A downloadable game development tool for Windows, macOS, and Linux

Start your game development! Make small games quickly for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS or Linux with LÖVE!

No prior experience needed. Requires a computer with Windows, macOS or Linux.

Make your first game

  1. Download StartGamedev below.
  2. Follow the Introduction to LÖVE tutorial (pdf, grey).
  3. Follow the Make a Game tutorial (pdf, grey).

Release your first game

Platform Format Howto
Android apk
video tutorial (backup)
iOS ipa
video tutorial (backup)
Windows exe
video tutorial (backup)
macOS app
video tutorial (backup)
Linux love
video tutorial (backup)
Additional information:

Start Gamedev is free, no payment required. LÖVE games can run on Android smartphones and tablets, iOS iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch devices, Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS and Linux PCs/computers, notebooks, netbooks and embedded systems. Android SDK, Ant, JDK, LÖVE, sed and ZeroBraneStudio form the software basis of Start Gamedev. Few CC0 sounds from Freesound.org included. Start Gamedev is open source. See package for credits and licenses. Base game samples can be found on Google Play.

StatusCanceled
CategoryTool
PlatformsWindows, macOS, Linux
Rating
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
(12 total ratings)
Authorqubodup
Made withLÖVE
Tags2d-games, beginner, game-coding, Game Design, game-development, ide, LÖVE, programming, Tutorial, workshop
Average sessionA few minutes
LanguagesGerman, English
InputsMouse, Touchscreen, Smartphone
AccessibilityColor-blind friendly, High-contrast, One button, Textless

Download

Download
Start Gamedev - Introduction to LÖVE PDF
External
Download
Start Gamedev - Make a Game PDF
External
Download
StartGamedev-170112-win.zip 123 MB
Download
StartGamedev-170112-osx.zip 147 MB
Download
StartGamedev-170112-linux.zip 134 MB

Install instructions

  1. Extract StartGamedev .zip file.
  2. Run open-editor script.
  3. (optional) Follow the Introduction to LÖVE tutorial (pdf, grey).
  4. Follow the Make a Game tutorial (pdf, grey).

Comments

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Huge fan of the build,but  I recently made a love for android prototype on a mobile phone and went on to make an apk on Windows pc but when I run the installed game, the screen goes blank and flicks on but off again while playing the background music. How do I fix this? 

I have the same problem if you know how to fix it can you help me please.

This works for version 10.1 where the color scale was in 0 to 255. In later versions, the setColor scale is from 0 to 1. So if you run with an alpha value of 1 on a scale of 0 to 255 the visibility would be so low that you can not see any of the objects. The simple solution for this, is to use the 255 scale when setting your colors. Preferably just just create and test the game using version 10.1

Deleted 197 days ago

Sir, when I try to publish the generated apk, they say it needs API 29, while the generated API is 18. How could I solve this issue?

i have just solve the issue. But thanks it is a very good start actually.

(+1)

Hindbodes in the house!
I'm almost ready to try it out, but people in multiple places say this application doesn't work with LOVE 11.1 games, which would mean I'll have to make an Android app the harder way (the tutorial for the harder way of making Android LOVE games is 20 minutes long and involves editing system variables) as my games are all LOVE 11.3. So, if you're still out there... can you please confirm that you are there and let us know how the status of Start Gamedev?

Deleted 3 years ago

Hello , you live? I hope you All right? for using your app now need full support arm64. many users interests try it

Deleted 3 years ago
(+3)

Hi, i noticed while porting my game to android that none of the love2d 11.1 functions are supported. Is there a way to fix this? I coded my game in 11.1 and it seems that your program only supports 10.2

Deleted 3 years ago
(+1)(-2)

Does This Create Games?

Hello  , can you support version 11.0?   my game requires normal screenshot support , its added only in 11.0 LOVE2D 

Hello it would be great to update package with last version on Love 2D (11.1). My game doesn't work because of the  new system of colors :(

Hi, I'm waiting for the update to 11.1 too, and I hope that it would be released some day. Meanwhile tho, if the updated color system is your only problem, you can translate the values (0-1) to (0-255) by multiplying the current (0-1) values by 255.


