Building Game Prototypes with LÖVE • Hacker News Board

Re: Building Game Prototypes with LÖVE

#21

Post by Kiro » Wed, Jan 01, 2025, 1:25 AM UTC

Buttons840 wrote: post #19

aquova wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Balatro recently published a mobile version of their game, but I was under the impression Love2D only supported desktop platforms. Has that changed?

It took them many months to get it on Android. It was wildly successful initially, and then it took many months to reach phones and missed much of the hype cycle. So I think it took them a lot of effort to port.

Considering it's the first game to dethrone Minecraft on mobile it doesn't seem that it missed out on much.

Re: Building Game Prototypes with LÖVE

#22

Post by cableshaft » Wed, Jan 01, 2025, 1:56 AM UTC

furyofantares wrote: post #13

aquova wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Balatro recently published a mobile version of their game, but I was under the impression Love2D only supported desktop platforms. Has that changed?

It is pretty easy to build for iOS, Android, and web.

Getting it built isn't too bad (at least iOS and Android, Web was giving me WebAssembly errors I couldn't figure out), but accessing native functionality seems harder and do not have any good tutorials (a couple really old discussions online that are probably out of date is all I could find).

Like if you want to release a game on iOS you're going to need some sort of Ad framework and access its game center for achievements and leaderboards at the very least, and that's been tricky for me to get working. I know you need to write some hooks and saw some old code that I'm trying to use for reference, but it was still giving me enough issues I gave up on it for a the time being.

And I've released games in native iOS before (although it's been a while), so it's not like I've never used them.

Re: Building Game Prototypes with LÖVE

#23

Post by cableshaft » Wed, Jan 01, 2025, 1:58 AM UTC

greeniskool wrote: post #16

furyofantares wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is pretty easy to build for iOS, Android, and web.

Should mention love.js isn't officially supported, and isn't 100% compatible with the LÖVE API. It will work just fine for a lot of games out of the box, though

Yeah when I got to the point of trying to get my game working in love.js, all I got were webassembly errors. I was able to get a basic Hello World game working with the same setup, so it's something within my code that's not supported, but I don't really know how to pin down what the problem is.

Re: Building Game Prototypes with LÖVE

#24

Post by cableshaft » Wed, Jan 01, 2025, 2:01 AM UTC

domlebo70 wrote: post #8

What do people think of Phaser? Currently playing around with it. API seems pretty large

I got most of the way through making a toy game with it. I kind of liked it, but I'm using Love2D for the game I'm working on now that I'm planning to release on Steam and hopefully mobile.

Although I did like that I could use Typescript for Phaser, and that it was a lot easier to show off the game to other people through the web.

Re: Building Game Prototypes with LÖVE

#25

Post by KeplerBoy » Wed, Jan 01, 2025, 2:02 AM UTC

cableshaft wrote: post #22

furyofantares wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is pretty easy to build for iOS, Android, and web.

Getting it built isn't too bad (at least iOS and Android, Web was giving me WebAssembly errors I couldn't figure out), but accessing native functionality seems harder and do not have any good tutorials (a couple really old discussions online that are probably out of date is all I could find). Like if you want to release a game on iOS you're going to need some sort of Ad framework and access its game center for achiev…

Why would you need an Ad framework and achievements? Isn't balatro a prime example of a game simply being a paid app? No ads, no bullshit. Just a game and a pricetag.

Re: Building Game Prototypes with LÖVE

#26

Post by fao_ » Wed, Jan 01, 2025, 2:17 AM UTC

Buttons840 wrote: post #19

aquova wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Balatro recently published a mobile version of their game, but I was under the impression Love2D only supported desktop platforms. Has that changed?

It took them many months to get it on Android. It was wildly successful initially, and then it took many months to reach phones and missed much of the hype cycle. So I think it took them a lot of effort to port.

> It took them many months to get it on Android.

It's surprising given that back in June? 2024 I just extracted the .love zip from the executable, patched a file or two, and merged it into the love android apk and it Just Worked. Just goes to prove the last 5% rule

Re: Building Game Prototypes with LÖVE

#27

Post by cableshaft » Wed, Jan 01, 2025, 2:21 AM UTC

KeplerBoy wrote: post #25

cableshaft wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting it built isn't too bad (at least iOS and Android, Web was giving me WebAssembly errors I couldn't figure out), but accessing native functionality seems harder and do not have any good tutorials (a couple really old discussions online that are probably out of date is all I could find). Like if you want to release a game on iOS you're going to need some sort of Ad framework and access its game center for achiev…

Why would you need an Ad framework and achievements? Isn't balatro a prime example of a game simply being a paid app? No ads, no bullshit. Just a game and a pricetag.

Balatro doesn't have ads but it does have achievements and game center.

As much as I'd like my game to spread as far and wide as Balatro, I understand that it won't, not anywhere close. It's just not going to have the polish that Balatro has (I don't have the time or energy, I'm in my 40s with a spouse and a day job).

But hopefully it will be fun to play (it is a more fully-featured remake of an old free web game I made many, many years ago that was played millions of times).

And games that aren't already super high quality mostly don't sell on iOS anymore, at least not before people download it for free and try them. You pretty much have to make the base game free so people will download it and then provide an unlock later.

I'm not trying to be obnoxious about ads. I'm wanting to use the Zach Gage model (Knotwords, Flipflop Solitaire, Good Sudoku, SpellTower). Some minimal ads in between matches (the matches last 5-10 minutes by themselves) and a few extras like themes or detailed stats behind a one-time unlock of a few bucks. I hate the standard model of throwing ads in your face every 30 seconds and wouldn't do that for my game.

Also another native feature that Love2D doesn't support is the iOS Haptics library. Love2D only allows for a half second vibrate at full power and it's way too much. Balatro uses the iOS native haptics library as well (it's obvious, they're very light and quick vibrations). These haptics are super common in iOS games nowadays so it will seem weird if it doesn't support them properly.

Re: Building Game Prototypes with LÖVE

#28

Post by riffruff24 » Wed, Jan 01, 2025, 2:25 AM UTC

domlebo70 wrote: post #8

What do people think of Phaser? Currently playing around with it. API seems pretty large

Its mature and battle tested at this point. At least for 2D web games. The original/early version of Vampire Survivors is in Phaser if I'm not mistaken. Remade in Unity to make console port easier.

Re: Building Game Prototypes with LÖVE

#29

Post by edflsafoiewq » Wed, Jan 01, 2025, 2:29 AM UTC

fao_ wrote: post #26

Buttons840 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took them many months to get it on Android. It was wildly successful initially, and then it took many months to reach phones and missed much of the hype cycle. So I think it took them a lot of effort to port.

> It took them many months to get it on Android. It's surprising given that back in June? 2024 I just extracted the .love zip from the executable, patched a file or two, and merged it into the love android apk and it Just Worked. Just goes to prove the last 5% rule

The difficulty of porting to mobile is generally changing the UI to work well on a small touchscreen.

Re: Building Game Prototypes with LÖVE

#30

Post by vunderba » Wed, Jan 01, 2025, 2:30 AM UTC

domlebo70 wrote: post #8

What do people think of Phaser? Currently playing around with it. API seems pretty large

I built Twins of Caduceus (a game where you have to control two snakes simultaneously) entirely using Phaser 3. I've had mostly very good experiences with it as a batteries included framework (renderer, asset management, physics, input, etc.)

It's a shame that the Phaser map/level editor is a perpetual subscription fee with no fallback license. That means you're relegated to either building your own map editor or using something like Tiled.

https://specularrealms.itch.io/the-twins-of-caduceus

https://www.mapeditor.org/