Hey guys, so I've been working on an idea for a game inbetween the ridiculous j0rb pressure since last year, and after deciding on a graphicstyle and playstyle I recently decided on a couple of palettes and started to flesh out some maps using Tile Studio.

My original plan had been to use A5, using the framework from my last (and only!) Speedhack entry....but man...

...with precious time in the evenings, getting A5 setup with CodeBlocks (which I've now done finally) and just fleshing out enough to render some tiles and get some key input, it seems like a long hard slog...

...within an hour I had Love2D setup with a custom .tds for TileStudio to procuce .lua files with the tables in, SublimeText setup with syntax highlighting and build/run, and Ive even got a phong shader running to do some lights!!

It's good news because I'm making games (anything!) again, but it's (potentially) bad news because I'm moving away from A5, and maybe sad news because I'll no doubt spend more time in the Love2D forums now...

It's a shame, on the one hand it feels like a bit much to learn a new syntax for relatively big project idea (just a 2D pixel game, no MMORPG nonsense!), but the relative ease to setup, and more importantly get ideas up and running, makes lua the obvious choice for me.

Thoughts? Limitations? Potential downfalls? Monday project?

Everything has limitations. And that includes A5 and C or C++. It's smart to use a tool that is quick to work in. If you ever reach its limitations then you can port into something a bit closer to the metal, but if you never reach its limitations then it's clearly a better tool to shape this sculpture with.

It will be sad to lose you, but we've dealt with a lot of loss over the past few years. You will be remembered. And good luck on this project. It's a great thing to be motivated to create. Savour it and see how far you can stretch it.

Except piccolo

There's no reason to move away from these forums - for example Aaron Bolyard's current project is not Allegro (is it also Love? I can't remember) and neither is Amarillion's.

I look forward to hearing how you're getting on.

Correct

Allegro is great, and I'd use it over SDL and most anything else if I were making a game in C++, but I wanted to make a game quickly (well, as quickly as possible) so I went with a language and framework that allows RAD. For example, I got a POC rendering done in 4 hours with LÖVE.

Another good egg, gone and cracked his shell.

Guess every chicky's got to grow up and leave the nest sometime. ;(

I've set up my last allegro 5 install + compilers in less than 15 minutes.

1) download and install msys2 ( https://www.msys2.org/ )

Now launch the msys2 terminal and copy pasta the followings:

#UPDATE MSYS2
pacman -Syu
#INSTALL GCC 32 & 64BITS
pacman -S --needed base-devel mingw-w64-i686-toolchain mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain git subversion mercurial mingw-w64-i686-cmake mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake
#INSTALL ALLEGRO5 32 & 64BITS
pacman -Sy mingw32/mingw-w64-i686-allegro mingw64/mingw-w64-x86_64-allegro 
#INSTALL ALLEGRO5 64BITS DEPENDENCIES
pacman -Sy mingw-w64-i686-dumb mingw-w64-i686-flac mingw-w64-i686-opusfile mingw-w64-i686-freetype mingw-w64-i686-libjpeg-turbo mingw-w64-i686-libpng mingw-w64-i686-libvorbis mingw-w64-i686-libwebp mingw-w64-i686-openal mingw-w64-i686-physfs
#INSTALL ALLEGRO5 32BITS DEPENDENCIES
pacman -Sy mingw-w64-x86_64-dumb mingw-w64-x86_64-flac mingw-w64-x86_64-opusfile mingw-w64-x86_64-freetype mingw-w64-x86_64-libjpeg-turbo mingw-w64-x86_64-libpng mingw-w64-x86_64-libvorbis mingw-w64-x86_64-libwebp mingw-w64-x86_64-openal mingw-w64-x86_64-physfs

Done. With all the dependencies.

Are you using this Tile Studio? The one built by the master of ducks and cookie-delivering santas himself?

Not that I'd be surprised - I just haven't heard Mike Wiering's name in a few years...

GullRaDriel++

My games for the most part couldn't run on many frameworks due to the requirements of high-speed, huge object counts, and networking.

But yeah, I've been tempted to try a framework. The only problem is, the risk of putting hundreds of hours in, only to find a problem you can't solve that's intrinsic to the framework and you're stuck with it. I've seen many developers outright state "we can't fix that bug because it's apart of the framework".

Once you have binaries installed, building is as easy as creating a new project (and if you're smart you use a template, or copy an existing project and rename), and setting a few search directories and link libraries. 5-10 mins tops.

The good news is that recreational cannabis is legal in Canada. The bad news is that it's probably not legal where you live. The sad news is that it may never be.

Things are happening.....for example I'm plagiarising openGL shaders! all free to use of course.....will post a video once area #1 is playable fully....shouldn't be long, this Love2D/Lua setup is a busy eggs dream!!

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LOVE is awesome

If you ever run into any problems or have any questions don't hesitate to shoot me a PM, but the LOVE Discord + forums are probably better. (I just wanna feel useful. )

I see his name every year or so when I play Mario. It's great to see that he's still out there fighting the good fight.

Thanks Aaron, I will bear that in mind as things start to get a bit more complex, I'm onto collision detection next but somehow I think it's going to be a breeze!....expect a video demo soon!!

@Peter Hull: address me as King Piccolo.

i am currently working on 2 games that are futuristic improvements in gaming it self 2 stepping stones

Getting close to releasing a video! Just need to sort out the collision, and get the HUD on....

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You get down with your bad self