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MoveOrDie and Acro were made with Löve and Lua. Does anyone know if I can make a 2d game with fennel alone, without touching Lua? Alternatively, what would be a

MoveOrDie and Acro were made with Löve and Lua. Does anyone know if I can make a 2d game with fennel alone, without touching Lua? Alternatively, what would be a better choice for simple 2d graphics (Python would be preferred)? I want to experiment with something like Dwarf Fortress.

ejflick 2y ago
You'll always need to deal with a bit of Lua afaik. If you like fantasy consoles, you can use TIC-80[1] to not have to deal with any Lua. [1] https://tic80.com/ https://tic80.com/
donio 2y ago
Depending on your preferred workflow you would typically have a tiny loader stub in a .lua file that you never need to touch and all of your code in Fennel. You can still add third party Lua libraries if you desire and seamlessly call back and forth between these and your Fennel code. You can even have a live REPL to eval code in your running Löve session.
trenchgun 2y ago
>what would be a better choice for simple 2d graphics (Python would be preferred)? I want to experiment with something like Dwarf Fortress. If you want to experiment with something like Dwarf Fortress, you don't need 2d graphics. You can just start with ASCII-graphics like Dwarf Fortress did.
- freilanzer 2y ago
  True, but at some point I need to integrate graphics, so I don't think it's a bad idea to have simple tile graphics in place. Also, I would need some kind of inventory, text fields, etc. and they might be much easier with a framework that supports them - as you see, I have next to no experience in this area.
agent281 2y ago
Yeah, I think most of the games in the Lisp Game Jam are made with Fennel and Love. The game jam is cohosted by technomancy, the maintainer of Fennel. https://itch.io/jam/spring-lisp-game-jam-2024 https://itch.io/jam/spring-lisp-game-jam-2024
rainingmonkey 2y ago
Lua is a very simple language. If you're coming from Python, it's probably even quicker to learn vanilla Lua (and Löve) than using something like Moonscript or fennel. If you're set on Python there is PyGame. I haven't touched it for a number of years but back then it seemed less polished and waaay less performant than Löve.

ejflick 2y ago

You'll always need to deal with a bit of Lua afaik. If you like fantasy consoles, you can use TIC-80[1] to not have to deal with any Lua. [1] https://tic80.com/ https://tic80.com/

donio 2y ago

Depending on your preferred workflow you would typically have a tiny loader stub in a .lua file that you never need to touch and all of your code in Fennel. You can still add third party Lua libraries if you desire and seamlessly call back and forth between these and your Fennel code. You can even have a live REPL to eval code in your running Löve session.

trenchgun 2y ago

>what would be a better choice for simple 2d graphics (Python would be preferred)? I want to experiment with something like Dwarf Fortress. If you want to experiment with something like Dwarf Fortress, you don't need 2d graphics. You can just start with ASCII-graphics like Dwarf Fortress did.

freilanzer 2y ago
True, but at some point I need to integrate graphics, so I don't think it's a bad idea to have simple tile graphics in place. Also, I would need some kind of inventory, text fields, etc. and they might be much easier with a framework that supports them - as you see, I have next to no experience in this area.

agent281 2y ago

Yeah, I think most of the games in the Lisp Game Jam are made with Fennel and Love. The game jam is cohosted by technomancy, the maintainer of Fennel. https://itch.io/jam/spring-lisp-game-jam-2024 https://itch.io/jam/spring-lisp-game-jam-2024

rainingmonkey 2y ago

Lua is a very simple language. If you're coming from Python, it's probably even quicker to learn vanilla Lua (and Löve) than using something like Moonscript or fennel. If you're set on Python there is PyGame. I haven't touched it for a number of years but back then it seemed less polished and waaay less performant than Löve.