love
When beginning to write games using LÖVE, the most important parts of the API are the callbacks: love.load to do one-time setup of your game, love.update which is used to manage your game's state frame-to-frame, and love.draw which is used to render the game state onto the screen.
More interactive games will override additional callbacks in order to handle input from the user, and other aspects of a full-featured game.
LÖVE provides default placeholders for these callbacks, which you can override inside your own code by creating your own function with the same name as the callback:
-- Load some default values for our rectangle.
function love.load()
x, y, w, h = 20, 20, 60, 20
end
-- Increase the size of the rectangle every frame.
function love.update(dt)
w = w + 1
h = h + 1
end
-- Draw a coloured rectangle.
function love.draw()
love.graphics.setColor(0, 100, 100)
love.graphics.rectangle("fill", x, y, w, h)
end
Modules
love.audio | Provides an interface to output sound to the user's speakers. | | |
love.event | Manages events, like keypresses. | 0.6.0 | |
love.filesystem | Provides an interface to the user's filesystem. | | |
love.font | Allows you to work with fonts. | 0.7.0 | |
love.graphics | Drawing of shapes and images, management of screen geometry. | | |
love.image | Provides an interface to decode encoded image data. | | |
love.joystick | Provides an interface to connected joysticks. | | |
love.keyboard | Provides an interface to the user's keyboard. | | |
love.math | Provides system-independent mathematical functions. | 0.9.0 | |
love.mouse | Provides an interface to the user's mouse. | | |
love.physics | Can simulate 2D rigid body physics in a realistic manner. | 0.4.0 | |
love.sound | This module is responsible for decoding sound files. | | |
love.system | Provides access to information about the user's system. | 0.9.0 | |
love.thread | Allows you to work with threads. | 0.7.0 | |
love.timer | Provides high-resolution timing functionality. | | |
love.touch | Provides an interface to touch-screen presses. | 0.10.0 | |
love.video | This module is responsible for decoding and streaming video files. | 0.10.0 | |
love.window | Provides an interface for the program's window. | 0.9.0 | |
Third-party modules
lua-enet | Multiplayer networking module for games. | 0.9.0 | |
socket | Module for HTTP, TCP, and UDP networking. | 0.5.0 | |
utf8 | Provides basic support for manipulating UTF-8 strings. | 0.9.2 | |
Functions
Types
Callbacks
General
Config Files | Game configuration settings. | | |
love.directorydropped | Callback function triggered when a directory is dragged and dropped onto the window. | 0.10.0 | |
love.draw | Callback function used to draw on the screen every frame. | | |
love.errhand | The error handler, used to display error messages. | | |
love.filedropped | Callback function triggered when a file is dragged and dropped onto the window. | 0.10.0 | |
love.focus | Callback function triggered when window receives or loses focus. | 0.7.0 | |
love.keypressed | Callback function triggered when a key is pressed. | | |
love.keyreleased | Callback function triggered when a keyboard key is released. | | |
love.load | This function is called exactly once at the beginning of the game. | | |
love.lowmemory | Callback function triggered when the system is running out of memory on mobile devices. | 0.10.0 | |
love.mousefocus | Callback function triggered when window receives or loses mouse focus. | 0.9.0 | |
love.mousemoved | Callback function triggered when the mouse is moved. | 0.9.2 | |
love.mousepressed | Callback function triggered when a mouse button is pressed. | | |
love.mousereleased | Callback function triggered when a mouse button is released. | | |
love.quit | Callback function triggered when the game is closed. | 0.7.0 | |
love.resize | Called when the window is resized. | 0.9.0 | |
love.run | The main function, containing the main loop. A sensible default is used when left out. | | |
love.textedited | Called when the candidate text for an IME has changed. | 0.10.0 | |
love.textinput | Called when text has been entered by the user. | 0.9.0 | |
love.threaderror | Callback function triggered when a Thread encounters an error. | 0.9.0 | |
love.touchmoved | Callback function triggered when a touch press moves inside the touch screen. | 0.10.0 | |
love.touchpressed | Callback function triggered when the touch screen is touched. | 0.10.0 | |
love.touchreleased | Callback function triggered when the touch screen stops being touched. | 0.10.0 | |
love.update | Callback function used to update the state of the game every frame. | | |
love.visible | Callback function triggered when window is shown or hidden. | 0.9.0 | |
love.wheelmoved | Callback function triggered when the mouse wheel is moved. | 0.10.0 | |
Joystick