LÖVE: 2D Game Framework for Lua • Hacker News Board

Re: LÖVE: 2D Game Framework for Lua

#31

Post by QuantumNomad_ » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 9:48 PM UTC

mh- wrote: post #23

brooke2k wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hahaha, I did the exact same thing after the game came out to see if wheel of fortune was really a 1/4 chance

lol, love seeing that I'm not the only one who did this. Being suspicious of WoF was the first and last time I peeked at the Balatro source.

Game developers sometimes make the “randomness” favor the player, because of how we perceive randomness and chance.

For example in Sid Meier’s Memoir, this is mentioned.

Quoting from a review of said book:

> People hate randomness: To placate people's busted sense of randomness and overdeveloped sense of fairness, Civ Revolutions had to implement some interesting decisions: any 3:1 battle in favor of human became a guaranteed win. Too many randomly bad outcomes in a row were mitigated.

https://smus.com/books/sid-meiers-memoir/

Some threads on randomness and perceived fairness in video games can be found here on HN too, for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19399044

The original link being discussed in that thread is 404 now, but archived copies of the original link exist such as for example https://archive.is/8eVqt

Re: LÖVE: 2D Game Framework for Lua

#32

Post by lovehashbrowns » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 9:59 PM UTC

mh- wrote: post #23

brooke2k wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hahaha, I did the exact same thing after the game came out to see if wheel of fortune was really a 1/4 chance

lol, love seeing that I'm not the only one who did this. Being suspicious of WoF was the first and last time I peeked at the Balatro source.

The 8-ball joker is even more BS. I think I’ve only seen it trigger once ever.

Re: LÖVE: 2D Game Framework for Lua

#33

Post by mh- » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 10:02 PM UTC

lovehashbrowns wrote: post #32

mh- wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol, love seeing that I'm not the only one who did this. Being suspicious of WoF was the first and last time I peeked at the Balatro source.

The 8-ball joker is even more BS. I think I’ve only seen it trigger once ever.

I've read the source a few years back. It's all implemented fairly as it says on the tin.

I've long been suspicious of the RNG/seed implementation.. but not curious enough to automate testing of it, though.

Re: LÖVE: 2D Game Framework for Lua

#34

Post by turtledragonfly » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 10:06 PM UTC

PacificSpecific wrote: post #19

I generally very much dislike dynamic languages but for some reason I've always really liked Lua. I'm not exactly sure why to be honest. Maybe because you can fit the whole language spec on a single sheet of paper and adding more advanced features is pretty easy. Love looks really cool. I never got into it personally but I still might

The Lua source code is also a masterclass in C, I recommend it to anyone learning that language. It's big enough to be an involved implementation, but small and focused and well-organized enough to (at least roughly) understand what's going on at the various layers. It's a very solidly-written mass of portable C, with only minor exceptions.

Re: LÖVE: 2D Game Framework for Lua

#35

Post by Levitating » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 10:10 PM UTC

KeplerBoy wrote: post #12

patapong wrote: post #7

One of the biggest recent indie hits, Balatro, was made in Löve! I really like it, the developer experience is so smooth for beginners, just drag a zip onto the exe and it starts. And the APIs are simple enough to memorize while allowing pretty cool rendering stuff.

Balatro ships with the entire unobfuscated Lua source by the way. I once checked if the odds stated on a card were implemented wrong. Turns out no, the code checks out, I'm just that unlucky.

Not on steam does it? I can only see the exe and dlls.

Re: LÖVE: 2D Game Framework for Lua

#36

Post by alprado50 » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 10:11 PM UTC

Is Love2D a decent option for gamedev compared to Godot? I finished a really simple game using Unity3D and it was fun, but it sucks to use a closed source engine.

Re: LÖVE: 2D Game Framework for Lua

#37

Post by opan » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 10:13 PM UTC

nout wrote: post #28

Am I really the first one to mention pico8 in this thread? Anyway, pico8 is another option that has a bit different spin, but you also implement the games in Lua :)

TIC-80 is a nice free as in freedom alternative to PICO-8, and it allows more inputs, which makes for better Tetris games (gotta have that hold piece).

Re: LÖVE: 2D Game Framework for Lua

#38

Post by PacificSpecific » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 10:14 PM UTC

turtledragonfly wrote: post #34

PacificSpecific wrote: post #19

I generally very much dislike dynamic languages but for some reason I've always really liked Lua. I'm not exactly sure why to be honest. Maybe because you can fit the whole language spec on a single sheet of paper and adding more advanced features is pretty easy. Love looks really cool. I never got into it personally but I still might

The Lua source code is also a masterclass in C, I recommend it to anyone learning that language. It's big enough to be an involved implementation, but small and focused and well-organized enough to (at least roughly) understand what's going on at the various layers. It's a very solidly-written mass of portable C, with only minor exceptions.

Oh I hadn't considered looking at the source but considering how minimal and clean Lua is I should have assumed so :)

Thanks for the tip. That should make for a fun weekend

Re: LÖVE: 2D Game Framework for Lua

#39

Post by VorpalWay » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 10:22 PM UTC

How is it supposed to be pronounced? Is it just gratuitous diacritics? Or should I pronounce it in my native Swedish (where the names makes me think of leaves rather than love)?

(Throwing diacritics on English words look extremely silly to me, since I know how åäö are supposed to be pronounced. It makes something like Motorhead just sound laughable rather than metal.)

Re: LÖVE: 2D Game Framework for Lua

#40

Post by onehair » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 10:23 PM UTC

alprado50 wrote: post #36

Is Love2D a decent option for gamedev compared to Godot? I finished a really simple game using Unity3D and it was fun, but it sucks to use a closed source engine.

Godot will be familiar to you if you then.

Löve on the other hand is 100% just code. You'll not have the gui things and the pletora of different components that go with them. Still gives you freedom. Just too much freedom and not as much helpful preset tools.