-Sanyeri

You can modify program to use both color mode options  lovever=10 is old love,  =11 is new love.

sample

major, minor, revision, codename = love.getVersion();
 lovever_full = string.format("Version %d.%d.%d - %s", major, minor, revision, codename)
 lovever=major;

function randomcolorbw ()

  colorshift=math.random(255);   if (lovever>10) then colorshift=math.random(0,1);  end; -- Love 11 version
 lg.setColor(colorshift,colorshift ,colorshift, 255);
end;

Game does not run, I am on Windows 10 and the stupid Creators Update. I am trying to launch from the Itch Desktop App

nvm, I got it to work. I just went to look at the files and opened the bat file.

LtaActivity.java:1: error: ';' expected

    [javac] package love.to.android8-20061035;


etc errors.

(1 edit)

How to update the running love version to the 0.10.2? Now application displaying compatibility warning.

It works great. But how can I remove debug information from the generated apk?

I was trying to publish my game and I'm getting a message that the game is in debug mode (even after editing the AndroidManifest.xml file inside love-android-sdl2/original

Care to help me?


Amazing work btw man.

How did you sort this out?

I didn't

You need to change the .bat file. It replaces AndroidManifest to keep an uniform compilation.
I just removed this piece of the script and it worked:

rem rem make android ID and name unique so we can have multiple installs

rem restore original manifest and src subdir
copy tools\love-android-sdl2\original\AndroidManifest.xml tools\love-android-sdl2\
rd tools\love-android-sdl2\src\love /s/q
xcopy tools\love-android-sdl2\original\love tools\love-android-sdl2\src\love /e/i

rem replace id, name and src subdir
tools\sed-win\bin\sed -i "s/loveToAndroid Game/Game %datevar%/g" tools\love-android-sdl2\AndroidManifest.xml
tools\sed-win\bin\sed -i "s/love.to.android/love\.to\.android%datevar%/g" tools\love-android-sdl2\AndroidManifest.xml
tools\sed-win\bin\sed -i "s/love.to.android/love\.to\.android%datevar%/g" tools\love-android-sdl2\src\love\to\android\LtaActivity.java

Do it on make.apk

how are you playing with that cracked screen I feel like its photo shopped ?

It doesn't compile the game.love to game.apk:

...

-pre-compile:

-compile:
    [javac] Compiling 7 source files to C:\Users\bcd\Downloads\StartGamedev-170112-win\tools\love-android-sdl2\bin\classes
    [javac] warning: [options] source value 1.5 is obsolete and will be removed in a future release
    [javac] warning: [options] target value 1.5 is obsolete and will be removed in a future release
    [javac] warning: [options] To suppress warnings about obsolete options, use -Xlint:-options.
    [javac] C:\Users\bcd\Downloads\StartGamedev-170112-win\tools\love-android-sdl2\src\love\to\android7.20120010\LtaActivity.java:1: error: ';' expected
    [javac] package love.to.android7.20120010;
    [javac]                         ^
    [javac] C:\Users\bcd\Downloads\StartGamedev-170112-win\tools\love-android-sdl2\gen\love\to\android7\20120010\BuildConfig.java:2: error: ';' expected
    [javac] package love.to.android7.20120010;
    [javac]                         ^
    [javac] C:\Users\bcd\Downloads\StartGamedev-170112-win\tools\love-android-sdl2\gen\love\to\android7\20120010\R.java:8: error: ';' expected
    [javac] package love.to.android7.20120010;
    [javac]                         ^
    [javac] 3 errors
    [javac] 3 warnings

...

(1 edit) (+1)

I cant open it... ;(

HALP!

Dude, thanks a bunch !

(+1)

I put start but don't open

(1 edit)

That is Fantastic !!!
It works well and is so simple for testing...

Much LÖVE to you !

(+2)

it doesnt work at all

(+1)(-2)

Oh no! Are you on Windows? You need to right-click the zip and pick 'extract' or similar. Or is there something else wrong?

I got it through the itch client so I don't know anything about that it just installed it and I launched it and the client crashed.

(+1)(-1)

Unfortunately, you will have to download this directly from the itch page.

Ok thanks.

I wasn't able to run my game on my android phone.

I'm using the latest Love2d v.0.10.2. I packaged the game following the instructions for windows.

When opening the game on my android device ( Android v.6.0 ) The message "Unfortunately, Game00We161914 has stopped".

My game is a simple Love2d hello world with only 5 lines of code and no dependencies, images or audio.


Any help or suggestions would be helpful. I downloaded all assets from this site as directed.

(-1)

becuse u do not no how to CODE!!!

Sonice
(+5)(-1)

Nice phone.

lol

Hi Dheep