love

LOVE (stylized with an umlaut as LOVE) is a framework for making 2D games using Lua, a lightweight scripting language. It is free and open-source, and the same code you write will run on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. The project has a stable release track, a wiki-based documentation site, active forums, a Discord server, and a subreddit community.

The framework provides functions for drawing graphics, playing audio, reading input, and managing game state, all controlled through Lua scripts you write. You do not need to compile anything to get started on most platforms: official binary downloads are available on GitHub, and the project website links to the latest release. For those who want to try the latest unreleased work, nightly and unstable builds are also available.

LOVE's source code is written in C++ and depends on several well-known libraries for rendering (SDL3, OpenGL, Vulkan, Metal), audio (OpenAL), text shaping (FreeType and HarfBuzz), and media playback (Vorbis, Theora, ModPlug). You only need to care about this if you are building the framework from source. Building follows different steps depending on your platform: Windows uses a companion repository called megasource, Linux uses CMake, and Apple platforms use an Xcode project with a separately downloaded set of prebuilt dependencies.

The project includes a full test suite that covers all LOVE APIs in the same style a game developer would use them. Contributions are welcome through pull requests and the issue tracker, though the maintainers explicitly do not accept contributions made with AI or generative AI tools.

If you want to make a small 2D game without dealing with complex engine setup, LOVE is a practical choice. Lua is readable and approachable for beginners, the framework is well-documented, and the community has published many tutorials and example projects on the wiki.