite, but I'm always looking for others as well
edflsafoiewq 5y ago
LOVE can do 3D now too.
- bodge5000 5y ago
  Really? Is that in the way that 2D engines can often "fake" 3D (like someone making a 3D game with pico8) or can it actually handle 3D content?

pasabagi 5y ago

Really? I feel like löve is just amazingly well designed, both in terms of API, and fundamentals. The basic concept of luajit + c++ core is nice, then the API is so straightforward and consistent that you can basically guess most method names and they do what you expect. What is it missing? I'm honestly racking my brains here trying to think of stuff I've tried to do that was unexpectedly hard, and I can't think of anything. Maybe passing large arrays of vertexes to be drawn can be awkward.

otikik 5y ago

I am a somewhat LÖVE veteran but I have gone in the opposite direction: LÖVE is *too powerful* me :). I gave PICO-8 a try and ... I found peace. The strict limitations are strangely liberating. Asset production (one of the most time-consuming parts of game development for me) is a breeze when you are limited to a 8x8 image and a 16-color palette. A similar thing happens with sound and music. It is the missing link between developing a text-based roguelike and LÖVE. Then there are a lot of small details like the fact that sin and cos return numbers in the 0..1 range instead of 0..2Pi range. And there is a reason for that (most things in Pico-8 work on the 0..1 range, it saves tokens). And there are "secrets" as well. It might not be something that I would use to create a commercial product, but it is FUN.

pvitz 5y ago
> Then there are a lot of small details like the fact that sin and cos return numbers in the 0..1 range instead of 0..2Pi range. The [0,2pi) interval is rather strange for an output or do you mean the arcus functions?
hypertele-Xii 5y ago
It's fun until PICO-8 says "that's enough. I forbid you from adding any more code/sprites/etc." And then you realize you are being strangled by artificial, arbitrary limits that don't actually have any reason nor justification for existing. Thankfully TIC-80 offers almost the exact same experience with more lenient restrictions.