LÖVE Game

LÖVE Game #

Overview #

The LÖVE Game project type allows you to make games based on the popular Lua library LÖVE.

Getting Started #

Here is a basic project skeleton that initialise LÖVE for use on Pip, supporting the built-in gamepads (if attached). This code should go in main.lua.

local joystick

function love.load()
    love.mouse.setVisible(false)
    love.window.setMode(800, 480, {centered = true})

    for i, j in ipairs(love.joystick.getJoysticks()) do
    	local jname = j:getName()
    	if jname == "Pip Virtual Gamepad" then
      		print("axis count", j:getAxisCount())
      		io.flush()
      		joystick = j
      		break
    	end
  	end
end

function love.update(dt)
    
end

function love.draw()
    
end

Project Layout #

  • main.lua - code goes here
  • assets/ - put images, sounds, etc. in this folder

Controlling the LEDs #

To add LED control to your LÖVE project, firstly download the Pip Lua Library, and add it to your project with the filename pip.lua. Then, in your main code, load it as such:

local pip = require("pip")

You now have access to the following functions:

pip.leds.clear() #

Clear/turn off all LEDs.

pip.leds.setBrightness(brightness) #

Set the global brightness of all LEDs. brightness must be a number from 0-255 (inclusive); the brightness value is used to scale values passed to future calls to the set* functions.

Note: calling setBrightness() does not affect the current state of the LEDs.

pip.leds.setAll(r, g, b) #

Set all LEDs to the given colour.

pip.leds.setOne(led, r, g, b) #

Set LED number led to the given colour. In Lua, Pip’s LEDs are numbered left to right from 1-8.

Notes #

If you use print() for logging/debugging io.flush() must be called regularly to ensure liveness of output. This is because LÖVE appears to delay/batch flushes when its output is not a TTY.

Communication with the LEDs is via serial port and is therefore quite slow in relation to the update rate of a game. Measures should be taken to minimise the amount of communication, for example, by only sending an update when the LED states are known to have changed.

Examples #

Further Reading #