Setup & Quickstart

Goal: A window on screen running your code.

1. Install Love2D

Verify: run love --version in a terminal. You should see LOVE 11.x.

TIP

Why Love2D? It’s free, tiny, stable, and ships to Windows/Mac/Linux/Web/Steam from one codebase. I document the alternatives in Beyond Love2D if you’re curious about Godot or 3D.

2. Install an editor

• Beginner: Sublime Text + the Love2D package (via Package Control)
• Minimal: anything that edits text files
• What I use: Neovim + Git (see Tools for my full setup)

3. Clone the barebones project

This is the “instant start” — a runnable folder with distribution scripts included:

git clone https://github.com/findingfocus/bttf.git my-first-game
cd my-first-game
love .

Don’t want the full BTTF example yet? Make the smallest possible game instead — create a folder with one file called main.lua:

function love.draw()
  love.graphics.print("Hello, World!", 100, 100)
end

Then run it:

love /path/to/your/folder # love . will run in the current directory. 
# ensure your main.lua is in this folder

If you see text in a window, you’re a game developer. Keep going!

4. Project anatomy

my-game/
  main.lua    -- your game (love.load / love.update / love.draw)
  conf.lua    -- window title, size, version
  assets/     -- images, sounds, fonts
  build.sh    -- web + desktop packaging scripts

Full annotated version with state machine lives in Starter Template.

When it breaks

Next step

Continue with Lua Essentials (Path A) or Love2D Basics (Path B). Or skip ahead and build Pong.