Lua Programming and Game Development with LÖVE

For beginner and experienced programmers alike, one of the best tools to learn game development with is LÖVE (also known as Love2D), an open-source game engine that allows users to write the logic of their games in Lua, an easy to pick up scripting language. These hidden gems of the development industry are perfect for learning the basic concepts, as well as applying them to create full-scale applications.

This course is a project-based approach to understanding the basics of programming and its role in game development. The lectures assume no prior technical knowledge, and whether or not you have programmed before, there is content in this course that can be utilized by anyone. Together, we will create three separate games, each one growing in difficulty, and in doing so, we will gain a strong familiarity with programming video games.  After learning the core functionality of what LÖVE has to offer, you will be ready to apply this knowledge into creating your very own games.

The course begins with several lectures discussing the basics of programming with Lua, specifically covering:

    • Variables
    • Conditional Statements
    • Loops
    • Functions
    • Comments
    • Local vs Global
    • Tables

These concepts are common throughout most programming languages, so the information covered in this section can be applied beyond the scope of this course. To add to this, if you already have a background in programming, there will be a "syntax recap" that will quickly discuss how to perform each of these actions in Lua specifically, so there is no need to watch every lecture if you already have some related experience, but haven't worked with Lua before.

After the programming lesson, we will jump right into working with LÖVE, and will create our games throughout the rest of the course. We will start with a simple Shooting Gallery game, then move on to a top-down shooter, and finish off the course with a physics-based platformer. By the end, we will cover all of the following game development concepts:

    • Making a playable character
    • Keyboard and mouse input
    • Drawing graphics
    • Enemies
    • Collisions
    • Timers
    • Randomness
    • RGB Color Scheme
    • Physics
    • Animations
    • Utilizing open-source software
    • Tiled
    • Camera
    • Sound effects and music
    • Keeping score
    • Saving data

With the ability to implement all of these features, you will be fully prepared to create your own games. By coding along with the lectures, the information will stick with you as we go through the material, and by the end, your programming and development skills will be strong enough for you to bring to life whatever game idea you can think of!